Alan Kay Says iPad Betrays Xerox PARC Vision 387
harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, we've published David Greelish's interview with Alan Kay, the famously quotable visionary whose Dynabook proposal has provided much of the inspiration for advances in mobile computing for over 40 years now. Kay talks about his work, laments that the computer has failed to live up to its potential as an educational tool, and says that the iPad betrays the vision that he and others created at Xerox PARC and elsewhere in the 1970s."
Not Sure I Understand the Post-PC Concept (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC. I certainly hope it won't become a symbol of lost opportunity.
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iPad is shiny!
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Shiny shiny trendy shiny! Happy trendy shiny shiny!
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Shiny happy people?
Re:Not Sure I Understand the Post-PC Concept (Score:4, Interesting)
well, all the industry pundits who want to discard the pc are the one's that would be keeping pc's to create stuff for the replacements...
Re:Not Sure I Understand the Post-PC Concept (Score:4, Insightful)
Because for the vast majority of iPad/other tablet buyers, they're either:
1) Using tablets as a secondary device, and continuing to use their PC (I have a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop. No plans to do away with my "computer", though I expect the somewhat old desktop and somewhat old laptop may converge into a single modern laptop with a dock & dual monitors when it comes time to replace them.)
2) Basic users who have zero need for the features of a PC.
Choice is good. Just because somebody else chooses something that's not appropriate for your needs doesn't mean they're "wrong" - they may have different priorities, and different uses for the tool.
A PC offers more room to grow (Score:4, Informative)
Basic users who have zero need for the features of a PC.
A PC offers more room to grow. Eventually a basic user is likely to become no longer a basic user and will need to spend a significant chunk of change to upgrade from only a tablet to a tablet and a PC. If this no-longer-basic user is a child under legal working age who has been using a tablet that he had received as a gift, it becomes even more difficult to find the money to buy even a used PC. Owning only an iPad is more likely to convince the user that the limits of only an iPad are reasonable, just as a lot of American kids who owned only a game console and not a PC during the third, fourth, and fifth console generations never got the chance to try their hand at learning what makes a game tick by coding a simple game themselves.
Re:A PC offers more room to grow (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're really not "likely" to become more than a basic user. The standard tasks that most people use their home computer for - browsing the web, sending emails, watching a video, etc. - are not likely to suddenly prompt those people to decide that they need to hack the Linux kernel.
Why do you thick fucks make the assumption that this is something MOST people would want to do? There's a reason most of us grew up as social outcasts: OUR INTERESTS ARE NOT SHARED BY THE VAST - OVERWHELMING - MAJORITY OF THE OTHER PEOPLE AROUND US. Playing a game leads to "I'm gonna program my own game" about as often as driving a car leads to "vehicular homicide." Stop projecting your interests on the rest of the population - I can guarantee you that they're not shared by the vast majority of the people you're assuming will magically become Linux kernel hackers if you just hand them a computer with a bash shell on it.
As far as "upgrading" a tablet? Buy a $30 bluetooth keyboard, and you've got yourself a netbook. I just saved you two grand - you're welcome.
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Playing a game leads to "I'm gonna program my own game" about as often as driving a car leads to "vehicular homicide."
You assert that it does. I disagree with your assertion but am willing to evaluate evidence that you present.
As far as "upgrading" a tablet? Buy a $30 bluetooth keyboard, and you've got yourself a netbook.
I run IDLE, a Python programming environment, on my Dell Inspiron mini 1012 netbook. Does the iPad have an app for that?
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I would submit that "as often as driving a car leads to 'I'm gonna build my own car'" would be more accurate as well as more pleasant.
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Playing a game leads to "I'm gonna program my own game" about as often as driving a car leads to "vehicular homicide."
We grew up in the 80s. During the 80s it was very common for a kid playing 8 bit games on an 8 bit PC to try his hand at making his own. And many of them were as good as many games published commercially.
