IPad Mini

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

plenty of business still running windows xp on a large scale, windows 7 will be around for another 10 years I think

ultimately, their business customers will decide for how long MS have to support their operating systems, and as many are still failing to see why they should jump from XP to 7, the jump from 7 to 8 is an impossible sell at the moment

until touchscreen monitors are on every desktop, or you can centrally GPO metro off, companies just won't get involved

-edit- sorry, this is inappropriate for an ipad thread

[KLG-7A]

I'm betting £10 that within the next few days there will be a clarification on the Windows 7 service pack thing.

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Hopefully we'll learn whether they've finally made it compatible with Chip's Challenge.

[biggytitbo]

The ipad mini is a curious beast. Lower powered hardware than the competition for more money. They made a big deal about the increased screen size over the other 7 inch tablets, which appears to miss the point that they're meant to be smaller. If you want a bigger screen get an ipad.


As for Windows 8, I've had a play with it and whilst it would clearly have been better if they'd let users completely switch between the two UIs, everything else about it is better than windows 7 (which is already far superior to OSX). Plus it does something unthinkable for Microsoft, it uses less memory and system resources than the previous version, which does make it a more viable upgrade than it would be for many who run older hardware.

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

Windows 7 certainly started a nice trend of working better on older hardware than the preceding OS version, Windows 8 has carried that on from what I can see

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I literally have no idea what an iPad of any size exists for. Or any tablet for that matter. These days a decent smartphone will take care of everything on the go, and a decent laptop will take care of other stuff. I see the point in an e-reader but not an iPod, and Apple are taking the absolute piss with this stupid new mini product.

I've probably answered this before, but for me a tablet is the best kind of .pdf reader.  E-readers are great for books you buy from their personal stores, but they're crap for .pdfs, which are essentially photocopies of books and shrunk down impossibly small on those tiny screens.  Zooming in and moving about on the pages of .pdfs can't be done intuitively or quickly on an e-reader, and a tablet lets you do these things in a way that's much more comfortable than a laptop.  A smartphone is far too small for this.

£500 for a pdf reader might sound mad, but most of the obscure books I buy cost between £15 and £30, and in the last ten years or so I've spent several thousands on them.  In the last year I've found tons of these and others in .pdf form online, free and possibly illegal, but there they are.  Having filled my iPad with these I can open and annotate them with Adobe Reader and it's great.  It feels like good value for that.

I suppose it's like any of these things - I don't drive but lots of people can justify owning a car and all the costs attached to one.  To me £500 is a pinch for a device that's holding £1000s of books.


I agree with you on the different sized versions that these companies are trying to tell us we need, though.  The pitch is becoming more and more strained, and at some point even the blindest consumers of these products will have to wake up.  Barmy.

[Puffin Chunks]

The ipad mini is a curious beast. Lower powered hardware than the competition for more money.

I had hoped that my peers would start to wise up to Apple's overpriced and cynical business model. I'm obviously being naive though if my facebook wall is anything to go by. I'll say this for Apple, they know how to keep their customers loyal.

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I had hoped that my peers would start to wise up to Apple's overpriced and cynical business model. I'm obviously being naive though if my facebook wall is anything to go by. I'll say this for Apple, they know how to keep their customers loyal.

Little things are chipping away at that though.  I've a friend whose computers have only ever been Apple, and who's been a firm supporter of iPhones since they came out, and when I heard him wonder recently whether he may eventually have to go Android, I was surprised.  The iOS 6 Maps cock-up is a massive blunder, and something of a wake-up call for many.  I think all of these companies - not just Apple - are great at selling crap as long as they stay below the bullshit threshold, which they are of course raising over time.  The problem is when they cross that line prematurely, or in the case of iOS 6 Maps, when they fail to reach the standard of bullshit that customers have grown accustomed to.

I think a lot of people never appreciated how better placed Google were to deal with things that need to be encyclopaedic like maps.  I can't see Apple regaining the ground they need in that area without getting back with them, frankly.

[Puffin Chunks]

True.

I think one of the real issues is that Apple make it so hard to transfer all your iTunes purchases/iCloud items over to another platform (and I worry that Windows Mobile is going to go this way with the Zune store), that most Apple users will stick with iPhone/iPad etc. because it IS easier.

