WePad Tablet Will Use Linux To Rival the iPad 536
cypherdtraitor writes with news of an iPad rival being prepped in Germany for a June launch. "A German company, Neofonie GmbH, has set out to provide an alternative to the iPad, according to Neofonie's founder, Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen. The WePad will boast a Linux-based OS, USB ports, webcam, and Wi-Fi, as well as other features. The 16GB edition will cost €449 ($610), and the 32GB €569 ($773). A more expensive model will include a 3G modem. This PDF compares WePad specs with the iPad. There are also hints of cheap, available software. For example, OpenOffice.org will be the primary office suite, and you may use 'any application that pleases you' to play music and video, a clear edge over Apple's limitation to iTunes." The WePad will also run Flash.
WeeWeePad (Score:4, Funny)
First, there was the iPad for those nerdy chicks..
Now our children will have the "WeeWeePads"?
Who comes up with these names? And more disturbingly, what did they name their children?
Re:WeeWeePad (Score:5, Insightful)
WePad makes sense anyway. It's both pun of iPad and illustrates the product - it's more for us and since it uses Linux it allows multiple user accounts, good privacy and better security. iPad only has a single user and not even a guest account, do you really want to let your kids, friends or random people to use it access all your browser history, photos, emails and such?
It also looks awesome and you can use applications or develop them yourself. You can run scripts and most ssh in to the tablet. It shows Flash. At this point I would either get this or Courier [engadget.com], as the iPad seems really limited and you have to hack it for it to be any use. Oh and it supports multitasking too.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WeeWeePad (Score:5, Funny)
and Microsoft will dub their ill-begotten progeny the " MyPad "
If it's Zune compatible you'd be able to ask someone to "squirt on over to mypad" ... and then we could all throw up together.
Re:WeeWeePad (Score:4, Insightful)
You obviously are not part of the Apple Collective or you would see the wisdom in only allowing 1 user and no guest account.
If someone else wants to use your iPad, good! But don't let them, because it's only YOURS. Flame their jealousy. Soon, they will cave under the pressure and buy their own iPad.
It's a single user product, you understand. Sharing is verboten.
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Of course I don't. I expect them to use their own mobile computing device. The days of one computer per family are long since gone. Multiple accounts aren't worth the extra complexity for consumer mobile devices.
Uh, a lot of families have a single computer with multiple user accounts for each family member. It's usually enough, especially if you have a single kid still living at home and don't use the computer so much. It only makes sense when the parents or kids are more geeky or spend more time on computer. We slashdotters do, but not most people.
Also, when my friends or sister or someone else is over and wants to use my computer, I hate it when they do so using my own user account. Not only they can see what tab
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do THAT many people actually let kids, friends or random people even touch their computers
Yes...well maybe not random people, but kids and friends absolutely. I have since learned to set 'Airplane Mode' before I give my iPhone to my 3 year old.
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No wired connection.
You can use USB. You can't with iPad.
The comparison to the Apple II era again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why am I suddenly reminded of the days in the 70's and 80's when everything ran CP/M and everything *had* to run CP/M? I know that Apple II *DID* run CP/M of some flavor, but CP/M *sucked*, and Apple showed nearly no support for it.
Now we're stuck with Flash, which everyone tolerates and does a lot, but again, it *sucks*. Adobe hasn't put together a decent Flash interpreter for ANY OS(well, the Windows version is debatable), and everyone puts up with it because of it's ubiquity.
Folks. Ubiquity is never a reason to keep a shitty idea around. Particularly when it comes to the mobile space.
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Hence the "Apple showed nearly no support for it"?
Re:The comparison to the Apple II era again... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And yet the iPhone was the best 'internet experience' mobile phone on the planet when it came out. In spite of the fact that it didn't have flash.
Re:The comparison to the Apple II era again... (Score:5, Funny)
> And yet the iPhone was the best 'internet experience' mobile phone on the planet when it came out. In spite of the fact that it didn't have flash.
"These aren't the missing features you're looking for", Steve Jobs waves his hand.
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No one is suggesting that Adobe are wanting to charge Apple for a license for Flash. Nor that Apple refusing to support Flash is a license fee avoiding move. You have that wrong.
The advantage comes from Apple killing proprietary Flash on the internet and it's replacement with the HTML5 open standard. Apple does have that power. Many websites are already moving away from Flash for this very reason.
