Apple Ipad (drool)

[Arwyn]

Well, today Steve Jobs announced the release of Apple's new wonder product the Apple Ipad.

Sure its easy to think of it as a netbook sized Ipod/Itouch, but thanks to the increase in size do you think that more well established game developers will create more high quality apps for the Ipad? Like Blizz remaking a Warcraft or Diablo port to the Ipad.

How long do you think it'll take other companies, like Sony or Microsoft, to start churning out their own versions of the Ipad.

And if you had a chance, would you be one of those people who willingly wait outside of whatever Electronic Store will be carrying the Ipad as soon as it becomes available to the public. Or would you wait a couple of weeks to make sure all bugs were fixed with it?

[Kamalia]

Hrm. I'm not really that impressed, to tell you the truth. It seems to be just like a laptop, only perhaps thinner, has one screen, and you move the cursor with your finger/your finger is the cursor. Then again, I'm content with my good ol' computer, and maybe new electronic stuff just doesn't impress me as much as others.

[Aleu]

I'm going to agree with Kamalia... It's just not impressing me very much and the price. I think I've seen Notebooks with similar apps that are cheaper then $499. >_> Doesn't seem like Apple is content on coming out with anything new. They seem to just repeat in my opinion.

[Karathyriel]

That is exactly what I keep saying...
I always wonder how the companies manage to make us believe that we can't live with stuff that we don't need!
Think of mobile phones. The world did turn, the sun did go up every morning and friends stayed friends even when they couldn't call themselves while not at home.
I don't know about the USA but here in germany, people seem to be unable to live without them anymore. Even little kids, age eight or so, can be seen with a mobile.
Right now, if you want to sell something that nobody in their right mind would buy, just put an "i" before the name and BINGO!
iPods, iRiver, iPhones now iPads. I'm waiting for the iShirt, iCola or iSuck (Not a bad name for a lollipop, huh? )

Nah, apple won't make me one of there slaves. I have to admit that I have a mobile phone but it's an old Siemens that can place a call and nothing else. No games, no music, no applets... Just a phone!

Think about this: When I typed this, I had a spell check on. It recognizes the iPod and stuff as correctly spelled words. Damned, we're that far already?

[Saturo]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/22/

[Ryno]

Can you imagine playing WoW on it?

*rubbing hand frantically over screen*
TEH FINGERZ DEH DU NUTHINGGG!!1111111111

[Mania]

My husband really wants one. I told him no.

(I'm still too busy giggling over the name. iPad? Really?!)

On a separate note, my sources tell me that the iPad browser does not yet support Flash, which makes it useless for playing web games.

[Saturo]

It's the same with the iPhone and the iPod Touch. It just sucks...

[Mania]

Now see, here's something I am really excited about:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

It's a full desktop computer, lacking only a monitor, about the size of a router. Yes, that's right -- the size of a router.

The best thing is? It can run Linux, which means it can run the Linux port of XBox Media Center. No more hacking old pre-patch XBoxes! Woo hoo!

(Note that I'm not suggesting you buy one now, but man -- think what this will mean in a year or two!)

[Karathyriel]

Oh really?
Are PCs now come to the state of Macs, were they are so incredibly small and so incredibly inflexible?

Honestly, where is the good part of having a laptop without a screen?

No, I want my PC ready for me to rip it's guts out and put them back in again, maybe even with some improved intestines.

[Saturo]

I want my PC ready for me to rip it's guts out and put them back in again, maybe even with some improved intestines.

I like your thinking.

[Mania]

Honestly, where is the good part of having a laptop without a screen?

Well, for myself I could use something like this to replace the headless Linux desktop that serves as our Perforce and SVN server. Or the headless Linux desktop that sits in the living room and serves as our home file server. Or the headless Windows desktop that sits in the back room under the lizard cages and holds our XIG projects. Or the headless Windows desktop currently located under my desk, that holds the Ohai and FGL projects. Or the headless Windows machine that sits under my husband's desk and holds the GamerSafe projects. Or the ... well, you get the point.

