Apple and Macs: New products, iMacs, iWork, iLife

[sportdan30]

4 laptops in one household? Wow! We have a 7 year old Mac G5 desktop (which by the way doesn't sync with the iPad because it's so old), and the kids each have an iTouch. In a perfect world, I'd have an iPad and a nice new IMac desktop and that's all. The wife has a laptop from work, but using that to web surf, look at photos, music, etc. feels so archaic when compared to the iPad. It's incredibly cumbersome to power up, click on the browser and get things going.

With the iPad, I can't tell you how many times I'll turn it on for just a few seconds to check the weather, look up a number, check email, watch a youtube video, download a new free app, and shut it down. It's a lot less stress on the system than a laptop IMO. Yeah, you can do all these things on your iTouch or iPhone, but the small footprint really turns me off. Maybe I'm blinded by love, but I'm just enamored with how quick and easy the iPad is to use. Not to mention how incredibly mobile it is. Walking up and down the stairs, taking it with us when we go to my folks for breakfast on the weekends and showing off the new photo album I uploaded, or acting as a portable movie player on road trips (the battery is pretty damn good....)

It definitely was a "want" for me as well, but quickly became a all around family device and everyone in the family thoroughly enjoys......and fights over at times to use it.

[wco81]

These days, you can get laptops which do so much more for $500. But they're horrible, all using the same chipsets, differentiated by cheap plastic cases with keyboards and trackpads which are sluggish.

I almost bought an $800 HP one from Costco, which has a very generous return policy. But you really have to go well over $1000 to get models with decent screens, GPU, keyboards, etc.

So when people say you can get a laptop for the same prices as iPad and other tablets, that may be true but it's really low-rent stuff.

[MizzouRah]

They are cool and trust me, I would love to have one... just not sure I can justify $500 on something like that when we have 2 desktop pc's and 4 laptops in our house already.

You just answered your question. Do you really need a seventh Internet-connected device, not even counting smartphones?

PK is the voice of reason!

As for the 4 laptops... two are property of my company, the other two belong to my wife and daughter.

I'm going to hold off.. maybe Christmas.

[MizzouRah]

4 laptops in one household? Wow! We have a 7 year old Mac G5 desktop (which by the way doesn't sync with the iPad because it's so old), and the kids each have an iTouch. In a perfect world, I'd have an iPad and a nice new IMac desktop and that's all. The wife has a laptop from work, but using that to web surf, look at photos, music, etc. feels so archaic when compared to the iPad. It's incredibly cumbersome to power up, click on the browser and get things going.

With the iPad, I can't tell you how many times I'll turn it on for just a few seconds to check the weather, look up a number, check email, watch a youtube video, download a new free app, and shut it down. It's a lot less stress on the system than a laptop IMO. Yeah, you can do all these things on your iTouch or iPhone, but the small footprint really turns me off. Maybe I'm blinded by love, but I'm just enamored with how quick and easy the iPad is to use. Not to mention how incredibly mobile it is. Walking up and down the stairs, taking it with us when we go to my folks for breakfast on the weekends and showing off the new photo album I uploaded, or acting as a portable movie player on road trips (the battery is pretty damn good....)

It definitely was a "want" for me as well, but quickly became a all around family device and everyone in the family thoroughly enjoys......and fights over at times to use it.

My daughter is the only one with a smart phone.. but I'm with you.. I want an ipad for the reasons you describe, just can't pull the trigger on $500 for it.

[Nozzleman_216]

I am so torn on what to do. I have always "wanted" a MacBook but could never justify the price. I have some extra cash for a new toy and my wife said I could buy one as my gift for being promoted. But now I am thinking an Ipad might suite me just fine? I mean can't it pretty much do anything a laptop can other than documents (which it can do just not well)? I could save myself an easy $500 bucks! Just looking for some insight. I am currently using a year or so old HP laptop ($500)

[JRod]

I am so torn on what to do. I have always "wanted" a MacBook but could never justify the price. I have some extra cash for a new toy and my wife said I could buy one as my gift for being promoted. But now I am thinking an Ipad might suite me just fine? I mean can't it pretty much do anything a laptop can other than documents (which it can do just not well)? I could save myself an easy $500 bucks! Just looking for some insight. I am currently using a year or so old HP laptop ($500)

All comes down to how you want to use it.

If you are typing a lot. I'm not talking documents but Internet forums, blogs etc than the iPad can be difficult to use when typing is involved.

If you are mostly consuming information the iPad can't be beat.

Then there's the old thinking on what programs you need.

I think it comes down to if you consumer more information than you will produce than the iPad is a great device. If you produce a lot then the iPad maybe more frustrating.