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"And if you compare iPhone browsing experience to that on the desktop (or netbook), it still sucks big time."
And that is a substantially bigger issue with the iPad since it's essentially the same sucky iPhone browsing experience with a larger, less portable screen.
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The point of Mini is just to have a simple, fast browser that renders text quickly. For reading articles on my BlackBerry I haven't found a better option.
I think that says more about the sad state of RIM's platform than anything in Opera's favour. I mean, it's great that RIM finally figured out how to make tables render more or less correctly (at least in one viewing mode), but they're still light years behind almost every other smartphone vendor.
In turn, the existence of Opera Mini to me is the equivalent
Flash - everywhere you don't want to be (Score:3, Informative)
Flash is indeed everywhere.
But I've found the number of places where something I WANT to see is not in Flash, is in practice very small. I installed Click-To-Flash about a year ago because I could no longer handle the omnipresence of flash ads.
Now I like ads on sites, because I like to see sites with content I enjoy stick around. But flash ads were everywhere, distracting and sucking up CPU. Finally I said, ENOUGH!, and flash was blocked except when I needed to see content.
You know what? I can still bro
Re:The comparison to the Apple II era again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay. What about money. Is money a good idea to keep something around? Businesses tend to think yes. "Throw away all your flash formatted content" is not really something you want to hear as a decision maker who's heavily invested in the format. And considering the iPad device is geared towards things like video, it's a no brainer to support what is now become a standard. Okay so you support HTML5, but what about the meantime as everyone converts?
But let's skip the bullshit. This is a corporate game and the end user suffers for it. You can pretend Apple has your best interest in mind if you like, but the facts speak for themselves. They have limited functionality to poke a competitor in the eye. A competitor that basically kept their Mac platform alive with their creative tools. It's pretty messed up IMHO.
That's not why. (Score:5, Informative)
everyone puts up with it because of it's ubiquity
No, everyone puts up with it because:
...all out-of-the box.
As of 2010, these bullet points have all been true for nearly fifteen years. Meanwhile, HTML5 will still be playing second-fiddle even when the language is completely formalized (no fonts, MP4 is questionable, MP3 is questionable, and you'll still have to test twenty different versions and have plenty of hacks up your sleeve to get everything to look correct across all platforms & browsers).
Much faster clone time (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously competitors have realized that it's worth it to come out with clone or me-too products much faster than they did in the past with the iPhone. This suggests to me that they'll be at least somewhat more successful than before in taking market share from apple.
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It sounds like this has been in development for some time, so I wonder if it is really a "me too" product. It doesn't look like a clone.
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So Apple gets creative credit for the ideas of speculators? Too bad Apple wasn't listening more carefully - they'd have a better product.
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They didn't sell 300,000 units in one day. They sold 300,000 units over 4 months of hype and advertisment articles on gadget blogs. Care to speculate what the second day sales were?
Re:Much faster clone time (Score:4, Interesting)
What they do is aim to get the tiniest details right; they really know their customers and make products to match them as perfectly as possible.
That's why it took them several versions of their iPhone OS until they added copy & paste or multitasking for third parties, right?
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"Apple thinks it's better not to include features that aren't yet ready for prime time..."
As Dr. Phil would say "that dog won't hunt". Apple has been doing copy/paste and multitasking for years, they could do it with their eyes closed.
No, the real reason is the Steve thinks he knows best so the first version is a full reflection of his "vision". Later, if customers demand features that aren't part of his vision, he'll have the opportunity to present them with great fanfare as if that was the plan all along.
Re:Much faster clone time (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet the iPad outsold the entire lifetime sales of that "bad boy" on it's very first day.
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They might be somewhat more successful but there is more too making a me too product than getting it out the door quickly. You need to get it in front of customers who are currently considering buying an iPad and that is not an easy thing to do. Right now everyone knows about the iPad, not just geeks here on slashdot. In 6 months, how many people outside of geeks on slashdot will know about the WePad.
It could be a vastly superior unit but it wont matter if most people don't know about it.
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What I've read is that the WePad will roll-out in Germany before the iPad does. If your theory is true, I guess the iPad is doomed in Germany.
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Excellent reading skills. I didn't say that getting out first was key. I said that getting your product in front of the people who want to buy it is key.
Right now, even if it is unavailable in Germany, I bet a majority of Germans know what an iPad is, its all over the news.
