1) sandboxed apps. Concept isn't new, but consumer PCs have never had sandboxes. A game or word processor you install shouldn't have access to your tax returns. With the iPad nasty apps can't do much damage.
2) backup app installations, settings and documents by syncing with iTunes. iPad breaks or gets stolen? Buy a new one and plug it back in and you're back in business.
3) App Store. Now only used for "gimmick" software on the iPhone, but the potential is enormous. Only apt-get comes close, but apt-get doesn't have an easy payment model. And it has this dependecy-hell and installing updates can wreck havoc.
4) computer with built-in GPS & accelerometer and 3G internet. How many laptops have that?
5) locked-down and DRMed, even for developers. That's certainly revolutionary for a consumer PC.
6) No tree based filesystem. No /home/[user]/Documents, no c:\Users\[user]\AppData. Your files are just "there".
Apple is a famous company. But this doesn't mean that they deserve credit for all of this awesome stuff. They're building on the shoulders of giants and to deny that is a pretty bold thing.
1) Should is a very subjective term. What if I track my taxes in my Word Processor?
2) Doesn't Dropbox do this? And isn't this what git/hg do for developers?
3) The Internet is a much bigger and better app store.
4) So if I made a computer with built-in GPS, accelerometer, 3G Internet, AND a CD drive, would that be "revolutionary" too? I think not. Adding more a more features that already exist make not an idea revolutionary.
5) Since when did Orwellian DRMs become revolutionary?
6) Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Because the iPad most definitely has a filesystem.
Just listing the ways in which iPad is significantly different from everything else out there. Whether the differences turn out to be a big deal remains to be seen.
1) That's nitpicking. A video game shouldn't have access to your important files, and that's something Mac and PC get "wrong", and iPad gets "right".
2) Nope. If your computer breaks you have to reinstall it, and then reinstall Dropbox and then you get only files back from a single directory. We developers have solutions for every problem, but that's irrelevant for the public at large.
3) For some value of "better". Either way, it's still a big change from the status quo, hence revolutionary.
4) Fair enough.
5) If it's not revolutionary, what would you call it? If because of the iPad the future of personal computing is DRM-ed then I'd say that's a major, major revolution.
6) From a consumer perspective that's exactly what it means. If you can't see it, it ain't there.
So if I made a computer with built-in GPS, accelerometer, 3G Internet, AND a CD drive, would that be "revolutionary" too?
Actually, yes, possibly. But that doesn't necessarily mean it would be commercially successful.
The Internet is a much bigger and better app store.
Define "better." I feel a lot safer on the App Store. But I note I can do a heck of a lot more with my jailbroken iPhone thanks to a few select apps not available there.
The valuable realization here is that one should be able to have the cake and eat it too.
> 1) sandboxed apps. Concept isn't new, but consumer PCs have never had sandboxes. A game or word processor you install shouldn't have access to your tax returns. With the iPad nasty apps can't do much damage.
Sandboxes as a concept aren't new, and so are not revolutionary. Consumer PC's have had sandboxes every since you've been able to run a java programs within a browser.
> 2) backup app installations, settings and documents by syncing with iTunes. iPad breaks or gets stolen? Buy a new one and plug it back in and you're back in business.
That's a neat feature, but not a 'make-or-break' thing. Nice to have, not revolutionary.
> 3) App Store. Now only used for "gimmick" software on the iPhone, but the potential is enormous. Only apt-get comes close, but apt-get doesn't have an easy payment model. And it has this dependecy-hell and installing updates can wreck havoc.
Apt-gets strength is that there is no payment model, access to lots of high quality software for the sum of $0. That's not a weakness, that's a strength. Iphone apps in general are trivial, with the occasional exception. There is an enormous body of real world, non-trivial software in the apt-get (and yum) repositories.
The potential is there to re-ignite a new closed source era, and that's definitely not revolutionary.
> 4) computer with built-in GPS & accelerometer and 3G internet. How many laptops have that?
My netbook has all those except for the accelerometer, it runs Ubuntu notebook remix and works pretty good. It also has access to the above mentioned apt-get repositories.