Is it really unreasonable to want kids today to at least have that opportunity? Shouldn't we at least give them the tools and some encouragement? If they don't use them, that's their choi
Re:A PC offers more room to grow (Score:5, Insightful)
You're living in a very small world and there are very few people who live there with you. (Despite this post, I'm one of them btw.) People who live in the rest of the world, and that's almost everyone, are never going to code up a game themselves. The idea isn't even going to cross their mind. Why? Because they don't care.
They just want something that works. They own technology to accomplish a task, not for the sake of owning the technology. They want to take a picture, send an email, read a web page, or play a game and they don't care in the slightest how many Mega-pixel-fps-giga-tdp widgets 2.0 this thing has over that thing. This is why the iPad (and the iPhone) is so popular; it gets out of the way and let's people do what they want to do without having to know or care how it happens.
If the device in their hand does what they want it to do then there is no 'upgrade' (I'd argue: downgrade) path to a PC. The personal computer as you and I know it will die a much deserved death.
You care. I care. We are, however, a shrinking minority.
Lowered expectations (Score:3)
If the device in their hand does what they want it to do then there is no 'upgrade' (I'd argue: downgrade) path to a PC.
That's the real problem right there: a locked-down device makes people want less.
Is access to those restricted (Score:3)
I advocate that we should keep the access to general purpose computers restricted [...] By the way, when did you last use a blowtorch, a soldering iron, a pneumatic drill? All of them are less advanced tools than the computer, still most people without knowledge of how to use them (including geeks) would never pick one up. Why should computers be treated any differently?
Is access to a blowtorch, a soldering iron, and a pneumatic drill restricted?
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But a "Post-PC" era isn't coming anytime soon (unless you count today as a "Post-TV" era).
Humans move forward in reliability and access (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC.
Because the PC is a nightmare in terms of reliability. Here I am using PC in the generic sense; this statement applied not just to Windows but also OS X or Linux or any desktop app compared to a tablet. In every case they are much harder for people to keep running well over time.
The "Post PC" era is a term probably overused at this point but at the core it basically means simply: computers that non-technical users can have over time without someone to help them maintain.
More technical users see this as limiting, but non-technical users see the ability to not rely on technical people to help them as freeing.
And it's not like PC's, or anything like them, will ever vanish. Those threatened by a world where normal people can use a computer too should just chill out and be happy for them.
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computers that non-technical users can have over time without someone to help them maintain.
This disturbs me, personally. Your statement is synonymous with "disposable". Tablets is a way to force PCs to use the cell-phone model of updates and lifespan; you use it for a year or two and ditch it for a better one because it is no longer supported. ASUS did this with the first Transformer, they dropped all support for it in under 2 years, meaning the only recourse a user has is confusing, and unstable community updates. Even in Android land, the vendor now has too much control over devices.
No Thanks to Never Land (Score:3)
you can NEVER do anything outside of what apple says you can
Sure you can - you can always jailbreak (or root, or whatever).
There will always be a means for the technically ept to escape whatever bonds there appear to be wrapped around any technology. What there has not need to this point is a way for people who did not understand technology to get tangled in unkept tentacles of difficult that crept out all over.
YOUR kind is the one who has enslaved humanity over the years; you are the luddite proclaiming
They did not cross that line (Score:3)
you have a cat and mouse game going where you constantly try to close the latest hole
Apple closes security holes, which they absolutely should.
There will always be the possibility of tethering jaibreaking which is more an issue of trcking the system updater; Apple COULD close that hole but has not to date.
Otherwise what would be accomplished by your paper other than to kill trees? Anyone with technical ability knows jailbreaking exists in short order, if they desire to go beyond the approved development t
Re:Not Sure I Understand the Post-PC Concept (Score:5, Insightful)
...because it's a hot, power hungry, big, buggy, malware ridden, unreliable, overcomplicated, expensive, time consuming pain in the ass for almost everyone who isn't a computer geek (and that's nearly everybody).
I don't think it's 'discarded' (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even think it's really doing much to displace PCs. People shortsighted enough to think solely in terms of new sales certainly feel that way, but it ignores reality.