Mind you, I wouldn't replace my primary desktop with something like this. Nor would I immediately replace any of the headless machines. But the next time we end up a machine short I could definitely see going smaller. Yes, you lose some flexibility in the guts, but with the headless machines we almost never touch the guts anyway -- especially given our recent addiction to external HDDs (attached via eSATA, of course).

And as I mentioned, I am especially excited that XBox Media Center can run on these things. (I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but the XBox Media Center is a hack that lets you convert an old XBox into a media center for watching TV shows and movies and whatnot. Not the silly streaming stuff like Netflix over the 360, but the good stuff, saved to a home drive. But you need an old XBox that hasn't been patched to some mystical patch number and a friend with a portable Linux box who knows what he is doing and is willing to come over and spend a day fiddling with it.) So something like this will be much more convenient that way. Of course, I recently found out that that XBox 360 can now run most recent codecs, but we're still going to need something to run the really old MST3Ks we have on disk. And my non-gaming family members could benefit from this too (since they are too intimidated to use an XBox even if it isn't an XBox anymore.)

[Saturo]

To be perfectly honest, doing the transfer for an "xbox media system" (never heard it called that before) shouldn't take more than an hour. I did it for a friend, and it took one hour and twenty minutes, which included him running home to get the AC adapter for his laptop.

Anyhow, back on topic, those headless machines are pretty nifty, to save money in my old school, they bought one "powerful" computer (the gaming system I had back then was more than twice as powerful), and just hooked up lots of screens a d keyboards to it, running a bunch of virtual machines, in a five years old build of Linux. To make it even worse for me, they couldt stand the prospect of working in Gnome, so they had to install some ugly ass windows look a like on every computer. This made it immencively hard for us to work, having almost no framerate. I can even remember OpenOffice having a five second lag from when you pressed something, to when something happened. We had to endure this torture for a year, until they realized that it was a horribly bad idea.

Wow. I suck at staying on topic.

[VelkynKarma]

Y'know, everyone in my class was talking about this, and at first I was excited.

But looking at its specs, I'm not terribly impressed. My classmates told me it'd be a really good tablet, which is something I sorely need for my arting. But honestly, I wouldn't really need all the bells and whistles, and I don't care about apps, and a Wacom tablet of roughly the same size costs about $200 cheaper.

So yeah. Unimpressed.

~VelkynKarma

[Dragonpuff]

I have never been a fan of Apple products, and I don't think I ever will be. iPods and iPhones look fun, but I hate the brand and can get something else just as good that is cheaper. <D As such, no, I would not be heading out for one. Never will be heading out for one. And the name is stupid. iPad? Is it that time of the month already?...

[Vephriel]

Heh, same Dragonpuff. Not an Apple fan at all. xD

The name has been making me smirk since I first heard it, lol.

[Dragonpuff]

*snorts* I am totally stealing and saving that image.

[Karathyriel]

Well, for myself I could use something like this to replace the headless Linux desktop that serves as our Perforce and SVN server. Or the headless Linux desktop that sits in the living room and serves as our home file server. Or the headless Windows desktop that sits in the back room under the lizard cages and holds our XIG projects. Or the headless Windows desktop currently located under my desk, that holds the Ohai and FGL projects. Or the headless Windows machine that sits under my husband's desk and holds the GamerSafe projects. Or the ...

And I thought, I was the weirdo having an old laptop as a TeamSpeak server, an old PC as a music server an my actual computer.

[Aleu]

Heh, same Dragonpuff. Not an Apple fan at all. xD

The name has been making me smirk since I first heard it, lol.

-snerk-

[VelkynKarma]

I'm neutral on the whole Apple thing. I bought a mac because I'm a graphics artist/animation student, and macs are usually accepted as better for graphics and audio related things, but I'm not a diehard fan.

I thought the concept sounded cool at first, but yeah...

Also Veph, I pretty much thought that exact same thing when the name was released XD

~VelkynKarma