> 5) locked-down and DRMed, even for developers. That's certainly revolutionary for a consumer PC.
That's a complete loss, not revolutionary. Trusted computing through the backdoor. If microsoft were to do something like this there would be shrunken heads on stakes. We definitely wouldn't call it revolutionary.
> 6) No tree based filesystem. No /home/[user]/Documents, no c:\Users\[user]\AppData. Your files are just "there".
I can see how that would be useful if you only have a relatively small number of files. But here on my collective drives there are literally 10's of millions of files. Just being worried about namespace collisions as well as forgetting what a file is named, I usually can find it because my directory structure is organized. I can see how tagging would go a long way towards mitigating that, but the 'tree' based file system works quite well because that happens to be how we normally organize documents.
If the lack of something is revolutionary then I invite you to store all your files in the root directory of your harddrive.
Sandboxes as a concept aren't new, and so are not revolutionary.
You have a huge misconception here. Revolutionary tech takes decades to be fully absorbed by the culture. Or was the Internet not revolutionary because Minitel Videotext terminals were in front of the general public years before it was?
There is a bit of a split I think. The moment when some technology is invented vs the moment when as the result of that technology some revolution happens are not the same, but we can speak about a 'revolutionary invention' as well as the actual revolution without getting mixed up.
So, Minitel, which in turn was a turnkey terminal version of the videotex standard was revolutionary in the sense that it allowed a whole country (France) to use online services.
But the real revolution came when the world wide web allowed everybody to publish and consume content. The videotex services made a big thing out of being an 'information provider' and a 'consumer', which of course suited the telcos that deployed these devices just perfect.
It never crossed their minds that the unwashed masses would want to publish their own content.
The internet pre-dates the minitel system by about a decade by the way.
But the world-wide-web, a relatively simple layer on top of the internet is about as revolutionary a change as we've had since the electronics revolution and the advent of personal computing.
The potential is there to re-ignite a new closed source era, and that's definitely not revolutionary.
Just because the app runs on the iPhone or iPad doesn't mean it has to be closed source.
I can see how that would be useful if you only have a relatively small number of files. But here on my collective drives there are literally 10's of millions of files...
I think the point is that the iPad manages this for you. You just have to remember that you made a document in Pages and the name of it. You don't need to worry about folders or where it was saved to.
That doesn't mean a single, flat directory. Just that users don't have to manage files.
FWIW, while I personally think that the iPad will be an extraordinary change in how the average person uses a computer, I would agree with you that the future isn't set in stone and the only way to know for sure is to wait and see.
I think the point is that the iPad manages this for you. You just have to remember that you made a document in Pages and the name of it. You don't need to worry about folders or where it was saved to. ... That doesn't mean a single, flat directory. Just that users don't have to manage files.
I have had the following conversation multiple times in my career:
"I can not find the file I worked on yesterday. It
was right here before."
"What did you name it?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know what you named the file? Okay, then
where did you put it?"
"I didn't put it anywhere, I saved it where all my
files are saved."
"Okay, then what program did you use to create it?"
"I don't remember."
Based on my experience, just needing to remember which application the file is for and the name of a file isn't enough.
And then this "feature" would negate the majority of the reason to use computers: the ability to share files, both between users and between programs. If you need to use Excel to even find the spreadsheet you want to insert into your Word document, with the divergent interfaces that multiple programs would have for this ability, it would get even more confusing. Rather than a single "attach a file" functionality in an email program, you need to provide email functionality to each program. Now admittedly, Android does offer something like that, many applications have a "share" function that lets you select how you want to share something with users, but you can still browse for files when attaching, but the base is still files that can be individually manipulated without the original program.
Most users don't need to type anything of significant length, and most are better off with a tightly controlled platform than with the ability to do whatever they want. I don't agree with either of those, but they are large changes.
Targeting the general computer market with a console model. PS3's might have had the option to run Linux but the target was clearly the gamer market.
Using multi touch for a general computer not just a hand held device. Might not seem that big a deal, but there is a reason tablets have failed in the past.