Basically, PC market with or without tablets was destined to plateau. PC sales for a couple of decades were driven by more demanding applications and use cases. Now, the products have, largely, caught up to the applications people use. A new purchase was formerly driven mostly by the current owned product being 'too slow'. Now a new purchase is driven more and more by when the thing wears out beyond warranty rather than new capability not previously available.
Tablet and mobile are really a distinct market that PC didn't really penetrate. Sure, occasionally you'd see someone pretty dedicated lug around a laptop out and about, but those were pretty rare. Most everyone that had a PC 3 years ago still uses their PC, even if they have no need to buy a new one.
Tablets and Ultrabooks (Score:2)
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC.
Companies that made 10" laptops stopped making 10" laptops [slashdot.org] because tablets and Ultrabook laptops had a higher profit margin.
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We aren't discarding the PC.
Many of the people who started using PCs in the past 20 years weren't actually interested in computers. They were looking for a communications device that connected them to the Internet. The Internet, in turn, connected them to family, friends, and businesses. A subset of those went beyond that by using the Internet as a research tool and their computer as a content creation tool. Yet even then their use was limited by their interest in the technology: very few people learned
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My Mother is a 60+ year old Chinese woman that never really liked working with computers much. A mouse looks clumsy in her hand, and she can't touch type.
The people here on /. are probably never going to give up PCs, but always remember that WE'RE the weird ones in society. Our use cases are very different.
I got my Mom an iPad mini and she can sit and play scrabble with people and read her email. Typing is just as easy (or difficult, if you prefer) as it was before, but now we can chat over facetime. Even t
WELL DUH !! 1970S ?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course the 70s' vision has blurred to the point that the iPad betrays it !! This ain't your grandfather's Atari !! It is his Oldsmobile !!
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Yeah ... 'cuz ... screw ideals. What losers those guys were.
Betrayed? (Score:3, Insightful)
What a stupid idea. The iPad was intended to be a portable screen for viewing content. Virtually every app (outside of games) is for viewing pre-generated content of some form or another. The iPad was never intended to be a "dynabook" or to co-opt the idea, so how can it be a betrayal?
I have an idea for Kay... build your own damn hardware and write your own damn software. Don't rely on publicly-traded, for-profit companies to execute your "vision".
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Was following Snooki not a founding ideal of the dynabooks? Ooops, sorry.
Re:Betrayed? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an idea for Kay... build your own damn hardware and write your own damn software. Don't rely on publicly-traded, for-profit companies to execute your "vision".
Seconded. Also, stop bitching that someone else didn't execute your vision.
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stop bitching that someone else didn't execute your vision.
His complaints remind me of a Repo Man quote: "...and, yet I blame society."
Re:Betrayed? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's not "bitching" about anything. He was asked this question:
Do you agree that we now essentially have the Dynabook, as expressed in the three tiers of modern personal computing; the notebook, tablet and smartphone? If not, what critical features do you see missing from these? Have they delivered on the promise of improving education?
He responded by saying that no, we don't have a Dynabook, that the slim laptops are the closest thing to it, and that the ideals behind the iPad are not the ideals behind the Dynabook. He's answering the guy's question, which apparently he has been asked for the past 20 years.
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So Apple prevented Kay from executing his vision for the last 40 years by tying him up in court?
Maybe if Kay had actually tried to do so. Or if anyone had actually tried to do so.
Locked Installs (Score:5, Insightful)
As you might expect, his problems with it is the major problem many have with iOS devices:
Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world.
The solution is obviously to stop buying devices you don't truly own, but it's difficult when many applications are targeted for that platform first.
But that statement is incorrect (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world.
Even ignoring the fact that Android doesn't seem like it has any limitations that matter in this regard (and to me the question was more "do we have a dynabook yet" rather than "is the iPad a dynabook"), the statement is incorrect when applied to the iPad.
That's because you can share "eToys" within the context of an app. Codea [twolivesleft.com] for example, is an app for creating prog
May as well give it up. (Score:2)
These people are trapped by their own make-believe assumptions about the technology, refuse to acknowledge that apps like Codea exist, and are convinced that using an Apple product somehow takes away their freedom. What freedom? Oh, you know, that freedom that lets you go in and modify the kernel source code to suit your own needs. Or that freedom to use whatever software you like. Or to create new content. Yeah, Apple totally destroys all that and keeps kids from learning! The iPad sucks! Fuck Apple! I wan
C64 game was rejected because it had BASIC (Score:2)
Codea
Initially, Apple rejected [slashdot.org] anything that would even remotely resemble Codea.
