MacDailyNews Take:

Jobs sent not his iPad into the world to condemn the computer; but that the computer through iPad might be saved.

It’s not even on sale yet, but the iPad has become everything to everybody. To the geeks the iPad is a big yawn. To the fan boys the iPad is better than antibiotics. To the medical profession the iPad may prove to be a double barreled savior. Doctors can use the iPad in their practice, and the iPad may promote bad posture, leading to poor health, leading to more visits to the doctor.

Dr. David Rempel in TechNewsDaily. The iPad…

...creates a wonderful opportunity in terms of mobility and ease of interaction… [it] poses a similar type of musculoskeletal problems as the laptop. Working on a laptop for long periods of time puts a heavy load on a user’s neck and upper back, causing fatigue and pain. Large U.S.-based companies that shifted their workforce away from desktops to laptops to increase productivity found their workers suffered from more neck and back problems.

In other words, the iPad is bad for your posture.

Charlie Rose featured the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, and The New York Time’s David Carr for 23 minutes of iPad discussion. The money quote came from David Carr on how Amazon’s Kindle compares to Apple’s iPad:

It looked like something the Mennonites made 150 years ago.

Priceless.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch on Open Access to Content and Applications: A Translation.

Some have been surprised at the lack of inclusion of Flash Player on a recent magical device.

Apple is out to screw us. Surprised?

Flash has been incredibly successful in its adoption, with over 85% of the top web sites containing Flash content and Flash running on over 98% of computers on the Web.

Don’t tell anyone that Flash usage is dropping all over the place.

We are now on the verge of delivering Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones with all but one of the top manufacturers.

If everyone follows Apple’s lead, we’re screwed.

This includes Google’s Android, RIM’s Blackberry, Nokia, Palm Pre and many others across form factors… Flash in the browser provides a competitive advantage to these devices because it will enable their customers to browse the whole Web.

Of course, most mobile device users browse the web using an iPhone and Safari, but still…

Some point to HTML as eventually supplanting the need for Flash, particularly with the more recent developments coming in HTML with version 5.

Gawd I hope not. Can’t we all just get along?

So, what about Flash running on Apple devices?... We are ready to enable Flash in the browser on these devices if and when Apple chooses to allow that for its users, but to date we have not had the required cooperation from Apple to make this happen.

Why won’t Steve return my calls? I leave a message every day. Are we sure that’s the right phone number? Hello?

Our mission at Adobe is to revolutionize how people engage with ideas and information, and we focus daily on how to best empower designers and developers to express themselves most fully and creatively. To have the greatest creative control combined with the most productive tools and broadest ability to deploy their content and applications.

Blah, blah, blah, blah (are they buying this yet?)... Blah, blah, blah, blah, (are they still paying attention?)... Blah, blah, blah…

We strongly believe the Web should remain an open environment with consistent access to content and applications regardless of your viewing device.

By open environment, we mean use Flash instead of anything else.

If Apple designed a coffee mug, what would it look like? Presenting, the iMug from Savage Chickens.

I’d buy one.

Who do you believe? AT&T? Or, SlingMedia? Ars reports that AT&T approved a version of the Sling Media player for the iPhone to run on AT&T’s 3G network:

“Sling Media was willing to work with us to revise the app to make it more bandwidth sensitive,” AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said in a statement. “They made important changes to more efficiently use 3G network bandwidth and conserve wireless spectrum so that we were able to support the app on our 3G mobile broadband network.”

Sounds like a nice little relationship you’ve got going there, Ralph. What does Sling Media’s John Santoro say?

“We didn’t change anything,” Sling Media’s John Santoro told Ars. “AT&T never discussed any specific requirements with us.”

It’s so difficult to know who to believe these days.

What’s the one thing in common with all early adopters? They get screwed when the second generation device hits the streets. More features, fewer bugs, lower price tag. Ernie Varitimos in Apple Investor walks through all his early adopter Apple purchases, starting with the Apple IIe, the Lisa, a 128k Mac, all the way down to the iPhone. Now, the iPad cometh—without a camera.

Look, I know that early adopters nearly always get screwed, it’s the hazards of our obsession. But at some point, you’ve got to wonder if the company you love is calculating just how much they can screw you before you cry foul. Unfortunately, it looks like some Apple loonians are willing to be screwed over and over again. I think I’ll wait for the camera version this time.

Sigh. I’m torn between jumping in with both feet, or maintaining some discipline and waiting for the camera version of the iPad.

One of the main problems with many technology writers is that they don’t understand the technology they write about. Hit whore extraordinaire Nick Farrell of the Inquirer:

IF YOU BELIEVE Apple’s marketing then you would think that the expensive fruity machines are more secure than PCs.

Nick doesn’t get out much. Apple seldom says anything about Mac security and only points out the facts about Windows security. Did I mention that 99.99 percent of all exploited vulnerabilities occur on Windows PCs? Nick and the hacks at the Inquirer didn’t know that.