These pass for revolutionary ... turing machines, the Internet, the GPL, Smalltalk, graphical UIs from Xerox Park (commercialized first by Apple), personal computing, CDMA/GSM networks, the web, Google's search engine.
The iPad may prove in the end to be revolutionary, but looking back at the advances made in recent history, using "revolutionary" to describe it leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
You know, "revolutionary" comes from "revolution" which is more commonly used to describe "the overthrow of one government / replacement with another", whereas "evolutionary" usually means "gradually transforming something into a better form".
One of these is not like the other. If Google's search engine is revolutionary then you have a low bar for "revolutionary". Trusted Coumpting is not the console model the idea of a consle is there is a market place of third party aplications that meet some minimum standerd and revinue from their sale is shared with the consle maker. Network / Trusted Computers don't fit into that catagory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Touchsmart almost, but it runs Windows Vista or Windows 7 as standard not an OS built around the mutli touch concept. They where designed to work best with a keyboard with the option to provide limited touch based interfaces.
You know, "revolutionary" comes from "revolution" which is more commonly used to describe "the overthrow of one government / replacement with another"...
I'm picking nits but it pains me that you missed the original meaning of revolution: that of the earth revolving around the sun and the associated profound change in thinking that the concept brought about.
> full abstraction of system operations (i.e. file and process management) from the user.
There have been plenty of attempts to do that in the past, the iphone does it as well.
Revolutionary is to me something that will literally change the face of computing as we know it, the world wide web was revolutionary, the personal computer was revolutionary.
The ipad is a nice gadget, it may be revolutionary but for that to be the case we will have to wait for the future to happen first, and it definitely isn't revolutionary in all possible futures.
edit: Interestingly enough, I'd peg the ipad's chances at being 'revolutionary' a lot higher if apple decided to make it a completely open platform. Just like the web and the PC succeeded because in essence they were open. The fact that the iphone is closed and is a success makes you wonder how big a success it could have been if it were more open. I think that it might have been a lot bigger still.
For some reason 'closed' is the new black and I really don't think that's the right direction, which probably shows from my feelings about all this.
Of course Steve Jobs is in a much better position than I am to say that he's right, but I can't shake the feeling.
btw, multi-touch has been around in one form or another since 1982...
"btw, multi-touch has been around in one form or another since 1982..."
And almost no one is using it on a tablet scale yet. Nor has anyone (other than Apple) actually designed a tablet UI consistently around it yet, as opposed to trying to duct tape together a multitouch screen and a desktop UI.
"> full abstraction of system operations (i.e. file and process management) from the user.
There have been plenty of attempts to do that in the past"
And when that approach ultimately succeeds for most users, it will be a combination of web apps and iPad-like clients.
The iPad might be colossal failure overall, it might fail to catch on until it's cheap enough for the average user to have about three, or it might change the world next month--I'm not convinced any of these is true.
"Just like the web and the PC succeeded because in essence they were open. The fact that the iphone is closed and is a success makes you wonder how big a success it could have been if it were more open. I think that it might have been a lot bigger still."
If your hypothesis is true, Android is going to become an even bigger success than iPhone. Likewise, there's going to be an open (probably Linux) alternative to iPad, just as there's Android now and there were IBM-compatibles to compete with the Apple II and Mac proprietary hardware platforms.
As it stands, Google's attempt at abstracting the system away is Chrome OS, which limits you exclusively to web apps. While that might be enough, it's hard to praise a design for "openness" when it doesn't let you run more than a web browser on your own machine. (Sure, you can install a different Linux on a Chrome OS netbook, but you can jailbreak iPhones and iPods touch as well--presumably iPads.)
Edit: Can someone explain to me why I'm being downmodded here?
> Can someone explain to me why I'm being downmodded here?
Happens all the time. Very annoying.
I'm not advocating chrome os in favor of the the ipad, it seems a step back. The PC revolution is slowly being rolled back and that's not revolutionary at all, that's regression.
The whole reason open source took off is because we own these machines, if we end up just getting a piece of glass that puts us in touch with all kinds of software that we are allowed to use remotely then we are well on our way to the 60's.