Piano in every classroom (Score:2)
sold it all off (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that Xerox got out of the market 40yrs ago and has no right to complain about its path now.
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Most brilliant part lost in noise over iPad (Score:5, Insightful)
In the middle of the interview is the most brilliant thought of the whole article:
One way to think of all of these organizations is to realize that if they require a charismatic leader who will shoot people in the knees when needed, then the corporate organization and process is a failure. It means no group can come up with a good decision and make it stick just because it is a good idea. All the companies Iâ(TM)ve worked for have this deep problem of devolving to something like the hunting and gathering cultures of 100,000 years ago. If businesses could find a way to invent âoeagricultureâ we could put the world back together and all would prosper.
This is exactly right. Modern companies are NOT modern companies, they are generally companies as companies have always been. I think in smaller companies we are seeing experiments that show tiny examples of truly different ways to run a company, but I don't know of any that have been able to scale that to thousands of people yet.
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One way to think of all of these organizations is to realize that if they require a charismatic leader who will shoot people in the knees when needed, then the corporate organization and process is a failure. It means no group can come up with a good decision and make it stick just because it is a good idea
On the contrary, without a leader to challenge people by setting the bar high, organizations may run with ideas that should've been shot down, and even if the idea has some merit there might not be enough
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Valve Corporation has an interesting setup [businessweek.com].
Prompted by your observation, I read the interview and have to agree it was very interesting. Alan Kay is obviously thinking completely different from the crowd.
News Flash (Score:5, Funny)
Tonight's top story: An old guy complains that the future doesn't match what his vision of the future was back when he was young.
This, and the rest of the news, coming up at 11.
Lol (Score:3)
Just like society fails to (thankfully) live up to expectations set 2000 years ago in the bible.
I mean really, we are supposed to adhere to a 40 year old vision of the future? I mean, where is they Dynabook today? Yes, that's right, its back in history where it belongs.
Also Apple nearly went bankrupt several times back in the day. Obviously the original vision failed to sustain both Xerox (as an innovative company today) AND Apple until Steve Jobs had another vision for the future.
If you have a vision that fails, then you failed to deliver your vision, it's nobody else's fault.
Different Visions (Score:2)
He had his vision, others had different visions. It doesn't mean he's right and they're wrong.
"Insecure OSes" (Score:3)
FTA:
"Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. This could not be farther from the original intentions of the entire ARPA-IPTO/PARC community in the ’60s and ’70s.
Apple’s reasons for this are mostly bogus, and to the extent that security is an issue, what is insecure are the OSes supplied by the vendors (and the insecurities are the result of their own bad practices — they are not necessary)."
How is it an OS issue if a user downloads an app and grants an it full access to an iPhone and the app takes a copy of the contact list and the entire archive of phone calls and messages and beams them to a host somewhere in Russia without any further user interaction?
If the answer is the user must act as the software warden, how is a child supposed to guarantee this Etoy won't do any harm to the machine he or she is using?
In short, if the wall garden isn't the app curator then who is? The OS? The app developer? The child?
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't?
Please show me were I can upload applications for free to the Apple store and without restrictions.
My application is a wireless network monitoring tool, which my understanding is that they are totally banned.
Apple is very successful at turning computers into something their owners do not control.
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I think the objection is not that you can't install a text editor on an iPad, but that the ecosystem is mainly aimed at one-way retrieval of content via Apple. As Kay notes, it's not just that you can't get your content into the App Store easily, but by default you can't even install something your friend made who's sitting right next to you— there's no way to install apps from your friend unless either you jailbreak your device, or your friend gets it into the App Store.
Provisioning (Score:2)
by default you can't even install something your friend made who's sitting right next to you
Your friend with a Mac and an iOS developer license can provision several dozen testing devices on his developer account, including yours.