[sportdan30]

I am so torn on what to do. I have always "wanted" a MacBook but could never justify the price. I have some extra cash for a new toy and my wife said I could buy one as my gift for being promoted. But now I am thinking an Ipad might suite me just fine? I mean can't it pretty much do anything a laptop can other than documents (which it can do just not well)? I could save myself an easy $500 bucks! Just looking for some insight. I am currently using a year or so old HP laptop ($500)

Depends on what you intend to use the iPad for. If it requires work usage, editing, Word, Excel, etc I'd definitely stay with a laptop. But if all you are going to use it for is web browsing, email, watching videos, photos, music, and quick simple games, then the iPad would fit your needs. I'm assuming you have a desktop, correct?

[pk500]

They are cool and trust me, I would love to have one... just not sure I can justify $500 on something like that when we have 2 desktop pc's and 4 laptops in our house already.

You just answered your question. Do you really need a seventh Internet-connected device, not even counting smartphones?

PK is the voice of reason!

You're too kind. The proper translation: I'm a cheap f*ck.

[Nozzleman_216]

I am so torn on what to do. I have always "wanted" a MacBook but could never justify the price. I have some extra cash for a new toy and my wife said I could buy one as my gift for being promoted. But now I am thinking an Ipad might suite me just fine? I mean can't it pretty much do anything a laptop can other than documents (which it can do just not well)? I could save myself an easy $500 bucks! Just looking for some insight. I am currently using a year or so old HP laptop ($500)

Depends on what you intend to use the iPad for. If it requires work usage, editing, Word, Excel, etc I'd definitely stay with a laptop. But if all you are going to use it for is web browsing, email, watching videos, photos, music, and quick simple games, then the iPad would fit your needs. I'm assuming you have a desktop, correct?

Have a desktop but do not use it, mainly for my kids. I have a laptop that I pack around between home and the firehouse. I guess I would need a "new" laptop eventually because the one I use is nothing more than a cheap HP. So that's what had me thinking about a Macbook. But now I was thinking if I could get by with Ipad for general surfing needs and just break out the laptop when needed. Of course not sure how it would be just typing on the forums on an Ipad??

[Naples39]

if you want to be actually be productive with docs and whatnot, don't go with the ipad. It won't replace a laptop there. As far as casual use, some games, internet browsing, banging out some emails/forum posts, I prefer it to my laptop these days.

It's just much more portable than a laptop. My laptop rarely leaves my desk, but it's just so easy to grab the ipad all around the house, or throw it in your bag when walking out the door. The lightweight, instant on, touch/swipe interface, and battery life makes it feel like a very different device than a laptop. Using a laptop on the couch now feels cumbersome and slow to me now.

I'm leaning towards upgrading myself right now, passing on the ipad1 to my parents and letting the upgrade cost be a birthday present (turning 30 next month *gulp*). And if I could go back in time, I probably would've gotten a larger laptop, understanding that it would really rarely leave my desk now because the ipad is so damn convenient for all lightweight tasks.

As far as typing, I'm probably 60-70 words/minutes on a real keyboard, maybe 30-50 on the ipad, and 10-15 on a touchscreen smartphone.

[Slumberland]

Tempting to upgrade and pass my current one off to the wife, but not sure it'll make much of a difference in what I use it for. I'm trying to transition a lot of my creative writing to the iPad, actually. I picked up Quickoffice which is a rather well put together mobile Office suite that interfaces really well with Google Docs, so I can keep things in the cloud... and Scripts Pro is a nice placeholder until Final Draft finally releases their screenwriting app this year (it handles Final Draft's file format as well).

Beyond that I generally take every Neflix movie I get on DVD, rip it to mp4 using Daniussoft's DVD-to-iPad converter, send the disc back immediately and then watch the movies on the subway or during my lunch break. I've been reading a ton of comics using free pdf/cbr readers like Cloudreaders, I have five or six Scrabble games going on at all times, my entire music collection on the thing, and a handful of games, Infinity Blade and Back to the Future being the standouts. It's annoying that the new architecture will be so much faster, and games will start to come out that require that power. Part of the reason I can't think of it as a gaming machine.

HDMI out is intriguing. I can probably hold out 'til the iPad 3.

"Apple: Great at making you feel terrible about your Christmas gift." - Seth Meyers

[10spro]

For those folks that don't want to bother converting your flicks into the ipad, I just bought yesterday 'Air Video' it just streams all your videos on the fly and supports most formats. It does not play however DRM protected videos, for me it's worth the $2 bucks.

[Naples39]

I've kind of been frustrated about the video conversion, though VLC (no longer available for DL) is working for me. It really labors with mkv files (maybe that will improve with the new processor in iPad2?), but otherwise does the job. Air player would be fine, but I want to be able to load stuff on the iPad to watch when I don't have an internet connection.

