Mobile phones & tablets thread

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Intelligent or educated? The two are different, so Apple users are what, uneducated? unintelligent? Or just both?

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Perhaps misguided would be a better word

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Not really. I use mine as a home office with spreadsheets, statistical analysis software, word processing and radiology DICOM file viewers. I use a Mac because its reliable and because if I bought a PC I would have had to pay thousands of pounds for a DICOM viewer software that I get for free with the Apple. Which of those bits is a fashion accessory? The time I used to spend sorting out my PC which kept crashing is now time I can use working, that in itself is invaluable.

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Just out of interest what do you do for a job? I googled DICOM viewer and it seems to be radiological? Also seem to be free versions for PC's as well. Mac's aren't immune to crashes, Caroline's sister in law got a 27" iMac for Christmas and tbh it was being a bit fruity (Apple have had widespread issues with the screens on these two), a good PC though shouldn't crash.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

I don't disagree that the tech specs are not those of an ebook, yet that is where marketing comes in isn't it. Buy an iPad and download books straight from your favourite publisher at the click of a mouse. Many people don't know about the Sony or the Kindle, they will know about the iPad whether through advertising or sheer hype. Whether the iPad is easier to read off (I agree it probably won't be) is a secondary concern when it comes to selling. But then, can you view video on a Kindle? How about music?

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I agree with you and whilst that's where Apple are good you have to admit it's also a bit crap. They're advertising the iPad as this fantastic reader when really it's actually not as good as other devices or indeed a laptop or netbook.

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Originally Posted by Mark

What will likely happen, as with the iPod that Apple will tie up suppliers into contracts so the only decent e-books will require you to get an iPad and the superior Kindle won't have much left to it.

No you can't view video on the Kindle, but it's supposed to emulate a book experience as closely as possible, so why would you?

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Absolutely, the iPad's technical specs will be a secondary concern. Apple's contracts with publishers will be of greater importance than the technical specs of the iPad itself.

No, if you just want an electronic book then you don't need video but imagine looking at the two products side by side in a shop. Buy the Kindle and you have a perfectly good ebook but only an ebook, spend that little bit more and you get something you can view video etc etc on as well as an ebook.

Its the same marketing concept as for SUVs. Why buy a Mondeo which merely gets you from A to B in comfort when you could get an X5 which does the same, is slightly worse on road where you'll be 99-100% of the time but much better off road where you'll be 0-1% of the time and in your dreams. People still end up buying the latter.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Just out of interest what do you do for a job? I googled DICOM viewer and it seems to be radiological? Also seem to be free versions for PC's as well.

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Yes I'm a radiologist. And no when I bought my powermac 5 years ago there weren't any free PC versions. They've only come onto the market in the past year or two, too late as most radiologists seem to have switched to Apple already.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Mac's aren't immune to crashes, Caroline's sister in law got a 27" iMac for Christmas and tbh it was being a bit fruity (Apple have had widespread issues with the screens on these two), a good PC though shouldn't crash.

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Clearly standards have dropped since they started letting Macs boot up Windows ;) Yours sounds like a hardware problem rather than a software issue.

PCs may have become more reliable of late but my Mac just never goes wrong. I have no need to gamble by seeing whether PCs have caught up in the stability stakes.

Recently my fiancee and mother both bought new laptops for the same price, a Dell and a Macbook. The latter takes just over a minute to boot up and be useable, the PC nearly four/five minutes. The Mac hooks up to the wireless seamlessly once the code is put in, the PC procrastinates. Both were straight out of the box so just as the manufacturer intended. Experiences like that merely reinforce my opinion that PCs are literally a waste of time, not something I can afford.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Absolutely, the iPad's technical specs will be a secondary concern. Apple's contracts with publishers will be of greater importance than the technical specs of the iPad itself.

No, if you just want an electronic book then you don't need video but imagine looking at the two products side by side in a shop. Buy the Kindle and you have a perfectly good ebook but only an ebook, spend that little bit more and you get something you can view video etc etc on as well as an ebook.

Its the same marketing concept as for SUVs. Why buy a Mondeo which merely gets you from A to B in comfort when you could get an X5 which does the same, is slightly worse on road where you'll be 99-100% of the time but much better off road where you'll be 0-1% of the time and in your dreams. People still end up buying the latter.

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So essentially you're (in a sense) basically advocating the misselling of a product to customers.