Re:Provisioning (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't the fact that you need a developer 'license' tweak something in your mind about the DynaBook ideals?
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And also a regular computer!
Hypercard stacks and sharing (Score:3, Informative)
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Your friend with a Mac and an iOS developer license can provision several dozen testing devices on his developer account, including yours.
Sure, for the low low price of $99 per year. Every year. For the right to load software onto the device you own.
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Re:Provisioning (Score:5, Insightful)
which is explicitly and entirely unacceptable. You should not need a developer license (permission from apple) to do anything on your iDevice. That is exactly the problem.
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Says who? Is this a law? Was it on tablets delivered by Moses? Or is it just a personal preference of poetmatt. A requirement that is completely and fully satisfied by poetmatt not buying an iOS device.
As long as people are free to chose whatever product they want, there is no problem. Stop trying to enforce your desires on people who have different requirements.
There is no problem. It's entirely unrealistic for you to like every product on the market. And it's fucking insane to require that every produc
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I mean it is the exact ideals talked about in the article, just a few small changes.
You must have a developers license.
You must have another computer. (Of course one made by Apple)
You may only provision it to a limited number of users, unless you get it INTO the store.
To get it into the store, it must pass checks to ensure you are not stealing business from Apple, and may be rejected for any or no reason.
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Totally true. Unless...
In other words, not true.
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It's like buying a white BMW for your kid and them getting whiny because it's not red. Grow up and quit bitching already.
You mean wardriving? (Score:2)
My application is a wireless network monitoring tool, which my understanding is that they are totally banned.
BasilBrush and other iOS advocates on Slashdot are under the impression [slashdot.org] that nobody needs wireless network monitoring tools. Wireless network monitoring tools are primarily useful for intruders trying to enter someone else's network without permission.
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Tepples, I think you mean they believe this.
Wireless network monitoring tools are primary useful to those who deploy, secure and integrate wireless networks. It is very handy to be able to see at a customers site that his wireless speeds suffer because all this neighbors are on the same channel.
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This is because lots of people are short sighted and stupid.
There is nothing we can do about that. It has always been that way and likely always will.
Maybe one day we can have another BBS/early internet that excludes these folks. Maybe one day september will end.
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Take a deep breath.
I am an android user and very amateur dev. This is exactly why I don't bother with iOS.
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:5, Insightful)
"This has been absolutely done by the iPad ..."
not on the iPad. You need a middle man.
Tel my how I can write an app on the iPad, and then share it with whomever I want. How do I just send it to my friend across the table?
"Even this is disingenuous because Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free"
You are missing his point.
"d does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. "
he is correct. It has to go through Apple. I needs to meet Apples arbitrary corporate 'standard'; which includes many subjective things, such as 'we thing there are enough apps of this type'. Plus, creating an app on an iPad has a much higher barrier to entry then other systems.
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Tel my how I can write an app on the iPad, and then share it with whomever I want. How do I just send it to my friend across the table?
Did you try going to the App Store and looking for Codea?
Instead of making other people do the research, you could have just said "they can install the Codea app, create a project, use the Codea Runtime to package their project as an iOS app, get a developer license from Apple for $99/year, submit their app to Apple, and if it gets approved then someone else can download it". Not exactly what Alan Kay was talking about, but I guess that can be considered some form of "distribution". It doesn't help if you want your friend sitting next to you (or across the worl
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:5, Informative)
Even this is disingenuous because Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free and let people download it for free.
You either have a different definition of "for free" than I do, or you're purposely using misleading language.
In order for me to start "uploading it to the store for free" I have to pay at least something like $1100 for specialized hardware and the developer account in addition to the tablet. And, yes, I'm counting the cost of a bottom-end, cheapest, entirely unsuitable for development work MacBook in this, because the PARC vision allows you to do development on just the tablet itself.
So, no, I can't just create a good app and upload it for free. I can upload it for $1000+$100/year, and allow other people to download it without cost to them, but if I want to create an app, I have an upfront cost of at least $1100 on top of the cost of the original tablet.
And that all assumes Apple doesn't simply reject the app for no particular reason.
