Posts by pre-pc

Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

NOCO

If anyone has ever read POPCO by Scarlett Thomas, there's the nice idea that most of us can't avoid playing the corporate game most of the time - money, food, shelter, etc - , but that doesn't mean we can't undermine the corporation from time to time. I think this ad fits her brief very nicely - some of the team who pulled it together must have known exactly what the real message it would send, even if the management hierarchy didn't clock it, or thought the controversy would play out in Apples favour. It would have been easy to re-work the ad, benignly stuffing all the creative items into an ipad, rather than crushing the life out of them...

Scribbling limits in free version of Evernote set to test users' patience

As an existing user you do normally get an offer to keep your costs down - the headline figure for a personal account is ~£70 p.a. but I pay something like 29.99. Yes, alternatives are available but it works well for what it is, and is a good fit for my purposes. If they enforce the headline costs then I guess I will overcome my inertia and move...!

Samsung's lovely illegal tablet: Why no one wants to know

Content, not OS, is king

Arguably a little bit niche (but a big niche!) but Garageband fairly killer app on ipad. Nothing remotely as good on other systems. If you're musically creative, ios only sensible way to currently go; touch format makes knocking out demo's very simple and fun. Smart drums on garageband a work of genius. At the end of the day its what you can do with the tablet that will dictate what its worth is to you.

Most tablets can do the basics well - browsing media email etc but apple have got better content, and a few niches (such as music creation) better covered. I think other OS's more technically superior - I'd be especially interested to see a webos or a meego tablet suceed, but as I say for a discretionary purchase like a tablet its the applications, simplicity of use and quick access to content that will appeal to joe public - not the potential of the operating system.

apple seem to have the consumer side sewn-up for now, perhaps room for a business orientated tablet/ecosytem to succeed, and somebody surely will get a 'grown-up' OS to run finger-friendly allowing both lightwieght content consumption/creation and proper full applications to run succesfully side by side...