Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Apple iPad

Great post Joel (VK). I agree with your 1-6 conclusions but I'm not sold. This is just down to personal preference. I just don't see how I would use it. To me the biggest thing that's different here is the ereader capability. And as an ereader I am unsure of a backlight LCD screen being superior to the eink in the Kindle and similar products. I have a kindle and I think it very well done. I think there is some real potential with the iPad though. I absolutely agree that Crestron and AMX should be very worried- this is a better touch panel than they sell for many times the price. Some thoughts:

I think most of us are not able to see where this can go. I know I can't. I remember when the iPod came out and I thought the name was stupid and I already had a Creative Nomad MP3 player. Why would I want this. At first it was the more elegant interface- it was a better MP3 player. But it was mac only. That was limiting. Then it became available for windows as well and more people adopted it. I forget how long it took but the killer app for the iPod was the iTunes store. I was surprised by how many people bought the same content they owned on optical disc via the store just because it was easier for them to transfer it. I thought the iPhone was revolutionary when it came out and I still do think so. But this, my first gut reaction is to be a nay sayer, however, I think I know better. My gut feeling is I won't be one of the first with this one but I can see someone doing something with it that makes it all of a sudden useful.

As to the perceived oversights. My takes for whatever they are worth:

1. Camera: I do think this one was a mistake. But the counter argument is people say they want a camera but actually don't want others to see them nor want to see themselves- hence why though there are so many computers with video cameras, we still don't have anything close to universal video telephony. We've even moved more away from voice to forms of text (is that progress?!). Still I think the younger generation is really big into video chat and I think leaving the camera off has to be viewed as a mistake.

2. Multitasking. These devices CAN multitask! The standard Apple apps (phone, mail, iPod) I believe can work in the background when another is running. More correctly its the 3rd party apps that are forbidden from multitasking. I believe the reason is due to battery concerns. I hear iPhone OS 4.0 will allow multitasking for all apps. Since this is basically a big iPhone/ touch then this should get that as a software update. I think this is of moderate importance because there are those who will want to play music say from Rhapsody while browsing and they won't care about the sound quality from the tiny iPad speaker.

3. Flash. Apparently Flash is a big time performance and battery hog and it seems that there are many groups that would like it to go away in favor of an open format. I believe these groups and Apple are aligned in wanting this and I think in the end Flash is going to see a diminished role. That said, it would be nice to have Flash for web browsing today.

Finally while this is all interesting, how is this any more relevant to our discussion of things Meridian than our auto thread? I understand that upset some people and I felt it was a fun diversion. I don't mind discussing things technical but I aside from controlling our Meridian gear, I don't see how the iPad or phone or anything else Apple is truly germane to our discussion, unless our discussion is actually more open and then why would the discussion of autos be off limits, especially on the eve of Meridian doing its first (that I am aware of) in car audio system.