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There are other ways to share applications outside the Apple App Store. HTML 5 and Javascript apps aren't restricted in a manner inconsistent with their programming paradigm, best I can tell.
Just because you don't get what you want doesn't mean lions are getting frisky with lambs somewhere.
Apple intentionally blocks HTML5 features (Score:4, Informative)
HTML 5 and Javascript apps aren't restricted in a manner inconsistent with their programming paradigm
Yes they are. Apple intentionally refuses to let HTML5 applications use WebGL; iAds can use it but not anything else. Apple refuses to allow the user upload any object stored on the device other than pictures and video through <input type="file">, and even that didn't work for the first five years of iOS. Nor does Safari implement getUserMedia or any similar API to use the device's microphone and camera. This appears odd especially in relation to the fact that when introducing iOS 1 on the original iPhone, Apple intended to make web applications the only kind of application that one would need. How would a barcode scanner work without support from Safari?
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You either have a different definition of "for free" than I do, or you're purposely using misleading language.
In order for me to start "uploading it to the store for free" I have to pay at least something like $1100 for specialized hardware and the developer account in addition to the tablet.
You could also buy the low-end Mac Mini, for $600.
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Ok I admit I was being harsh before.
Maybe the hypothetical recipient of the iPad is at a point where they want to do more but can't. They've downloaded some books/info at home for offline reading, and now want to write some code. They could jump through a ton of hoops trying to use a device that just isn't designed for that - I'm sure it can be make to work but perhaps the effort isn't worth it the results - and your suggestion about selling it for the money towards a cheap notebook is the way to go.
Are And
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It also shows a 60/70's naïvety toward how nasty our computing world has become toward attacking other users for personal and political gain.
Yeah, mitigating modern malware techniques, particularly trojans, is a non-trivial problem. Apple's solution, the walled garden, is probably the wrong one, but no-one has come up with another credible security model that works as transparently or effectively for the end user. This is really an area of OS research that needs a ton of attention and effort that it's
Bitfrost (Score:2)
Apple's solution [to trojans], the walled garden, is probably the wrong one, but no-one has come up with another credible security model that works as transparently or effectively for the end user.
The proper solution is to model what damage a trojan can do, figure out what privileges it would need to do that damage, and make sure that a program lacks those privileges without the user's knowledge. OLPC Sugar implements this using Bitfrost, and Android implements it using the permissions framework. Yes, I'm aware that Android's model needs refined. For example, the "phone state" privilege to read whether or not the application should stop playing audio because the phone is ringing is conflated with the
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This has been absolutely done by the iPad and other tablets. People love to make the claim you can not create content on the iPad but its been proven time and again for the most part to be false beyond a few exceptions you can create just fine. People code on them, people write blogs or even books on them, people record and perform music on them etc.
I have to respectfully disagree with this to a significant degree. Coding natively on an iPad, for example, is just not feasible - there is no compiler, no debu
Codea (Score:2)
there is no compiler, no debugger, no IDE available for any language
Not even Lua? When you bought Codea and tried it, what did you find lacking?
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:4, Interesting)
You can code on the iPad? This is news. Whats the environment you use? Not talking about scripts or a text editor with basic syntax highlighting tho. I'm talking about being able to code a full project, with all necessary files, and preferably being able to compile it too - but that can be worked around.
I tried this with the Asus Transformer when it came out. Was... KIND OF... doable, but in the end it was a LOT easier to just use a 13" laptop and code on that. No sacrifices were required, completely compatabile with my revision controls, etc.
Also, this is the second time I heard you could write and release iOS apps for free - can you share how this is doable? I admit I don't follow iOS much anymore since I didn't want to spend $100 a year just to write hobby level code, so this change is quite exciting. Unless this post is a day late, then Fool on me...
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Even this is disingenuous because Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free and let people download it for free.
Doesn't Apple charge a developers license fee of ~$100USD/year?