Now maybe the WePad will be launched with huge fanfare and a parade in Berlin, I don't know, but if most people know what an iPad is but don't know what a WePad is then the WePad will not be as successful as the iPad and that's all ther
Not clones, just timing. (Score:4, Informative)
There were a ton of tablet prototypes shown at CES this year, months before the iPad was announced. Everyone and their mother independently came to the conclusion that tablets were going to be the next big thing after the success of netbooks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I think everyone and their mother came to the conclusion that tablets were going to be the next big thing, given the both the success of netbooks and e-book readers, with tablets being sold as "good enough" at both the kind of light computing that netbooks are
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Obviously competitors have realized that it's worth it to come out with clone or me-too products much faster than they did in the past with the iPhone. This suggests to me that they'll be at least somewhat more successful than before in taking market share from apple.
Just that the makers of the WePad don't actually seem to be as far as they claim to be. I know someone who was at the press conference were they showed the product yesterday. He said that current versions run windows, not Linux, the touch screen didn't work on the "show" device, and it had a fan which was running all the time. In it's current state it would not have a chance to compete well with the iPad (and I personally doubt it ever will).
Re:Much faster clone time (Score:4, Insightful)
People still don't get it, however. The WePad thinks it can compete with the iPad with hardware features but will run Linux... which is a server or desktop OS. Apple didn't use their desktop version of Mac OS X on the iPhone, the iPod touch and the iPad for a good reason: portable, touch devices need customized interfaces otherwise it just sucks. I tried using a Blackberry and was shocked to see the tiny cursor that I had to control with a tiny trackball.... Seriously, WTF?
Re:Much faster clone time (Score:4, Informative)
The WePad thinks it can compete with the iPad with hardware features but will run Linux... which is a server or desktop OS. Apple didn't use their desktop version of Mac OS X on the iPhone, the iPod touch and the iPad for a good reason: portable, touch devices need customized interfaces otherwise it just sucks.
The WePad will use a "Linux-based" OS, namely Android [devicemag.com], which has an interface perfect for a tablet.
W
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Is it going to be multi-touch capable and actually responsive, rather than barely touch aware and laggy?
I have yet to see a piece of hardware running android that doesn't feel slow to the point of non-response or that is just as comfortable to use as the UI on my iPhone. Anyone recommend a device running android that doesn't feel like a sluggish piece of poop?
Re:Much faster clone time (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it going to be multi-touch capable and actually responsive, rather than barely touch aware and laggy?
I have yet to see a piece of hardware running android that doesn't feel slow to the point of non-response or that is just as comfortable to use as the UI on my iPhone. Anyone recommend a device running android that doesn't feel like a sluggish piece of poop?
The Nexus One. It seriously is fast as hell and i have a crapload of apps installed. Like, i was blown away the other day when i realized how many apps I have and how that has had *no* effect on the operation of the phone.
I did windows mobile for years (reboot twice a day), then the iphone 1g (reboot once a week maybe? I forget), and then the tmobile G1 (reboot twice a week maybe, but it was just generally underpowered). I got the N1 recently and it just blows me away how fast and stable it is. The 1GHz processor really makes a difference, and I can multitask all I want without having to ever use a task manager. Its also nice to have what i consider an excellent camera as far as a mobile phone goes. Low light with the flash is great and it is better than any device I've ever had (which is mostly HTC, they never put a big priority on cameras before). Also, the camera takes ~1/2 second to start up. THAT is nice!
There are some oddities - about once a week data stops working, but a reboot always fixes it, and honestly that could be AT&T for all their crapiness, I'm not sure.
But it is always snappy, and i couldn't be happier with the phone - it is literally the phone i have always been looking for.
-Taylor
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Tablet computing has been around for a long time.
And the exact form factor, and almost its exact name, were being discussed long ago:
"PAD" Computer
redfoxtx 06-10-2002, 01:56 PM
http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-1793-PAD-Computer.html [techspot.com]
Steve Jobs seems to think he invented it, and the idea of calling a tablet a "pad".
Steve Jobs: 'Pad? That's my word'
New frontiers in control freakiness
Rik Myslewski in San Francisco
Posted in Mobile, 13th April 2010 20:11 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/13/jobs_clai [theregister.co.uk]
Just stop it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you didn't bet money on that...
