It's official... iPad!! - Page 21

I was just thinking about how many out-of-print books will show upin iTunes at a reasonable price. Also, self-publishing will really grow if this takes off. It'll reduce the cost of publishing to the point where anyone can do it. I wonder if people here would feel differently if a lot of texts relevant to their interests suddenly showed up for free or $5 or $10. If a lot of texts I couldn't read otherwise appeared at reasonable prices, that would be reason enough to buy an iPad.

Scammers exploit Apple iPad fever

Guy's,

Take a look at the following article on BBC's website and beware:

BBC News - Scammers exploit Apple iPad fever

What do you mean by alot of texts?do you mean books,newspapers or what?newspapers are already cheap and if I don't buy them,it won't make a difference in my life financially.books are also cheap if you buy a book once a month,it won't affect your financial position.I don't have time to read books,so I am subscribed to audible and I can listen to books while in university and in bus and free times. I still don't see the point for buying it,the browser doesn't even support flash,what ball**** is that!engadget wrote an article and one of adobe representers said that apple doesn't want flash in any in it's devices because consumers can then play games and watch hulu and videos online and that would affect it's tha app store sales!can you believe this!if they put flash in the browser and make it full desktop experiance,I will buy it instantly because I use the net alot not just for surfing the web but for studying purposes.

The reason it doesn't support flash and may never support flash is this: flash is proprietary software. Apple don't support proprietary software as it concerns internet. Yes, they have their own suite of apps which use proprietary formats such as .pages, .numbers, etc., but otherwise, everything is either industry-standard, or open. Flash is the sole ownership (or very close) of Adobe.

For video, I'd rather not engage flash in any way. For games etc., I don't know what is going to happen. Is there another way to make flash plugins for games and animations work? .264 doesn't cut it as that would be compressed version of vector animations.

But flash, like it or love it is on the decline. It will be around for a long while, but it came in just in time for the internet to gobble it up. The internet is growing now, maturing to the point that proprietary formats are being frowned upon even by the general population, though not yet at a rate which makes companies like Adobe consider supporting standards.

Videos formats like Flash will decline. Sadly, Microsoft debute Silverlight, another stupid proprietary format and they are a huge player. Youtube is almost all .264 compatible and I hope that trend continues for other avenues, even **** - as that will largely make the difference.

Flash is and has always been a lucky card which Adobe pulled at the right time. But it makes no sense. If Apple won't support it now, they may hurt their bottom line, but the trend will move away from flash in support of realistic solutions which work across platforms.

This. HTML5 FTW

You'll buy one.

Someone yesterday sent me a hilarious video of this "iPad Killer" from Lenova:
YouTube - Amazing U1 Hybrid iPad from Lenovo Trumps Apple!!! - Tekzilla

exactly my thought. I think Amazon is up for some steep competition, which is great. I will have to see how good the iPad display is for reading books. There are still few items I am worried about:

1. glare
2. eye fatigue from lengthy periods of reading on a computer display
3. To be an useful ebook reader, it needs to memorize the last page read in a book and take me there when the unit is powered on. Having to go from home screen to ebook and pick the book everytime is a hassle.

I can't speak on 1 and 2, but currently apps like Stanza on the iPhone take you to the exact page you left off on when you open them. So its only a two part process rather than three or four. Turn unit on. Click on Stanza app. App opens to last page you were reading.

Yes, if current apps are to be benchmarked, Apple won't lose out to Stanza and the myriad others which are very good. The engine looks much like Classics, a pretty popular reading app which is devoted to copyright-exceeded books which can be had for free. The argument against downloading the same book via stanza or ereader pro is that the experience is better. It is, but I prefer stanza to which I can import easily. Apple support ePub so I assume that titles we already have will work with the iBooks (sic) app.

I also assume that it will pick up and play as that is fully supported by the competition. I spend my of my time on the iDevice either listening to music or reading; or on a good day, I do both.

I can't imagine reading on this type of screen,i tried the amazon kindle at one of my friends house and I got a headache and eye strain from reading on a computer like screen,I can't imagine even reading on my iPod,I tried stanza but deleted it in 10 min. Because I got tired and had a headache.nothing is like a physical book in your hands.neverthless I may get the ipad just for the web and videos.

I saw this yesterday and I am not Impressed.it looks very sluggish and the screen looks unresponsive.you have to give it up to for their extremly fast and responsive screen

FLV and H.264 are both open standards (the former is just a container specification to enable playback through a flash app). I'd wager the majority of people that want flash want it for watching video sites. The reason Apple, or many other portable device makers (smartphones in particular), doesn't support flash is because it is a huge cpu hog and eats through batteries in minutes.

It's hard to say that flash is on the decline, unless you are using an ad-blocker and don't see that almost every page on the internet uses flash in some form. It's used in other environments as well, notably for simulation training.

Finally, flash was a well established product by the time Adobe got their hands on it.

Enough about flash. I can see potential in the iPad despite its unfortunate name, sealed battery, out of date aspect ratio, lack of control (until it is unlocked), and inability to multitask. Compare it to an e-book reader and it is an amazing feat, but compare it to a netbook... Unfortunately, people want to compare it to a netbook more than an e-reader because it far outclasses one but can't measure up to the other at all.

edit:Quicktime. I know something bothered me about that non proprietary internet comment.

Well, its gonna be released only at the 2nd quarter of the year.
That is most likely a prototype, just showing what it can do.
Those issue should be covered during launch though.

I know what you mean,but I am not optimstic because I saw some companies like HTC whose prototypes where like this and the final product remained like this and the biggest proof is my htc pro,it's sluggish as it was in the protype but I still like it immensly.

@ stigweard: but quicktime is just a container for multitude of other non-proprietary formats