Why buy a kindle which will do what you want, buy an iPad which won't do what you want well, but it'll do lots of other stuff which you probably already have things to do anyway. Back a few years ago technology was all about convergence and getting all the functionality into one product, are you saying that we should start owning tonnes of things which do the same thing and carrying them around with us all at the same time? :confused:

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Originally Posted by Daniel

So essentially you're (in a sense) basically advocating the misselling of a product to customers.

Why buy a kindle which will do what you want, buy an iPad which won't do what you want well, but it'll do lots of other stuff which you probably already have things to do anyway. Back a few years ago technology was all about convergence and getting all the functionality into one product, are you saying that we should start owning tonnes of things which do the same thing and carrying them around with us all at the same time? :confused:

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No I don't. I believe people should be free to sell what they want, how they want.

People are free to make the decisions they want to when they buy stuff, and I believe that when people see a Kindle next to an iPad many people will go for the latter because of the extra gadgets and the better publisher support. Many will clearly stick with the Kindle because of its better reading screen too, but to state that the iPad is destined to be a failure seems just a little 'misguided' at this point.

And no I'm not suggesting that people will be buying both, quite the opposite. The iPad offers convergence, a tablet that can do more than merely present books. As you said yourself its a jack of all trades, a master of none and past history suggests that that kind of product tends to win over something that is good at just one thing.

Brace yourselves for a revolution...

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Yes I'm a radiologist. And no when I bought my powermac 5 years ago there weren't any free PC versions. They've only come onto the market in the past year or two, too late as most radiologists seem to have switched to Apple already.

Clearly standards have dropped since they started letting Macs boot up Windows ;) Yours sounds like a hardware problem rather than a software issue.

PCs may have become more reliable of late but my Mac just never goes wrong. I have no need to gamble by seeing whether PCs have caught up in the stability stakes.

Recently my fiancee and mother both bought new laptops for the same price, a Dell and a Macbook. The latter takes just over a minute to boot up and be useable, the PC nearly four/five minutes. The Mac hooks up to the wireless seamlessly once the code is put in, the PC procrastinates. Both were straight out of the box so just as the manufacturer intended. Experiences like that merely reinforce my opinion that PCs are literally a waste of time, not something I can afford.

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Of course, I've always said that Mac's do make sense for some people. If you have to pay thousands for something you get with a Mac for free then you're an idiot not to go with a Mac.

The problem with PC's is that they're a lot of rubbish hardware out there. I build my own PC's and only choose the finest cuts (oh wait it sounds like an ad for premium cat food :p ) I mean best parts I can afford and I've not had a hardware failure for a good 4 years though to be fair the issues I had back in Australia were all heat related as the room my PC was in was always very hot in summer.

Laptops are a problem, quite often a lot of crap gets bundled with them which slows them down. Remove the crap and the PC will go a lot faster. Download lots of needless crap for your Mac and it'll suffer too ;)

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Clearly standards have dropped since they started letting Macs boot up Windows ;) Yours sounds like a hardware problem rather than a software issue.

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Sorry if I was unclear, her screen wasn't yellow but many people have reported it as a problem. Her problem seemed more software tbh.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

No I don't. I believe people should be free to sell what they want, how they want.

People are free to make the decisions they want to when they buy stuff, and I believe that when people see a Kindle next to an iPad many people will go for the latter because of the extra gadgets and the better publisher support. Many will clearly stick with the Kindle because of its better reading screen too, but to state that the iPad is destined to be a failure seems just a little 'misguided' at this point.

And no I'm not suggesting that people will be buying both, quite the opposite. The iPad offers convergence, a tablet that can do more than merely present books. As you said yourself its a jack of all trades, a master of none and past history suggests that that kind of product tends to win over something that is good at just one thing.

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Don't get me wrong, it's a neat bit of tech. But it's the solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Of course if someone sees the Kindle and the iPad next to each other they're gonna go for the iPad but if they want a good reader they're misguided. Some things are best done by a dedicated device. For instance phone cameras are years and years away from catching up to compact cameras let alone DSLR.

The iPhone sold well because it was a flashy and seemingly innovative replacement for people's previous phones. But the iPad is trying to carve out a new market and trying to kill off readers and netbooks and I just don't see that working because the readers are actually pretty decent and people like netbooks. The air is a commercial failure by Apple standards, it solves the problem that no one had which is "My laptop needs to be stupidly thin, expensive and needs to be tied to a dock to have any decent amount of connectors", then there's Apple TV which doesn't appear to be taking off anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by schmenke

Brace yourselves for a revolution...

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you just had to go there, didn't you... :p

A very good explination of just what the iPad (*snicker* :p : ) was meant to be...

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/app...sole,9525.html