The maps is certainly a misstep, but I think it's going to be a while before we reach a tipping point, and if Apple are sensible (and whatever you level at Apple, you cannot say that they haven't been clever) they will learn from these mistakes.

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If they keep up a certain standard that's true, but there's an impression that with Steve Jobs gone they might not.

I think my friend wondering whether he might cross the floor to Android says a lot, because he does have a lot of applications bought from the Apple Store, and it suggests to me where the line might be before people switch.  Apple can't make many more mistakes before their customers feel that continuing with them amounts to throwing good money after bad.


It's subtle other things, as well.  My iPhone 4S has a solid weight to it, whereas the iPhone 5 hasn't distinguished itself in this way from (for example) Samsung handsets.  It's thinner and lighter, and feels a lot more disposable.  This kind of thing means a lot to some people (not to me, I must add).  If Apple prides itself specifically on standing out from the competition in various arbitrary ways, well it's sort of blending in with them now, instead.

[olliebean]

Frankly I'm surprised iTunes Match didn't do for them, I suppose it wasn't popular enough to have caused much upset. It's absolutely frightful; rarely gets through half a dozen songs on my iPod without failing to play at least one of them. Leaves your iPod/iPhone buggered in obscure ways if you don't turn it off in the right way after giving up on it, too.

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*jazz hands*

It just works!

[Puffin Chunks]

Haha, the amount of people who I have talked to who say to me, completely unironically "yeah, but... it just works" is ridiculous.

It used to be something which set me off, but fortunately I've learnt to reign it in a bit.

[mobias]

I'm an Apple user who's been tempted by Android. I just really like the Galaxy 3. Its big enough to actually double as a mini iPad but still small enough to use as a phone and keep in ones pocket. I think Apple missed a trick with the iPhone 5. I'm not even remotely tempted to upgrade from my iPhone 4, especially since I have one of those lovely juice packs for my iphone 4 to increase its battery life.

I still swear by Apple when it comes to desk top computers though. I've never used a computer that comes anywhere close to my lovely big 27" iMac. Personally for everyday use I fine OSX has a far more elegant and logically laid out UI design than Windows 7 although I do think Apple are beginning to unnecessarily fiddle and complicate it. Its whatever you're used to though.   

 

[Queneau]

I'm an Apple user who's been tempted by Android. I just really like the Galaxy 3. Its big enough to actually double as a mini iPad but still small enough to use as a phone and keep in ones pocket. I think Apple missed a trick with the iPhone 5. I'm not even remotely tempted to upgrade from my iPhone 4, especially since I have one of those lovely juice packs for my iphone 4 to increase its battery life.

I used to have an iPhone and was utterly sick of it by the end. The restrictions are ridiculous and it was a chore even having a custom ringtone. I did jailbreak it but that's hardly the point. I switched to a Galaxy SII over a year ago and am much happier for it. My mate has just got the SIII and I would agree about it's size. It's also very quick and a nice bit of kit. So, yes, fuck you iPhone.

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it was a chore even having a custom ringtone.

It doesn't help that the default one isn't fit for purpose.  Every few seconds there's a silence in the ringing, so if you don't know where it is it's unnecessarily difficult to find.  You get a rough sense of the direction, then have to wait, then get another rough sense of its direction and have to wait again.  If that's how GPS technology works Apple probably think that's the normal way to find phones.

Yes I know - don't put your phone down where you don't know where it is.  But you see, I need to forget where it is as part of my lifestyle - take that, Apple!

[KLG-7A]

Please conform to the lifestyle Apple has designed for you.

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Please conform to the lifestyle Apple has designed for you.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for expressing an interest in condoms that fit your penis.  The Apple design department will look into this possibility, and we hope you continue to buy Apple products in the meantime.

Yours faithfully,
Person at reception who is putting your letter in the bin

[mobias]

Apparently Apple are unable to produce the iPad mini's screens in sufficient number as to reduce the price (yet) but that may change.

Oh well its nice to see the world's richest company are being honest about blatantly passing on their manufacturing costs to the customer

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Apparently Apple are unable to produce the iPad mini's screens in sufficient number as to reduce the price (yet) but that may change.

Oh well its nice to see the world's richest company are being honest about blatantly passing on their manufacturing costs to the customer

The people assembling this shite in their dimly lit caves aren't getting a brilliant deal either, it ought to be said.