But I’ve started seeing comments and blog posts to the effect that this is actually a failure on the developers part; that bad UI or bad software/UX design is somehow responsible for this.
To which I say, bullshit.
If you want to walk the walk, you can follow Stallman's lead and do all your computing on a tiny netbook, interfacing with the internet from a text console running emacs. Let me know how that works out for you. Be sure to take a picture of yourself using your Lemote Yeeloong next to the biodiesel engine you made on your handforged anvil.
The iPad as a particular device is not necessarily the future of computing. But as an ideology, I think it just might be. In hindsight, I think arguments over “why would I buy this if I already have a phone and a laptop?” are going to seem as silly as “why would I buy an iPod if it has less space than a Nomad?”
But the iPhone isn't perfect for baby boomers. The screen and text are too small for aging eyes, the keyboard too cramped for confident typing, making it unusable for even basic office productivity tasks.
Enter the larger, faster iPad. It's a complex computer simplified, which makes it a perfect fit to those whose remaining life is too short to spend it defragging drives. Add the keyboard dock, and the iPad is versatile enough to be a baby boomer's only computer. The only thing it won't let them do is videoconference with their grandchildren - which is an omission I hope they fix in next year's version - but on the other hand, at $500 this much is forgiven.
And not just for "old people," but the less technical in general, who far outnumber the digerati who feel comfortable with technology even among 20- and 30-somethings.
Point is, nerds may love their netbooks, but the market that the netbook originally set out to reach is too far away, running farther away and screaming louder with every blog post about what chipset and graphics processor a netbook is rumored to have, or whether or not it is, indeed, a netbook at all. Clearly the audience is cheap geeks, and while that may be a good market to be in (just read Giz comments), it's definitively not Steve Jobs' market.
Summarizing: I think this is a convergent device. It's not going to live up to the expectations generated by the initial hype, because nothing could; but it's significant, and I can see a lot of uses for it in the weird niche between a real computer and a mobile phone that is currently occupied by sluggish, small, cut-down laptops running Windows XP. In particular, the App store ecosystem is really going to help. I reckon the total cost of ownership of an iPad is actually going to be lower than that of a netbook, once you consider the necessary extra software you need to make a netbook do anything useful (and recall that the App store price points are typically cheaper than Windows application price points).
What he said...
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
Barry, this is the last straw. I'm done with you.
Kage’s doctor has informed us she has reached the end of useful treatment. The cancer has slowed, but not stopped. It has continued to spread at an unnatural speed through her brain, her lungs and – now – reappeared in her abdomen. It is probably a matter of a few weeks, at most.
Not unanticipated, given the news about Kage in the past couple of weeks, but saddening nonetheless.
The entire United States Senate is flying on a plane when its engines start to fail. The plane starts falling through the sky. There are 100 senators on board, but only 41 parachutes. The Democrats say, “Let’s give all the parachutes to the Republicans—that way we can just sit on our fat asses and die while the plane crashes because we’re a bunch of self-hating pussies.