After all, most of the viruses out there are designed for the PC and Apple users hardly suffer from the problem.

Nick, that’s true. I wonder why?

But this line of reasoning does not influence corporate IT managers who, were it true, would be trying to stave off hackers by installing shedloads of Apple gear. However that’s not the case. Most tell us that even if Apple gear was half the price it’s just security by obscurity. A determined hacker who wanted to get into corporate systems would be though it like a knife through butter.

Amusing, but totally false. Just like the old security by obscurity myth, perpetuated by clueless writers who don’t know anything about facts, but love to stir up fear, uncertainty, and doubt to get more visitors to their web sites. Just like anti-virus software makers stir up fear, uncertainty, and doubt to get more customers.

The Mac ships with more exploitable vulnerabilities already on a system when it is delivered. Further, Eric Johanson, a security researcher pointed out that the Mac OS X has far more published vulnerabilities per user than Windows.

Spreading falsehoods seems to be a Inquirer personality trait. If Mac OS X has all those exploited vulnerabilities, then why doesn’t someone use them? Oh, it’s that age old Inquirer problem with facts, right? Vulnerabilities do not exploited make. Since there are no facts to back up the Inquirer’s typically outlandish rubbish, what about plain old slurs?

The cappuccino company’s mindset, however, while reinforcing the myth of indestructibility of OS X, means that Apple users will be exposed much longer than Microsoft. A hacker can go to the web and find a list of vulnerabilities which are months old and be secure in the knowledge that they are less likely to be patched.

Nick never disappoints. Apple, the $180-billion cappuccino company with the hottest technology stock and products and with more money in the bank than Microsoft is a fruity, cappuccino company. What will it take to satisfy the Inquirer’s cravings for legitimacy as a readable rag?

One enterprising malware writer to pen an interesting bit of code that installs itself on a Mac, sniffs address books for friends with other Macs and works out the way to distribute itself to them too. It is not a huge technology challenge and when it is designed then Macs will fall over all over the world.

Funny. We’ve heard that same story for nearly 10 years.

For whatever the reason, malware writers don’t have much success against Mac OS X. It must be that the 120-million OS X users are not an attractive target. Or, maybe malware writers prefer Windows because it’s so much easier. Or, maybe malware writers don’t want the notoriety and fame associated with becoming the first to reall knock down Apple.

Uh huh. Right.

Goodbye Nick. Goodbye Inquirer. You’re not wearing any clothes and all the world can see your limp journalistic credentials. It’s not a pretty sight.

Last week I watched the video of Steve Jobs’ iPad presentation. He looked healthier. After that, my attention was focused on the iPad. Frank Cioffi in MDN:

It’s interesting that very few journalists or bloggers noticed that Apple’s CEO appeared much healthier at last week’s iPad announcement. It was clear, at least to me, that he’s gained some weight. Not a lot, but noticeable.

Welcome back, Steve. A little Haagen-Dazs is good for the soul.

Sir Patrick Stewart—Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek TNG, and Charles Xavier of X-Men movies—loves his iPhone. iPhone savior video:

I just handed someone my beautiful iPhone, which is never out of my hand, and that I do everything with, and has become an extension of who I am.

But he doesn’t like Twitter.

The best article so far on the iPad’s impact; by Dan Moren in Macworld:

Like hot rodders, techies wear their tweaks and optimizations as badges of honor. To me, that’s the chief distinction between power users and your average user: power users adapt computers to the way they work, instead of adapting the way they work to computers.

Money quote:

Much of the negative response to the iPad seems filled with anger—which, as Yoda adroitly pointed out, stems from fear—and it mostly comes from the kind of power users who like dealing with the underpinnings.

For a few decades personal computing has been mostly an evolution. Touch is the revolution.

Sometimes this is just too easy. Galen Gruman in InfoWorld:

The iPad makes the iPhone—Apple’s game-changing technology of 2007, whose impact still reverberates through the wireless, mobile, and computing industries—obsolete. And as the iPhone fades away as a short-lived marvel, so too will disappear the mobile Web.

So, instead of a smart phone which fits neatly into pocket or purse, we’ll saddle our mobility ambitions with a 1.5 pound device that isn’t a phone?

The iPhone is a bad phone and a brilliant but now-old-school media device. The iPad doesn’t make or receive calls. So what? Face it: As cool as it is to use an iPhone to surf the Web, check e-mail, play games, and run apps, it’ll be cooler and more productive on an iPad.

Except for not being as mobile, of course. Oh, and not being a phone. Hang on. It gets worse:

I suspect most iPhone users won’t renew their current data service plans with AT&T when they expire. They will instead get a cheap, reliable regular phone—and won’t miss the iPhone.

