Rubénerd!

Adobe has responded to the lack of Flash on the new iPad, that Apple tablet device thingy if you haven't heard of it because you were teleported into the future or have been asleep for a few days.

[...] without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

Three observations I'll observe (observe observations, no, really?) in rapid-fire succession. One, where did they get those suspect figures from? Two, I was unaware YouTube accounted for less than 25% of online video. Three, 98% of irritating online advertisements and 90% of browser crashes are the fault of Flash which they conveniently failed to mention. Four, I created those numbers out of thin air much like I suspect they did. Those were four observations, but number one and four were related you see.

This morning I defended Apple's decision to not include Flash and compared it to Google deciding to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6. So far I haven't had any angry replies to it yet, perhaps it's the timezone difference.

Of all the criticisms of the iPad that have been thrown around since it's launch barely a few days ago, the loudest seems to be the lack of Flash support. I'm going to get into trouble with a lot of people for saying this, but I consider it a feature, and on par with Google ditching support for Internet Explorer 6 on some of their sites.

Flash never liked Apple anyway

It's no secret Adobe has let Flash languish on the Mac for a long, long time, and they don't even acknowledge the existence of operating systems other than Windows, Mac or 32bit Linux (last time I checked a few years ago even 64bit Linux versions were unavailable). On my non-Mac machines that all run FreeBSD, if I wanted to view Flash content I needed to run the Linux version of Flash using the binary compatibility layer, and even then it was buggy even by Flash's poor standards. As a result I started avoiding sites that use Flash, and now I don't use it. Period.

In high school in 2004 I remember working closely with a guy a few grades below me on a site for the school newspaper and he insisted we use Flash. Even then despite the lack of HTML5 I loathed it because sites rendered in it were confusing, broke basic browser behaviour, didn't index properly and were more often than not ugly as heck. To be fair I levelled the same criticisms against Ajax sites back in 2007, but at least in those cases Ajax doesn't rely on a closed, slow, buggy plugin that is bad enough on the desktop let alone a portable tablet device, and the situation has since improved.

Flash must die!

Then of course there are the security and privacy concerns with Flash that the mainstream media and most pundits are refusing to discuss or even acknowledge. Flash cookies in particular are an extremely nasty invasion of privacy that intentionally and misleadingly sidestep all the preferences users have set with regards to sites remembering information about them. It's like somebody finiding a loophole in your restraining order against them that says they can photograph you from their car provided they use film instead of memory cards and wear a Neelix mask.

I like Apple products because they're simple, elegant and just work, but I'm not afraid to call them out when they do something silly. There are a lot of silly things about this iPad, but one of them is not the lack of Flash support.

If anything I applaud Apple for taking a stand by not putting Flash in their iPhone OS in much the same way I applaud Google for no longer supporting Internet Explorer 6 on many of their sites. Replace many of the arguments people make about the iPad and Flash with Google and Internet Explorer 6 (Apple should make it an option, some sites still need it) and the argument quickly falls apart, or at the very least develops some serious cracks in their credibility.

Sidenotes at the... bottom

One sidenote of note (hah!), how would a dodgy Flash application that requires a mouse to hover over it to reveal aspects of its hidden interface and/or to accept input work on a multi touch interface, without a mouse? It makes no sense.

Sidenote two, more of an observation: the stigma attached to sites that not only use Flash but require it to function has existed for a long time now -- I still remember people in 2000 complaining about sites that required Flash and without an alternative.

And as another sidenote, does anyone else find it ironic that many of the people complaining the iPad doesn't have Flash are also the ones who say the iPad is too "closed"? Double standards much? Double standards sounds like a great name for a pastry shop that sells savoury cakes.

I'm done ranting now, whew! Time to have a cup of green tea.

As I sit here on my ThinkPad X40 running Fedora 12 drinking a piping hot Americano in Millenia Walk I'm attempting to make sense of the announcements made thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the planet and their potential ramifications. How's that for a fluffy, pointless introduction?

Okay cutting through the crap, Apple's iPad is all anyone is talking about, so I decided to add my voice to the seething mass of discussion.

