Posts Tagged ‘thoughts’

iPad vs. iPod Touch

Written by Arnan on January 31, 2010 – 4:19 pm

The iPad is a lie! It’s not a tablet pc. And especially not the tablet pc everyone wants. It’s more like they designed a new iPod touch and forgot to shrink it to a handheld format.

  iPod touch iPad
Storage 8, 32, 64GB 16, 32, 64GB
Processor +/- 400Mhz (8GB),
+/- 600Mhz		 1Ghz
Camera No No
Battery life 30 Hours (music) 10 Hours (webbrowsing)
Screen 3.5″ 9.7″
Resolution 480×320 1024×768
Ports Dock connector, Audio out
Networking Wifi 11b/g,
Bluetooth		 Wifi 11a/b/g/n,
3G/Edge (optional),
Bluetooth
Controls Home-, Volume-, Powerbutton
Multitouch Yes Yes
Standalone No No
OS iPhone OS iPhone OS
Multitasking No No
Finder/file access No No
File downloads No No
Portable Yes Somewhat

Note that the iPad is a better device specs-wise, but that’s what you would expect in a new iPod Touch.

The lack of multitasking and the “feature” of iPhone OS makes it a bit of a useless thing. Nice for in and around the house. But imagine you sitting in a bus or train with it. Playing some game or whatever. Try it… Take a paper and fold it to a A4 sized slab and see how it not fits with your environment because it’s too big.

The lack of a real OS makes it an iPod. Simple as that. If it has OS X and a desktop it would be a real computer that could replace something. Now it’s just something that adds to what you already have. But at the same time you just know it’s a bit useless because it lacks the software you need.

No iBooks outside the US? What the hell! Is this gonna be like the video store Apple is so happy about but never leaves the States? Damn Apple! Fix that stuff or do not present it as if it’s the greatest thing ever. If i, we in Europe, cannot use it. It’s as good as useless.

The, for me, actual dealbreaker; No multitasking. How can you even try to justify that. A device that you claim will compete with Netbooks but cannot open multiple apps at the same time. Insane! It’s not even a standalone computer. Yeah, it syncs with iTunes. Like your iPhone and iPod.

No file access, if only… only, they had given us a browsable home folder. You know. A place to store and access files outside the app you run at that moment. It is so very simple and obvious. This folder should be shared by default via Wifi and have the subfolders like your mac has. Images, Videos, Music, Documents. Etc. But no. iPhone OS cannot do that. You have to open the Images app to see your images. And you have to open Pages to see your documents. But only the ones Apple supports.

It’s failboat! A big huge failboat!

However, most of it is fixable with software i’m sure. And i hope Apple will, because i want an iPad. Just not this one! For now my iPhone can do more and is more useful.

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Genius is not so Brilliant… Or so it seems.

Written by Arnan on September 10, 2008 – 7:59 pm

So today i was happy yo install iTunes 8. Try out the new stuff and found the new music browser a bit of a cheap knockoff from iPhoto. But otherwise a nice sight. I still prefer the list view though.

And another “huge” new thing is iTunes Genius.
Basically what it does it matching songs together based on various things and behaviours. Which all have to be uploaded to the iTunes store. Then when it is done stealing your private data and settings it compiles random lists of tunes which supposedly “sound great together”. Seemed like fun, so i went on to have my library indexed and sent that profile to the iTunes store. This took like 10 minutes.

Then i tried to make a few Genius playlists only to find out this feature seems only to work with iTunes bought tunes. Most of my music comes from imported CD’s and other sources. Thus Genius kinda didn’t work for me… Bummer!
Why can’t it index everything? THe logical explanation would be that iTunes store does assign meta data to each song and thus if it doesn’t come from the store it has no meta data to match songs to. But i think this is more of a dirty trick to lure people to buy more songs, obviously… If the system really would be as good as Steve so proudly told us it would be able to assign meta data on the fly and thus index every song submitted. But that’s just my logical thinking…

Now i’m gonna eat my pie!

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