We'll see about android, I'm keeping my fingers (and my toes) crossed that open will win out over closed, no matter how slickly packaged closed can be (that really is it's big advantage, the fact that the 'cathedral' usually has a single architect makes it a lot more aesthetically pleasing to the eye).
"The PC revolution is slowly being rolled back and that's not revolutionary at all, that's a step back."
I used to think the same thing for years. I was always for thick clients and the like, but I've seen how ineptly probably 75% of people are at using a PC. Most people can't be sysadmins, and those of us who can don't always want to be. It's not simply a matter of the UI being poor, because even computers with good UI have intractable usability problems.
If we had high speed network access and graphical terminals everywhere we went in the 1960's, there would have been no PC revolution. As it stands, PC's are going to be a niche in the long run. That's probably fine--a stripped down machine like an iPod or Chrome OS or something would actually be helpful even to, for instance, me because I could segregate serious work (which I do on my MacBook) from wasting time on HN and the like (which I could do on a more limited device.)
That would be a real pity, let me try to put in to words why I think that's the case.
Computers as 'property' and in 'peer-to-peer' mode are a democratic institution. Even if they have their shortcomings, as you rightly observe, they are a powerful tool for information processing in the hands of the masses.
If you take all that power and move it to the other side of a network cable in the hands of a relatively small number of corporations then the knowledge on how to program and operate those machines 'under the hood' will probably become part of some kind of new priesthood.
I think that a real information revolution should not come from locking things up and walling them off but from tools that allow a large majority of the people to enter in to a dialogue with their own computers, where they are in control of their own information and can retrieve at will from large repositories of information.
Unless you're publishing your blog or whatnot on a server that's run out of your own bedroom, you've already lost that. I share your sympathies, but most people don't want what we want. The internet is democratic enough for those of us who don't own our own servers, and computing is going to have to become democratic enough for people who don't own their own general purpose computers.
I don't think PC's will become unavailable, though--there's too much work they're necessary for.
edit: Interestingly enough, I'd peg the ipad's chances at being 'revolutionary' a lot higher if apple decided to make it a completely open platform. Just like the web and the PC succeeded because in essence they were open. The fact that the iphone is closed and is a success makes you wonder how big a success it could have been if it were more open. I think that it might have been a lot bigger still.
You just paraphrased my post. To your credit, your version is more succinct and to the point.
btw, multi-touch has been around in one form or another since 1982...
The culture still lags the research labs by decades. See "The computer revolution hasn't happened yet" by Alan Kay.
So by your use of "revolutionary," the Gutenberg press wasn't because movable type predated it and he just used it to replicate Bibles in 2 better, faster way.
Apologies, I had completely failed to spot that, you are absolutely right.
> So by your use of "revolutionary," the Gutenberg press wasn't because movable type predated it and he just used it to replicate Bibles in 2 better, faster way.
No, te Gutenberg press was revolutionary because it opened up books to the masses.
On a technical level it was a relatively minor improvement over movable type, but the fact that the social consequences were enormous is what makes it revolutionary.
Technology is only revolutionary when it has large effects in the real world.
By that yardstick the laser was revolutionary, even if at the time it was invented we couldn't foresee any of the changes that it would bring. In fact, for the longest time it was called a solution in search of a problem.
I simply take exception to calling the ipad revolutionary before it has had a chance to prove itself. It's hype, and hype leads to over-expectations which almost always lead to disappointment.
Let's just wait and see, what this ipad thing is when you finally get your hands on it, let's see what kinds of uses people will put it to.
Then give it 5 to 10 years, and then we'll be in a position to judge whether or not it was revolutionary.
Remember the Osborne-1 ? that was revolutionary. But only because it made people think that computers didn't have to be stuck in one spot.
Gutenberg press was revolutionary because it opened up books to the masses.
On a technical level it was a relatively minor improvement over movable type, but the fact that the social consequences were enormous is what makes it revolutionary.
Yes. And it took the next 4 centuries for all of them to fully unfold.
Remember the Osborne-1 ? that was revolutionary. But only because it made people think that computers didn't have to be stuck in one spot.
Name 2.