Amazingly, nobody has yet pointed out a severe usage limitation on Apple's iPad that surely will cause grief with the very first reviewers. I'll get right to the bottom line: Just like the iPod Touch, the iPhone and most or even all other smartphones, the iPad lacks multiple user profile logins, including any "Guest" login.  Also reports are that orders are dropping after a spike on Friday.  Think of the iPad as one big iPod Touch or iPhone. Once you've entered the password, you're in. And I mean in! You have complete access to all emails, instant messages, the address book and calendar. Contrast this with a laptop: On a PC, you may have, say, four different user logins (father, mother, son and daughter) and one generi

[Editor’s Note: Pay attention here – chances are that if you do, you’ll be more interested in the iPhone as well. –mrh] It feels like it’s been more than two months since the iPad was announced. The masterful PR craze that preceded it was only matched by the public backlash. Now that the waters are quieter, I would like to ponder a little about our upcoming iLife. Do we really need a tablet? Tablets are nothing new. Back in 2004, when I was still studying, I was the proud owner of a convertible Acer Tablet PC. I took notes, read comics, ebooks and watched series during class(muted and with subtitles of course!). In 2006, Intel introduced the Viiv, which was another attempt at introducing the tablets to the mainstream consume

Well, both touchscreen tablets are coming out this spring? Both have interesting publicity, fans and naysayers. What's the hard facts though? The Apple iPad: Price tag of $499-$829 according to data plan and/or connectivity iPad screen 9.7 inches iPad battery 10 hours 1GH apple chip 1/2 inch thick multi-touch wifi+3g enabled The Joo Joo: $499 price tag Capacitive touchscreen display. It directly (9 seconds) boots into a web browser. 12.1-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution USB 2.0 port, WiFi, Bluetooth, and audio / headset I wish we had more choices. The Microsoft Courier is a distant dream and the Dell mini 5 is only 5inches so that's not an option, really. What

I spotted a surprising article today over at Gizmodo.  It was surprising not for the fact that it deemed talked about piracy in general, but the attitude it treated piracy.  The story focused around Apple App Store piracy, which it found in general to be at about 10% or less for most apps, and deemed it not a big deal. Here’s the money quote: At first I found many developers' silence on the issue curious. But after talking to a few, and finding out the scale of the problem, it makes sense: An app developer has nothing to gain by taking their fight public — Apple is clearly aware of the issue, and it's not like you can somehow convince hardcore pirates to start paying for all the dozens of apps they steal, because they we

I was living in Europe in 2000 when the first WAP phones (Wireless Access Protocol) were introduced.  These phones were so over hyped.  They were going to bring the Internet to your mobile phones ushering in the era of “m-commerce.”  Gag. I had just returned from living in Japan where I witnessed the hugely successful launch of i-mode by NTT DoCoMo so I knew the potential that the mobile web would ultimately bring, but I saw so many flaws in the launch of WAP.  But like lemmings, every company in the market rushed to proclaim they were launching WAP versions of their products. I was attending a major industry conference in Barcelona at the height of the WAP excitement.  I was on stage in front of several hund

David Ridsdale pointed me to this excellent article by Frederic Filloux: The iParanoid Scenario. He writes about French privacy laws that enable judges to rule that a news magazine, or any other type of publication, has to be with withdrawn because it contains information that has violated privacy laws. France has a long history of using such practices to censor news. In the early '60s, the country was waging a colonial war in Algeria. Then, for the most avid news readers, the game was to get the weekly magazine L'Express at the kiosk as early as possible before French authorities seized it... What happens if the magazine is on your iPad? Since with the iPad, Apple is seeking to control the entire value chain, from approval of iPa

Just got my hands on the Nokia 3g Booklet and it's a nice device compared to the new Apple iPad. Why do i say that? It's because I'm still trying to find a use for the new apple device. Many of my co-workers are thinking of buying the iPad and so am i but I still have questions. Leo Laporte this week on TWIT states that the iPad is not for creating content but for consuming content. Basically this is for playing games and reading books? What if a student wants to buy this to help him study or take notes during class? Can he do more than one thing at a time to perhaps cross reference what he his typing or hearing from the teacher? Can he connect the iPad to his HDMI TV in his dorm to watch purchased from iTunes movies? With the Nokia

Leo Laporte mentioned that anyone can test HTML5 video at http://youtube.com/html5 . I gave it a try and even though it didn't load any quicker, it played better. Right now it's in tests or beta mode so i couldn't go fullscreen. Still though it did work better than usual in the Chrome browser for Linux. Usually I disagree with Apple but i think this time i might owe them an apology. Technically you can view videos on youtube.com via the above link. I guess i should applaud them for being tech forward and waiting for something that hasn't hit the mainstream yet. What confused me was the relationship Apple has with Adobe. Honestly, the commercial content standard comes from Adobe and works its best on Apple products. Do you work on pho

The recent growth of the iPhone, Android (smartphones in general), and now the iPad has put enormous pressure on carriers and bandwidth - the networks.  As the world has come to experience, the mobile web is amazing.  Whether checking Facebook, email, or contacting business and family members, it's a great utility. Here's the problem: the networks are melting under extreme pressure.  Let me explain - the networks that are running this "New Robust Mobile Network" were engineered for cellular phone calls only.  All of these smartphones are running both voice and data now.  5-8 years ago they only were built for voice.  Data requires more frequency.  Some say that a data connection (using iPhone,

Now that the long-rumored Apple tablet has finally been unveiled as the iPad, we can turn our attention towards figuring out what Apple’s next big product launch might be. Based on the evolution of the company’s devices, software and recent business discussions the answer actually seems pretty clear: Apple should build a true web-enabled home entertainment television experience- the iTV. Here’s why: Apple TV has been a failure. For a company that loves to reference stats regarding the success of its products, Apple has been very reticent about the sales performance of Apple TV, repeatedly referring to the product as “still a hobby.” The device, which competes with over-the-top (video delivering over a broadband network and no