Licensed C64 Emulator Rejected From App Store (Score:4, Interesting)
People love to make the claim you can not create content on the iPad but its been proven time and again for the most part to be false beyond a few exceptions you can create just fine. People code on them
Several years ago, Apple pulled a Commodore 64 game from the App Store [slashdot.org] when it was discovered that the user could reboot the emulated Commodore 64 into the BASIC prompt. Apple didn't want a BASIC prompt because users could key in programs that Apple had not approved. What caused Apple to change its mind and allow things like Codea?
Apple doesn't in any way prevent a people from creating a good app uploading it to the store for free
How are a Mac and a developer license available "for free"?
and let people download it for free.
Of course it does. If your application falls into one of the banned categories [pineight.com], which you're not even officially allowed to see until you've already bought a $650 Mac and a $99 per year developer license, Apple won't let you distribute it.
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Re: (Score:2, Troll)
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It's strange, typing on a tablet is identical to typing on a laptop or a desktop for me... don't they have bluetooth keyboards where you live?
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:5, Funny)
This is like saying: "riding an unicycle is easy, because you can put its wheel into a bike and ride that one instead".
Re:Fanboy attack (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's like saying "riding a unicycle is hard, if you need a vehicle to get around, why don't you put a second wheel on it, and stop whining about how hard it is to ride a fucking unicycle?"
Why not buy a bike in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Explain to me the essential difference between a tablet + keyboard running a terminal program, and a laptop running a terminal program? There are netbooks with smaller screens than a 10" tablet affords.
To be completely analogous, it's like buying a bike that can be operated as a unicycle OR a bicycle, and then pretending the 2nd wheel doesn't exist, never existed, hasn't even been conceived of, and is impossible to attach.
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Re:Fanboy attack (Score:5, Informative)
People make it sound like administrating unix is hard. You should try to administer Windows Server from a tablet. That's a real challenge - although less so with the new GUI-less options.
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That's a condemnation of Apple's methods, not of the tablet format itself.
The iPad was not technologically revolutionary - but it is hugely significant in that it's ingrained the idea of tablet computing in the mind of the average user vastly more than any product before it. It's essentially set the stage for Android and others to follow on.
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I think what keeps being over looked here is what Apple brought to the scene with the iPad; an actual tablet computer. Prior to the iPad tablets were laptops without keyboards: heavy, buggy, hot, slow, clumsy, kludges that kept trying to force a desktop UI into a pseudo-touch/stylus interface.
Apple broke away from that and their success in being the first to understand what a tablet needed to be and _finally_ getting the rest of the world to understand what tablet computing _should be_ can be seen not only
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I kinda feel that this is the problem with all mobile devices. You can do pretty much everything with them, but for anything you use them for there is a device that will beat a crap out of it in terms of functionality, usability, everything. It may be a good compromise, I mean it *is* portable and you *can* do pretty much anything, but if you are a professional, you have to have a real thing.
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How about any job (and there are many) which used to be done walking (or driving) around with a clipboard, and then someone back at the office doing data entry from the paper form.
Just because your own kind of job doesn't require mobility, doesn't mean that all professionals don't need mobility.
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Indeed, everyone knows you stir coffee with a pencil!
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I'm typing this on a Linux Mint netbook with a Galaxy Note 2 next to me whilst watching a TV show on my PS3 and I have an iMac upstairs. Fanboy I am not.
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"Hey third world kids - us first world rich kids are going to give you laptops! Well, not real laptops, that might let you actually learn skills that will help you get out of poverty and better your life. They're these tinkertoy bullshit things that you won't really get much use out of... but they look so modern and plastic! And really, it'll help us feel good about ourselves for "doing something," mostly. But we'll console ourselves by telling the world that it's going to 'help you learn how to learn a
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What a self-important twit. Why the hell should his "vision" rule what Apple wants to sell 40 fucking years later?
Kind of reminds me of Ted Nelson complaining about how lame the web is because it doesn't live up to his vision for project Xanadu ;-)
Remember the quote "Real artists ship"???
...but Jesus H. Fucking Christ that's lamer than a Thalidomide dachshund.
Jesus Fucking Christ, that comment alone packs 1,000 more humor than all of yesterday's April 1 stupidity combined...
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Above all though, the iPad really needs AppleScript.