Casual Web Surfing
March 12th, 2010, 12:59pm by KelvinMike recently asked Jake what user scenarios would be better served by a Courier rather than an iPad, and it got me thinking about how I would ever use either one. Primarily, to me, these devices are good for consumption of internet content, so I thought I’d brainstorm a bit about when and where I do most of me casual web surfing, and what device I imagine would be best suited for each scenario. Is there a place for a device between a smartphone and a netbook/laptop?
At the breakfast table The main requirements here are that one hand must be free to contantly spoon cereal into my mouth. This pretty much means I surf with my Pre or with my unwieldy laptop or netbook. Both iPad and Courier would seem to be too big to be used by the thumb of the same hand holding the device. Maybe one handed use is overrated in this scenario. I could click links while chewing.
On the couch The ideal scenario for a large screen tablet that doesn’t weigh as much as a laptop. I have a tablet that weighs 5 lb, and I pretty much use it in laptop mode on the armrest of my couch. What do you guys do for couch surfing? Put laptop on your lap? Use the TV as a monitor for a PC? Or stick with handheld devices? Here’s the most compelling case for the iPad, and I’m still not sure it beats an iPod Touch/ iPhone/ Pre. Certainly a larger screen is nice.
In bed I think the needs here differ depending on whether you are sitting upright (iPad is great), laying on the side (favors the iPhone or Pre), or laying on your stomach (iPad or laptop resting on the bed).
At the coffee shop/ airplane/ hotel room Nice to have once you get there, but is an iPad too big for transport? If you do need a separate bag for it, would you be more likely to bring your netbook? If you were sure your activities would be limited to web surfing/ media consumption (rather than photo processing, etc), the iPad might be preferable over a laptop. But in that case, I think I’d try to make do with my smartphone.
On the go Pretty easy… I’m gonna carry my Pre with me at all times regardless, so 3G for the iPad is redundant. Definitely, I think of the iPad as a portable device, rather than a mobile device.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I was just starting on a similar post, thinking about the iPad. I’ll just excerpt it here, instead of making a new post.
First of all, surfing in bed. Today, Engadget revealed that Apple has announced that the switch-formerly-known-as-“mute” is now known as “rotation lock.” HUGE, in my opinion, for precisely the reason you mentioned. I use rotation lock on my jailbroken iPhone all the time for reading in bed, and can’t stand when it rotates while I’m lying on my side.
I agree that the iPad isn’t something I’d carry around — if you don’t think you’ll use it around the house, then don’t buy it. Simple as that. I don’t even think I would even take it on a trip, when I have a much more capable netbook. So you’re right, 3G is redundant (especially when you have a jailbroken iPhone and MyWi. In that sense, it’s perfectly appropriate that Apple paired 3G with GPS (the wifi version has neither) — sorta suggests an “around the house” model and an “on the go” model. Except the “on the go” model is stupid. I already own the “iPad mobile version.”
For me, surfing at home, I usually use the netbook. It’s annoying in bed, though, because I like to sit with my legs bent up (so my thighs are nearly vertical), so surfing with a clamshell laptop means that it has to be open to nearly 180 degrees, and my netbook (as well as my MacBook Pro) doesn’t open nearly that far.
The thing that gets me about the Courier is that it’s a two-screen display, like a Nintendo DS (if I understood correctly). And when closed, it’s supposedly the size of a 5×7″ photo, meaning that’s the biggest either screen can be. While much bigger than our phones, I don’t know that a screen that size is a big improvement for surfing. In other words, it’s too big to put in a pocket (as is the iPad), but too small to offer any use around the house, in my opinion. At this point I just don’t see the point of the DS-type screens — seems like a hindrance to actual web surfing. At that point, you should *really* be thinking netbook.
Unrelated, but the other main point I was going to make in my post was that, in that same Engadget article, they pointed out this gem:
Native AVI support is huge — so huge, I doubt it’s true. iPhone, AppleTV, even Quicktime on Mac doesn’t support AVI natively. Which causes me innumerable problems when I download TV shows — for AppleTV I can use Boxee, but for iPhone I have to transcode to mp4 files, which is a waste of time. Native support on iPad suggests that there will be native support in iTunes (since you have to transfer the files onto iPad in the Apple-sanctioned manner), so this could be a huge thing for me.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Yes, rotation lock is huge. There’s a hack for the Pre that locks screen orientation when the slider is out. Love that thing.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Yeah, I can’t really get my head around the Courier. How would you even hold it with one hand, just seems too floppy.
Anyway, sounds like the iPad is a fine match for your casual surfing needs. Do you plan on pre-ordering it? Or are you in wait-and-see-it mode?