But consider how quickly the iPhone changed the paradigm for the Web and for smartphones. I believe the iPad will have just as dramatic and short-term effects. Only this time, it’s the iPhone that will look out of date. And forget about the wannabes like the Palm Pre and the various Android devices. They’re walking dead now.

They didn’t get very far. Let me recap. Galen is saying that the iPad is so cool that we’ll give up our iPhones (which fit in the pocket) and jump on board Apple’s newer gravy train because, well, the iPad is cool. Oh, and the iPad with 3G is less expensive than the iPhone. Is that it?

You may think I’m nuts to expect such a dramatic change in the iPhone’s position. But I’m serious. It was only three years ago that the iPhone up-ended the mobile market, making once-vaunted devices like the BlackBerry suddenly look like creaky old DOS systems.

You’re right. I think you’re nuts.

As usual, the Comments section of Galen’s ridiculous premise is where the real thinking is:

• I’ll ditch my iPhone for an iPad just as soon as my grandmother finishes sewing 12 inch pockets on all my shirts.
• Either sales of “manbags” are going to skyrocket, or Apple has missed. Invest accordingly.
• I will never ever (ever) use any device that requires me to carry a man-purse.
• Has anyone dropped this thing yet? This thing may be a little too large for everyday/mobile use.

The whole idea is laughable. Galen’s an idiot. Shame on InfoWorld for publishing the nonsense. It must be a slow news day. More of Galen’s idiocy here.

What impact has Windows 7 had on the Mac’s sales and market share gains? Not much, according to Joe Wilcox in BetaNews:

Windows 7 did little to slow the Mac’s sales trajectory during fourth quarter, according to NPD. Year over year, Apple doubled US retail unit share—from 5 percent to 10 percent—for PCs selling between $500 and $1,000. More startling, Apple increased its unit share from 79 percent to 90 percent in the market for “premium” PCs, meaning those selling for more than $1,000.

With the iPad, is Apple venturing more strongly in the $500 to $1,000 segment? Yes.

Like the iPad’s iBooks bookshelf? It looks like books on a bookshelf. Delicious Library’s Wil Shipley in The Inquirer:

I guess it’s not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product’s look. Flattery?

So, Shipley is miffed at Apple because the iBooks bookshelf looks like the bookshelf in Delicious Library. Oh, the irony.

The bookshelf view in Ibooks (sic) is nearly identical to the main bookshelf view used in Delicious Library. Not only that, Apple liked it and gave it the Apple Design Award twice, and made it a runner-up one other time.

So, I’m officially on record as being miffed at Wil Shipley because he stole the look and feel of my library bookshelf. Then again…

Of course now it could say that the whole thing is just a coincidence as one bookshelf looks much the same as any other.

It’s not so much coincidence as it is common sense. That’s how bookshelves look. Delicious Library didn’t invent the look and feel of books on a bookshelf. Nick Farrell:

Still, it is another nail in the coffin for fanbois who believe that Apple is the only creator of anything original out there.

Who says such things? “Nail in the coffin?” Of what? Walter Cronkite, where are you when we need you?

Remember Alvin Toffler’s book, Future Shock?

Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society”. This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation” – future shocked.

Fraser Speirs on Future Shock, iPad style.

What you’re seeing in the industry’s reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock. For years we’ve all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the ‘average person’. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.

And:

Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn’t a price worth paying to have a computer that isn’t frightening anymore.

In the meantime, Adobe and Microsoft will continue to stamp their feet and whine.

Apple’s iPad comes in two versions. Wi-Fi. Or, Wi-Fi plus 3G. In the US that means using AT&T’s problematic 3G network. Jenna Wortham in NYT’s Bits:

Buyers of the iPad will grapple with the question of whether spending the extra cash for a model outfitted for wireless data over AT&T’s overtaxed network will be worth it.

AT&T’s response? Spokesman John Stankey:

We’ve got an aggressive plan to benefit everyone

We’ll see. Start with Manhattan, please.

Brian Caulfield on Forbes:

Does the gigantic iPod iPad have USB ports? No. Flash support? No. HDMI output? No. SD Card slot? No. Can it run several different third-party apps at once? No. Will you ever need to clean the registry and defragment the hard drive? No. The iPad sounds silly if you’re shopping based on features and specifications.

Add to that no viruses, no malware, no complex anything. The money quote:

Make a PC really small and it kind of sucks. Make an iPod really big, however, and it’s kind of great.

If you tried to visit the various and sundry web sites covering Apple’s iPad announcement, you likely ran into a few delays. JR Raphael, PC World:

Both Engadget and Gizmodo, two of the Web’s biggest tech blogs, were inaccessible during parts of the Apple event, according to user reports on Twitter and other places. Web broadcaster Leo Laporte’s live audio stream of the event is also said to have crashed during the iPad’s introduction.

What an event.