On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:58 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
Owen -
I'm surprised at how good the critter seems. My main concern is
that it doesn't have a camera, so skype would be somewhat
disabled. But that seems to be the only serious lack, and will
likely be there for future versions.
I think Apple will do well with this, despite my own personal
disappointment.
I had hoped mightily for a full OSX notebook... so am disappointed
by that.
Well, that's sorta what the Air is all about, right? Irene has
brought hers to the complex in the past, and it looks pretty good. No
DVD in that either, however .. but you can plug one into it.
<snip>
She really only needs Web, E-mail, iTunes and DVD playing.... but
the iPad doesn't offer a DVD player (nor any obvious way to connect
one easily/properly). I'm sure there is a way through "Family
Share" to watch DVDs inserted into another computer on a local net
or a way to rip them down, but this really doesn't fit my wife's use
patterns and for all those here who are married, you must know that
thinking you can change one's spouses way of doing things is the
path to madness and marital discontent.
I had just been considering a portable DVD player (iLuv, Phillips
951, ...) with an iPhone dock... but the shortcoming there is the
lack of keyboard for the iPhone... maybe the iPad's needs for a
bluetooth keyboard will lead to the iPhone having the same feature?
My guess is that the after market hardware devices will be a big one,
which will include easy ways to watch dvds on the iPad. Certainly the
Mac mini can broadcast DVDs, but you'd have to want to have a small
server in the house. We use a SlingBox to push video around the
house, generally from the TiVo but it can put any video source onto
your home wifi.
I'd bet quite a bit that the keyboard they offer will work with the
iphone, but will look a bit weird! There already is a bluetooth hack
for jailbroken iphones that allows use of the small folding keyboards
(treo et all)
The bigger picture is that we've all got an ecology, that just got one
more member:
- Laptop/Desktop
- Phone
- TV/TiVo/DVD
- Web Hosting/Media
- iPad & other 'tweeners like netbooks.
Keeping them all in synch is non-trivial, and figuring out how they
all fit into your life style ditto. The best example of this for me
was watching the NFL playoffs in Italy using my MacBook via SlingBox.
I haven't heard any other minor announcements (rumors of a red
MacBook to complement the Black and the White?)... or was it all iPad?
All iPad as far as I know.
-- Owen
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