I guess I wonder if it’s not too big for laying on my side in bed (rotation lock not withstanding) and for use while eating. I’m okay with it being useful only around the house, but it’d be nice if it could satisfy most of my “around the house” needs.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Definitely waiting-and-seeing. I have no immediate need, but it’ll be harder to resist once I’ve seen it, I’m sure.
I know Jake will never get one, but the idea of on-the-go downloading RAW images to that giant screen must sound at least a little interesting to the photography-types.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Don’t know much about the photo handling… Does it allow you to edit the photo (crop, autofix, etc?) That’d be cool. I didn’t see much about any iPhoto type program. I guess you can always use photoshop.
March 13th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Doubt there’s too much photo processing in the native photos app, but even just for showing off photos just after taking them, seems kinda cool.
Had another thought. Jobs said that the iPad would not tether to the iPhone, which everyone took to mean “officially.” But another interpretation is that it simply won’t. MyWi sets up a wifi access point in ad-hoc mode, not infrastructure, and as a result, my eye-di card can’t connect, because there’s something about the eye-fi that only allow it to connect to infrastructure access points (eye-fi pro cards can connect to either).
So, may not be able to tether after all, depending on how they set it up. Doesn’t change my thoughts above, but would be kind of a bummer.
March 14th, 2010 at 1:21 am
When the Pre first came out, Ed had a tethering app installed that was the same, adhoc only, and my Pre couldn’t connext, although an iPod Touch could. I can’t imagine Apple going out of their way to disable adhoc in the iPad. I’m sure there are legit uses for it. Sharing an internet connection via wifi on a Windows machine uses adhoc, for example.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:54 am
I wouldn’t rule myself out of the iPad sweepstakes, I think I’d use it. Just no need to pre-order, seems like a device you have to try before you buy. Actually, I think I should’ve just bought a late-model MacBook Air instead of the paperweight/ netbook, and then this wouldn’t even be an issue.
March 14th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
That gets to the heart of the question. How does a Macbook Air obviate the need for an iPad? In what way does a MBA do so more than a full sized Macbook? Do you mean to say that the laptop form factor is preferred over a tablet for all situations, and the only problem with laptops is their weight/size?
March 15th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Regarding the Nintendo DS-style Courier screens — just today, Nintendo announced that they’re working on ways to make the screen seamless, so that games/apps can utilize both screens at once. Still would have an annoying hinge in the middle, unless they came up with a neat way to have a hinge/slider that, when the device was open, allowed the two screens to nudge right up next to each other.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Oh, and on the MBA vs MacBook vs iPad question — there’s clearly a huge distinction between the laptops and the iPads, but I don’t see a big difference between the MBA and the MacBooks (personally, I’d rather have the MacBook, as would most other people, if sales are any indication).
The tablet form factor is great for some things (like drawing, scribbling a quick note, surfing the web), OK for others (sending 140-character messages), and terrible for others (you’re not going to write a novel, or your thesis, with a stylus). What seems different to me about the iPad, versus traditional “tablet computers,” is that tablet computers have always taken the tack of “we’re a normal computer, except with a stylus rather than a keyboard,” and a lot of traditional computer activities just don’t work in that environment. So tablet computers kinda sucked, because they didn’t do what people wanted computers to do.
So Apple basically gave up trying to recapitulate all those things — they just sorta said, “What is a tablet actually good at?” and tried to make something that was really good at those things. It requires a mental shift — “This is not a computer!” — and Apple’s gamble (and it is a gamble) is that people will be able to make that shift.
Whether they succeeded or not, guess we’ll have to wait and see.
March 15th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I’d like a MacBook Air with a touchscreen, a 180-degree hinge (something like Kelvin’s) and an iPod compatibility mode. So an iPad that ran OS X and had a stowaway keyboard/trackpad. That I would certainly buy.
March 15th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Clearly, something that ran both Mac OS X and the iPhone version of OS X would be great — not sure why that’s so impossible — could be kinda like how Macs have Front Row as the interface to the underlying OS X files.
Now imagine that machine in an iPad form factor — a “slate” that you could attach to an external keyboard through some sort of docking mechanism, but could also use “dockless.” When surfing in bed, you use the iPad-like version, and when you want to work, you slap it into a dock, attach it to an external monitor, plug in a USB hub, and you’re all set to use your normal OS X programs. That’s something I’d preorder in a flash, and for a lot more than $499!
March 15th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Lenovo showed off a device like that at CES– basically, a Windows laptop that had a detachable screen, which alone, ran a different os (maybe even android?).
In that product, the screen alone device ran a separate processor and had a separate local storage repository, which, in my mind, raised the question of why not just keep them as 2 separate devices?
I do think it’s likely that Apple eventually releases an iPhone OS emulator to run on OSX, so you can run IPhone apps (and read your iBooks). It makes a lot of sense.