Re:Just stop it (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that the iPad won't fade away. Other then that, spot on - they absolutely are wasting their time with this ludicrous attempt at a competitor. OpenOffice? You've got to be kidding me. That just screams finger-based-input-small-tablet software right there. People are going to love fighting with that. I mean the ones who hate themselves.
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Maybe the WePad will include a USB port so you can attach that 18 button OpenOffice mouse.
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
This notion that people are simply being fooled into buying Apples devices is interesting, but doesn't quite jibe with the customer satisfaction level of the iPhone, for example. The iPad we don't have the data for yet, but when it comes to the iPhone, the idea that people buying them have just been fooled by good marketing... that is the only reality distortion field in effect here. Meanwhile, all those iPhone users, you know the ones that have been fooled by marketing, they are all thinking... iPhone's great, entirely touch-based interface but with a bigger screen that doesn't require so much zooming in and out? Who let the dogs out?
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The ipad will fade into obscurity and during that time your efforts could be better invested else where.
Yes, selling 300,000 units on the first day is a sure sign that the iPad will fade into obscurity any time soon.
Like it or not, the iPad is relevant. It obviously has a following and there will be devices that can imitate it and ride its coattails a bit. Perhaps these other devices can even improve on the design and become relevant in and of themselves. One thing is for certain, you completely ignore a popular device/platform at your own peril.
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With Apple products, that's not really indicative of success.
3 years later, AppleTV is a niche market that Apple has all but abandoned.
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No Wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame.
I wouldn't bet against the iPad just yet. You just never know.
(disclaimer: I have no idea how well it will sell, or whether it will flop or be huge).
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
"Less Space than a Nomad. No wireless. Lame."
"No they didn't, the big difference between iPhone and OpenMoko is that OpenMoko is completely open, so anyone can extend it, while iPhone is closed and only licensed parties can write extensions. This is what uniqe about OpenMoko. Apple added glitter to iPhone, but there are other smart phones (maybe not as good, but I can't judge, it's a long wait till iPhone will be available in Europe) so nothing revolutionary about it. OpenMoko has philosophical feature - openess. So as a geek I know which one is the winner here :)"
How's that OpenMoko doing today?
How about those iPod killers?
Re:Just stop it (Score:4, Insightful)
"No they didn't, the big difference between iPhone and OpenMoko is that OpenMoko is completely open, so anyone can extend it, while iPhone is closed and only licensed parties can write extensions. This is what uniqe about OpenMoko. Apple added glitter to iPhone, but there are other smart phones (maybe not as good, but I can't judge, it's a long wait till iPhone will be available in Europe) so nothing revolutionary about it. OpenMoko has philosophical feature - openess. So as a geek I know which one is the winner here :)"
How's that OpenMoko doing today? How about those iPod killers?
Well they forgot to mention other difference between the iPhone and the (OpenMoko) Neo. The iPhone worked out of the box while the Neo shipped with hardware bugs and even a year later the best OS for it made the Apple ][ look stable.
In order to be an Apple killer it must work BETTER than the Apple. You have to be able to show your WORKING gadget to a potential Apple customer and make them want yours more.
Disclaimer I actually used a Neo as my phone for six months. Very cool geek toy, worst cellphone ever.
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Yup just like how the iPod and iPhone are utter failures.
They barely sold any iPads... Geesh, only 700,000 of them sold first day. What posers, almost nobody bought them.... nobody wants these things. Look they are selling for almost nothing on ebay already....
This sarcasm brought to you by the Letter T.
Yeah! (Score:4, Insightful)
The free/open source OS will run the proprietary multimedia software. Openness triumphs again!
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I can't moderate this, but if I could, +1 Informative. +1 Funny. +1 Bingo.
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If this thing can run Firefox and VLC then it will beat the snot out of the iPad for those of us that are interested in more than just the Walled Garden.
Some of us are interested in using whatever media or website we happen to come across, not lame excuses from fanboys.
iTunes Confusion (Score:3, Informative)
This is a very confusing -- and probably confused -- statement.
iPad can play back content with its iPod functionality. Which isn't "iTunes" in any meaningful sense. (It also includes an iTunes store interface.)
Content can be loaded onto the device only with the iTunes Mac or PC application, but there are many ways to add content to your local iTunes app other than the iTunes store. For example, ripped CDs, Amazon MP3s, "Digital Copies" included with many Blu-ray discs, anything you encode yourself with compatible codecs and parameters (e.g. DVDs ripped and encoded to M4V with Handbrake).