Hypermegaglobalmart

At first glance that word looks like I was trying to put the word Gaga into it. Caught in a bad romaaaaaance! Good heavens I was singing Lady Gaga, this is not a good sign.

As with any Apple announcement, the event often eclipses the product they're introducing. People frantically stay glued to their computer screens watching the event and posting their live thoughts, people like me in other parts of the world stay up into the inhospitable hours of the morning to watch grainy photos being posted of The Steve's presentational prowess.

I remarked a few days ago on Twitter that I hadn't seen too many tweets and blog posts by people saying "OMG I don't care about Apple! Stop talking about the tablet lolz!!!1!!one!" and fortunately these people (who seemingly don't get the irony of their posts) still constitute a minority of the discussion.

Initial reaction (would that be "R"?)

Firstly I've got to be brutally honest and admit I was expecting more. I can't quantify what that means exactly, but when I first saw the presentation for the iPhone I was blown away by how fresh and original it was; to me so far the iPad just looks like a bigger iPod Touch with slick apps.

On the flipside, it really says something about Apple design that something so beautiful and functional could be considered passe. Nothing to see here, it's just a huge iPod Touch/iPhone! Well yes, but imagine showing this to someone who had never seen an iPhone or iPod Touch before. Imagine if Apple had ceased to exist as per Michael Dell's prediction and we were still in the stagnant 90s? Hate or love Apple, but you can't deny their impact on the industry; everyone from Google with Android to Microsoft with the Zune and Windows Aero want to work like Apple products.

I'm still worried the market for this device could be too small as per my previous post, but that's not to say I don't want one!

I'm also reserving discussion as to it's "walled garden-ness" for a future post because I could easily write pages (heh pun) on it and this post is already far too long. Suffice to say for now, it's not "open", but it's not "closed" either.

Hardware sounds like a girder proof helmet

With devices like this I don't like to pass judgement until after I've used them, otherwise you end up with people comparing devices based on silly benchmarks and tables of features that mean bugger all in the context of practical usability (we've all dealt with people who argue this way). What I can do though is talk about some of the specific details.

DISPLAY -- People seem to hate the 1024x768 idea, and while I think the res is a bit too low, the aspect ratio was a smart move by being squarer the horizontal keyboard doesn't take up too much of the display. I'm extremely impressed that its an IPS display, and I'm relieved they didn't use OLED (uneven colour fading, terrible in daylight). If I had this tablet, I'd use it on the balcony with a cup of coffee you see :).

EINK -- Having used eInk devices, their irritating screen flashes, slow refresh speeds (especially if you scroll) and a lack of a backlight (biggest ugh) outweigh any subjective difference in quality. I find reading on my iPhone when I'm curled up in bed with a subtle backlight and larger fonts (albeit with more page turns) preferable, but I suppose it comes down to user preference. Frankly I don't like carrying around too many devices, so each has to justify their existence in my bag and a plain eBook reader just can't do that for me. An iPad would.

PORTS -- Ugh, adaptors.

APPLE A4 -- A custom, system on a chip built in house? Far more interesting than people are giving it credit for. Will be posting more.

INTERFACE -- From what I saw in the demos and in the provided screenshots it looks stunning, and if it's as fast as it's made out to be it looks like it would be a real pleasure to use. The difference is the same as the difference between a dodgy Windows Flavour X and the surprisingly slick Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The bundled applications are gorgeous and even more I can't wait to see how third party developers take advantage of it.

ETYMOLOGY -- I thought the name sounded like a Star Trek Next Generation prop, but my sister said the name sounds like a brand of women's sanitary products which is now stuck in my head too! I hope this will change as I get used to it. I was hoping they'd recycle the iBook moniker for it not just for the book store because I used and adored my iBook in high school. Was dual booted with Panther and NetBSD :).

BOOKS -- Only available in the US is a bummer, but with the glacial rate old media companies move I'm not surprised. Kudos for using the ePub format, MEGA kudos.

OTHER THOUGHTS -- Has 13 letters.

