"Do you like a linear approach for doing things? If so, the iPad is perfect for you."
I can already feel the condescension.
"Everything about the iPad interface is linear. Every desired final action is accomplished through a series of taps."
As opposed to what, chords? Those are the only non-linear interface I know of... otherwise most inputs are processed sequentially in time.
"Want to read a book? Cool. Tap the home button. Tap the iBook app. Tap the library view. Tap the book you want to read."
As opposed to...? What? Seriously. Someone help me out here. Someone name a better way to launch a book in a reader. Would "tapping" each key to spell the command to launch your uber-l33t CLI reader and the path to the book be better? Would "tapping" a combination of keys to bring up your GUI app launcher and then "tapping" the first few chars of the book and "tapping" enter be demonstrably better?
"Hopefully, you’re getting the point. Some will call this brilliant. I call it rudimentary and lacking, especially when you consider that you’ll be doing a lot of tapping since there is STILL no multi-tasking functionality. Yes, just like the iPhone, you can’t switch between apps."
You can switch between apps... Any app worth its salt saves and resumes its state as quickly as possible.
"If you’re watching a movie and want to tweet a comment about it, you’ll need to exit the movie app, switch to the twitter app, tweet away, close the twitter app, re-launch the movie app, tap to resume the movie…etc."
Again, the alternative is...? Pausing the move, switching to the Twitter app, tweeting, and then switching to the movie app? What? You think you can tweet without pausing? Well I hope you stay off the road, because I bet you think you have better multi-tasking skills than the average luser and can text and drive just fine thank you very much, don't you?
I think that by linear he means there's only one way to get there - that exact sequence. You cannot get there via a custom bookmark, or from another application that somehow links to the book, or by having many instances open with different books and by app switching.
That said - I don't know if that's true, but that's how I understood him. This way it kind of makes sense to complain about linear approach. Can anyone confirm?
Since he's talking about the app browser interface exclusively, and not accounting for the degrees of freedom in the applications themselves, it's hard to take the critique too seriously.
Even if it's what he was saying, the OS supports custom URL schemas for just this purpose. I used custom URLs to jump to records in our app from other places in the system. Granted, it's not a quick keystroke or an on-screen quick-launch bar, but it works.
You can't multi-task between apps. For example right now I'm typing to you via Chrome, but I also have Tweetdeck up and seeing the other iPad chatter. You can't do that on an iPhone or an iPad. BTW, I also have southpark running in another tab :)
Linear is just that...linear. Although I guess what I'm getting at is there is no alternative means for doing things. For example on my Macbook Pro I can launch a PDF by double clicking on it, right clicking and choosing open, dragging it to Acrobat, etc. I have multiple options. With the iPad OS you are limited.
I took a moment to break down all the individual criticisms of the iPad in the article:
1. The OS's interface is "linear".
2. There's no multitasking
3. There's no accessible filesystem.
4. There's no camera.
5. The screen gets smudgey.
6. It doesn't come with a screen cleaner.
7. The speakers aren't loud enough.
8. It's "not portable".
9. It's hard to read in direct sunlight.
10. You can't get it wet.
11. It has too many book suppliers and no unified book reading interface.
12. It costs $30 to turn it into a picture frame.
13. It has no USB port.
14. You can't replace the battery.
15. There's "no ability to create content".
16. It costs $100 too much.
I found this to be a distinctively superficial and unhelpful review, but it was at least mercifully free of moral judgements.
Since (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (10), (12), (13), (14), and (16) were clearly evident before he bought the device, and (8) and (15) are... dubious... at best, I find it especially amusing that he opted to pay for it.
I have an Apple store right next to my house, so I stopped by today to play with an iPad.
He's right about the smudgey screen -- though supposedly both the iPad and iPhone have oleophobic screens, the iPad was noticeably worse than the iPhone.
Granted, several thousand fingers running over it for 16 hours a day probably wasn't the intended use case.
It's true that you'd only know about (5) if you'd ever owned, used, or read much about an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Every iPhone I've ever seen has been smudgey.
Let's just deconstruct it:
"Do you like a linear approach for doing things? If so, the iPad is perfect for you."
I can already feel the condescension.
"Everything about the iPad interface is linear. Every desired final action is accomplished through a series of taps."
As opposed to what, chords? Those are the only non-linear interface I know of... otherwise most inputs are processed sequentially in time.
"Want to read a book? Cool. Tap the home button. Tap the iBook app. Tap the library view. Tap the book you want to read."
As opposed to...? What? Seriously. Someone help me out here. Someone name a better way to launch a book in a reader. Would "tapping" each key to spell the command to launch your uber-l33t CLI reader and the path to the book be better? Would "tapping" a combination of keys to bring up your GUI app launcher and then "tapping" the first few chars of the book and "tapping" enter be demonstrably better?
"Hopefully, you’re getting the point. Some will call this brilliant. I call it rudimentary and lacking, especially when you consider that you’ll be doing a lot of tapping since there is STILL no multi-tasking functionality. Yes, just like the iPhone, you can’t switch between apps."
You can switch between apps... Any app worth its salt saves and resumes its state as quickly as possible.
"If you’re watching a movie and want to tweet a comment about it, you’ll need to exit the movie app, switch to the twitter app, tweet away, close the twitter app, re-launch the movie app, tap to resume the movie…etc."
Again, the alternative is...? Pausing the move, switching to the Twitter app, tweeting, and then switching to the movie app? What? You think you can tweet without pausing? Well I hope you stay off the road, because I bet you think you have better multi-tasking skills than the average luser and can text and drive just fine thank you very much, don't you?