-Peter
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Well, the iPad doesn't use iTunes to "play" music either - that app is the iPod app. The iTunes app is the front to the music and video store.
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"with compatible codecs and parameters"
Well that's the tricky detail now isn't it?
You have to adapt all of your stuff to whatever limitations Apple has laid out.
If Handbrake trips on something, you're slightly screwed as iTunes won't give you any useful information when it rejects something.
None of this is really managed by Apple. The end user is left to fend for themselves with this stuff and that is hardly very usuable. It's certainly not the sort of experience that iTunes and iPods were originally built
Wow (Score:2)
If you think the iPad is too big and too heavy... wait until you see the WePad!
I can see why most of the teaser shots showed the WePad with its screen turned off - the single actual "screenshot" looked pretty odd.
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The iPad is definetly too heavy, I have one, it gets tiring... Need to work out my wrists more, brb porn calls.
?Pad.... (Score:2, Funny)
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Wouldn't that last one be the theyPad??
Features... (Score:3, Funny)
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A delightful microfan to hum you to sleep.
You got modded funny on this .. but that is one of the main benefits I see in the iPad as I can't stand the whiny mosquito sound of my EEE pc. Though I will be looking into any other small form factor system that doesn't have a fan in it before I sell my soul to Apple.
But... (Score:2)
Will it run OS X?
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More importantly: will it blend [youtube.com]?
Less space than a nomad... (Score:4, Informative)
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"Specs" are what separates a device that will play whatever you have lying around from something that requires special conversion tools and a special loader.
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I'm looking forward to the idea of using a case-sensitive-*nix-CLI on it so I can tinker. Wee.
Give me ARM, please (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm tired of people shoehorning the power-hungry x86 architecture into small devices. If there's one thing that Apple did right it's not using the Atom. The WePad runs Linux: there's no reason to stick with the legacy x86 architecture. Even Adobe Flash works on ARM (just not Flash 10 yet).
If the WePad used an ARM chip, it could probably retain its feature set and bump up the battery duration to the iPad level, which seems to be the only feature where it loses to it.
Need ARM not Atom (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Atom is not appropriate for mobile devices like WePad. This really calls for ARM.
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word
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That's not necessarily true. Sharp's Netwalker [sharp.co.jp] is based on the Freescale i.MX51 which is ARM Cortex-A8 and Ubuntu.
It even has Flash(Lite).
Linux isn't tied to x86.
Re:Give me ARM, please (Score:5, Informative)
> If you're running Linux, you're sticking with legacy x86 architecture.
How can you even be on Slashdot and post something that ignorant?
just one little thing... (Score:2, Funny)
... what no camera??
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..on the back....
(phew hope no one noticed i didn't RTFA!)
NotionInk Adam (Score:2)
If reading documents is one of your main uses for a tablet, then you should keep an eye out for the Adam by NotionInk [notionink.in].
It will be (one of ?) the first shipping device to use the PixelQi [pixelqi.com] transflective display, which is an improvement of the OLPC display. It is a reflective display, like eInk, but with fast refresh rates like LCD. It also can display color which is far more saturated than color eInk (although not as good as LCD), as well as switching to ultra-high resolution greyscale.
The Adam uses the Tegra C
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iPad gets 10 hours of battery life and Anandtech did a test showing it getting 13.6 hours of battery life playing Video in a loop.
Problem with the Adam is that it won't be released for another 6 months at best and the fact that it's a small time Indian company. They won't be getting the content producers lining up for them like Apple has, Google might have that kind of clout however.
hmm (Score:2)
I'll sign up for a hundred of these, if only someone can point me to 3D renderings of it.
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RTFpdf
Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
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over time, you'll see that tablets can and will be far more than simple consumption devices, and will be very, very good at input of all sorts. Drawing is the most obvious example that works today, but others will follow.
Drawing doesn't work well on an iPad. Yes, I've tried. It's no Wacom.
It's not very,very good at virtual keyboard input either. It's actually slightly worse than my iPhone.