I've already got some fantastic comments on my previous iPad speculation post, but feel free to add more :).

There has been more talk about the rumoured Apple iTablet / iSlate / iPad / iThingy than the second coming of a non existant deity or a certain iTelephone device. There's probably little more I could add that hasn't already been said, but I'm going to have fun doing it anyway. As a matter of disclosure, some of my computers are Macs and I have an iPhone.

Why did I put a picture of an old MacBook Pro and not the current one? Because it's the venerable Apple companion I have, albeit with Snow Leopard now! Isn't that sweet? No, it's because there aren't any photos of a darn Apple tablet yet! The Bird is The Word! But I digress (no, really?).

Fanboyism might be showing

As Apple has repeatedly (repeatedly? repeatedly) demonstrated with their Mac, iPod and iPhone ecosystems, they have the uncanny ability to take products that already exist in some rudimentary form (GUIs, portable media players, smart phones) and completely rethink their designs, functions and interfaces from the ground up with no preconceptions as to how such products are "supposed" to look and work. Very few other companies take such revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary approach.

The result of such efforts are software and hardware products that other consumer electronic companies are desperate to duplicate. It took Microsoft 10 years to broadly duplicate the Mac OS interface, it took Google's Android two to three years to broadly emulate the iPhone (depending on which hardware supplier you support), and Microsoft has only just announced WiMo7 which will be released later this year to offer the same functions as a product released years ago. These are but three examples from two companies, the industry is littered with plenty more we could both name.

The problem with this approach is you can never be ahead if your product is designed to be the "killer" for something. Anyone can imitate another product, but during the time competitors are struggling to do so, Apple can rake in the money with something nobody else has, and by the time competitors have created their "iDevice killer" Apple has moved on to something else.

Market looks like a French word,
pronounced Markey, like Ballet. Never mind.

I belabour all that fanboyism to voice my worries about this Apple tablet whatsit. The point I was trying to make was that Apple has the uncanny ability to see new future markets where traditionally other players have had difficulty; for example before the iPhone smartphones were largely limited to business users.

With all that said though, I do have to admit I just don't see enough of a market for tablets. Whereas Macs, iPods and iPhones have broad appeal, a tablet computer running either a scaled down desktop OS X or a scaled up mobile OS X seems like too much of a niche.

I'll be interested to see if Apple positions their rumoured tablet as a replacement for notebook computers entirely, or perhaps during the presentation Steve will make a mockery of netbooks and how their keyboards and screens are terrible. In the former case though, I don't see too many people ditching laptops with proper keyboards for a tablet, and in the latter people who buy netbooks won't want to pony up three times the price for an Apple equivilant.

I've written in great lengths here about my dad's adventures with his awful Fujitsu Windows XP tablet PC (pictured above) that's really only a "tablet" in name only, the failure of the CrunchPad (pictured further above), and how I was disappointed because I'd love to have a tablet form factor machine to complement my heavy MacBook Pro and my ThinkPad X40 that I use as a "good" netbook. I'm under no illusions though that my dad and I aren't fringe cases, at least in the current market.

Did I mention I hope I'm wrong?

I really, really, really hope I'm wrong, and I've gone to great lengths to discuss how Apple seems to be able to predict (and in many cases create) demand for new products that didn't exist before, but aside from the tech elite and nerds I can't see something like an Apple tablet taking off in the general market place.

Of all Apple's stellar success stories, this project could end up being the next AppleTV or PowerMac G4 Cube: elegant products that are well executed but that failed to capture the public's interest. Unlike those other two products though, the Apple tablet has generated so much foaming at the mouth and rabid excitement that if it fails in the market I fear it would be a PR catastrophe. Much like "Sidekicked" now refers to data cloud #fail, could iSlate or iTablet become a milestone for when Apple really dropped the ball for the first time since Jobs came back?

I hope it's a success so that years from now I can look back at this post and poke fun at my short-sightedness. Do you use a hyphen for that word? If it does fail though, at least I can take some small comfort from the fact I'd worried about it out loud on my blog already. Wait, that's a terrible thing to say, never mind.