A universal media player with no need to convert, and perhaps wireless syncing is such an obvious hole to me on the iPad.

If I'm at home and want to stream to my iPad on the couch or in bed, I just use splashtop to watch my videos from my PC desktop where obviously the native PC software will play everything no sweat.

[Murph]

I remember reading an article a while back about how Adobe (in a vague way) suggested that the iPad's lack of Flash would prevent the viewing of lots of pr0n on the device. I have no idea how true that is, but you have to smile at the inclination.

[ScoopBrady]

Do apps for the iPhone work on the iPad or would I need to purchase iPad versions?

[Slumberland]

Wow, they took down VLC? That's where I keep all my pr0n. Gotta keep 'em separated.

I know a couple sites reworked the entirety of their catalogs to make them iPad friendly.

Not like I'm some fiend or something. Ahem.

[Naples39]

Do apps for the iPhone work on the iPad or would I need to purchase iPad versions?

They work, with the option to double the image size to fill the ipad screen. Also, if it's a universal app, you can install the native ipad or iphone version.

[ScoopBrady]

Sweet. My mind is made up. I have been switching more and more to my iPhone for use in the house because I sit behind a computer all day at work and the last thing I want to do is sit behind one at home. When I realized how much I was reading, watching movies, and browsing the internet on my iPhone I started to get very interested in the iPad. I'm looking forward to having one in the home.

Does anybody know how GarageBand will work? I'm assuming I'll need to buy some sort of adapter to plug my guitar into. How much do they gouge you for that?

[wco81]

There are free versions of Air Video and Zumocast which will either convert on the fly or let you save the converted video on the iPad. But they took a long time and definitely can't use high bitrate MKVs. Seems like most 720p rips are okay but the 1080p ones aren't -- stutter badly. Maybe that is better with the new CPU and GPU but we won't know until it's out.

Nobody has determined which GPU or how many cores there are in the A5 but some guys are thinking it might be a lower end of what's used in the NGP and may provide about 1/2 the raw performance of the NGP though developers will be able to get more performance than iOS developers on comparable performance.

VLC was taken down by some open source advocate who had contributed some of the code. Howard Stern says he's found porn sites on his iPad. Porn industry will no doubt jump on the newest medium so they will provide non-Flash content.

iPad and universal apps. tend to cost more than iPhone apps. GarageBand, they didn't show them using an adapter did they? Probably someone could make a MIDI to dock interface and make it work with GB. At least you can do that with the Mac version.

[Naples39]

Wow, they took down VLC? That's where I keep all my pr0n. Gotta keep 'em separated.

Apparently the license holder of VLC works for Nokia or something and decided the terms of the apple store didn't comply with VLC free distribution license scheme, making it an invalid fork, or some other nonsense, and made apple take it down.

[Naples39]

This looks kind of awesome too.
http://gizmodo.com/#!5779433/the-ipad-s ... ickstarter

[Diablo25]

Sweet. My mind is made up. I have been switching more and more to my iPhone for use in the house because I sit behind a computer all day at work and the last thing I want to do is sit behind one at home. When I realized how much I was reading, watching movies, and browsing the internet on my iPhone I started to get very interested in the iPad. I'm looking forward to having one in the home.

Does anybody know how GarageBand will work? I'm assuming I'll need to buy some sort of adapter to plug my guitar into. How much do they gouge you for that?

Scoop, if that is why you are getting it you will LOVE the iPad. Everything you just mentioned is what makes the iPad great.

As far as Garage Band, goto Apple's website and watch the keynote from the announcement. They talk about Garage Bandabout 3/4 of the way in. Looks pretty damn cool. Its a $4.99 app.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1 ... index.html

[sportdan30]

I remember reading an article a while back about how Adobe (in a vague way) suggested that the iPad's lack of Flash would prevent the viewing of lots of pr0n on the device. I have no idea how true that is, but you have to smile at the inclination.

Well, let me just say that the iPad and porn make a absolutely wonderful pair! Going based off my own personal research, I've been able to access more than a half a dozen free sites. And I'm pretty intrigued to see how fast these videos load on the iPad 2, just for reference sakes of course.

[ScoopBrady]

I remember reading an article a while back about how Adobe (in a vague way) suggested that the iPad's lack of Flash would prevent the viewing of lots of pr0n on the device. I have no idea how true that is, but you have to smile at the inclination.

Well, let me just say that the iPad and porn make a absolutely wonderful pair! Going based off my own personal research, I've been able to access more than a half a dozen free sites. And I'm pretty intrigued to see how fast these videos load on the iPad 2, just for reference sakes of course.

I smell a marketing catchphrase here. iPad 2 - Faster loads for faster loads.

[Slumberland]

Brilliant.