Someone Please Explain To Me.... (Score:2)
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The tablet is the same form-factor as a clipboard. You can hold it with one hand while standing and use the other hand to do things on it (similar to writing on a clipboard while standing). You can sit up in bed, fold your legs up to about 45 degrees, and use it that way. You can also sit on the couch and hold it in place. Placing it on a desk and trying to input data into it is going to be a nightmare for most people. They'll enter their data on a real computer and send it to a tablet for final editin
Great choice of names... (Score:3, Funny)
(Man, and I thought the iPad was a bad choice.)
laptop? (Score:3, Insightful)
At that price, why not just get a laptop?
When's the Wii pad come out? (Score:2)
Seriously, I can see this being a possibility, but am not going to hold my breath. Just watch - some manufacturer will never go for the idea of a Linux-based tablet.
Obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)
misleading summary (Score:3, Interesting)
No, to be a rival, you have to address the same market.
A Linux tablet PC and the iPad address completely different markets. One goes for geeky people who want a small, portable multi-touch thing that they can hack at leisure. The other for people who want a media and content consumption device that simply works and stays out of your way.
They're not the same device. The number of people who really find it hard to decide between them is tiny. Probably about 50 grandmothers who can't afford an iPad but their granddaughter wants one, so the sales person at the computer store convince them this Linux pad thingy is mostly the same, for half the price.
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From who? Powerful churchmen like....Copernicus?
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What? The IPad is hardly novel. Tablet computers have existed for a decade or more. Hell, my 5 year old laptop (and it wasn't even top of the line when I bought it) with a nearly dead battery had a flip around touch screen that worked in tablet mode.
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That's not entirely fair. The platform is tailored for a more specific purpose than most tablet computers. It's being designed from the ground up to run Linux. Both of those facts should make it newsworthy, News for Nerds, remember?
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Agreed that this is an advertisement, and agree that tablets have been around long before the iPad, but none of them are like the iPad, and the iPad is innovative in its approach, whether geeks like that or not. This alleged iPad killer is like past tablets, albeit with Linux. If this is what others have up their sleeves as competition, the iPad will continue on its merry way, appealing to a market that will actually buy the product, rather then trying to fulfill the wants of a group that has no actual inte
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Like past tablets? It also all the things that make iPad "innovative" and good like marketplace and sleek look and UI. It doesn't have the "features" that make iPad shitty, like limiting how many processes you can run, what software you can install and has open source OS.
Appealing to a market? I'm not sure their size is really the same as Apple's or that they can pull off same kind of PR and marketing tricks, but they have compete with good features. For me that is a good thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The "marketplace" is nothing new, linux has had something similar for years it's just that apple dressed it up to look pretty and marketed it well..
The wepad is bigger and heavier than the ipad while having inferior battery life, and seems to have vents at the top suggesting it gets quite hot. I would rather have an open arm based tablet, ipad like hardware and open software...
On the subject of software, for anything like this to succeed it needs to have a slick interface, all the previous tablets i've used
Re:Slashvert (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, I never thought I would see people ardently defending paying more for less
Ever been to a strip club? The skinnier the girls, the more you pay!
Come to think of it, dating isn't much different ....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I second that one.
Well, not the strip club part. I don't do those. (I worked in the adult industry, and see the money guys waste on not getting laid and laugh).
Ya, the prettier, skinner girls end up costing us a fortune. What's worse is the ones who want to date, and want you to go out with them every night, but it never goes anywhere. I was seeing this totally hot girl who dropped every hint that she wanted me, except for actually doing it. She insisted on
Re:Slashvert (Score:4, Funny)
So in other words, like the old saying goes, you don't pay escorts to come over to your place, you pay them to leave afterward?
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"Zero user servicable parts inside"
User serviceable parts add bulk to an item. If part of the item's functionality is due to its form factor having user serviceable parts can impair the overall functionality of the device.
If you want something small and sleek you don't want all sorts of bulges and ports and doors on the device just to support getting at a component 99.999% of the users will never want or need to access.
This is a bit extreme but compare D-cell batteries to a form fitted Li-po battery for use
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on [shacknews.com] a number of [computerworld.com] different sources [arstechnica.com], the thing is hard to hold on to for any decent length of time. Nearly every review I have read makes mention of this, regardless of whether it heralds the iPad as the second coming of christ or as a piece of junk.
Just like supermodels with eating disorders, being too skinny can be a bad thing.
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Yes, because all potential customers speak English and prefer English-sounding names.
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You know what, Lake Titicaca means "Lake small pooh" in french. Often, words mean strange things in at least one other language...