Why All The Restrictions

[RAC]

I think the share holders of AAPL stock would disagree with this statement! At last count, Apple had a net worth of something in the neighborhood of $222 BILLION! This places the company's value even higher than Microsoft with a puny net worth of only $219 billion!

I will admit that I have no idea how the $$$$s stack up. Are there any numbers on how the split between hardware and content revenues are split?

 

[iPadCharlie]

Much of that information can be found here -- https://www.apple.com/investor/

I don't own any shares of AAPL, but I wish I had bought some when Forrest Gump bought his shares in that little fruit company!

 

[Tinman]

Thanks for all the replies.

I personally suspect that many of the restrictions may originate from legacy DRM/iTunes thinking. This is all part of the iPod's original formula for success, making money from selling content as much as selling hardware, but I think that it may be time to move on.

iPod's original formula for success to sell content? I wouldn't say that as there was no content to sell. The iPod came out in 2001 whereas the iTunes store not till 2003. It was already a successful device before you could buy one single song from Apple.

Apple wants you to just buy more Apple products period; be it apps, music, video, or better still more hardware devices.




Michael

 

[RAC]

Have you thought that maybe, just maybe, the "technical elite" are not the main demographic the iPad is geared for?

Even with the 64g iPad, a weekend of shooting for me would overflow. I can go through 128gb of photos in a good weekend

I take your points but I am not sure that being able to freely copy files around is all that "techie".

As for photographic use, you operate on a different plane than I do. On a recent trip to the US, including a once in a life time trip to the Grand Canyon, it didn't even fill a 16GB SD card and that with 12MP RAW+JPG. See www.picasaweb.google.com/dickcampbell19 for the photos if you are interested.

I used a netbook & portable HDD for backup. The screen on the net book was very average. The iPad is so much better for viewing images but can't perform the backup tasks.

I don't agree with those who would like to edit images on the iPad by the way.

 

[SweetPoison]

How much is your computer company worth?

I'm not tellin you, Scott.

 

[Seadog]

You can add many things to an iPad, but each addition means compromise. More money, more bulk. I never had a SD slot until my MacBook Pro. It is handy, and I use my connection kit because of how handy it is. Things change and grow as needed.

 

[Superbike81]

RAC, if you aren happy with what the iPad offers, pick up a tablet that runs Androis OS. Right now he big players seem to be Samsung and Archos. But after the holidays, we are going to have Android tablet offerings from many more companies. They will do pretty much everything you are asking for. But the user interface isn't quite as smooth and fluid as iOS.

 

[RAC]

RAC, if you aren happy with what the iPad offers, pick up a tablet that runs Androis OS. Right now he big players seem to be Samsung and Archos. But after the holidays, we are going to have Android tablet offerings from many more companies. They will do pretty much everything you are asking for. But the user interface isn't quite as smooth and fluid as iOS.

I suspect that I will be among many who, having bought the the iPad and basically liking it, will keep it for a quite a few years. When the time comes to replace it, I will be interested to see how far the iPad has come in addressing some of the issues that I have isted. That will help me decide whether to stay with the iPad or go for an Android (or whatever) device. In the iPad's favour, battery life will be a major consideration although I may be seeing (as others have reported) a reduced battery life with iOS 4.2.

 

[RAC]

How much is your computer company worth?

I'm not tellin you, Scott.

Is that REALLY you Scott McNealy.

For the record Sun Microsystems is apparently worth about $200 Billion. That's same is USD or AUD these days, take your pock.

 

[FatalDesain]

Flash is here to stay people who say no really don't know about the web. When android picks up apple will have no choice but to support it. IOS is king for now but that will change. Just like when windows killed apple it was because windows could be on any hardware. Google vs apple is the same thing. Apple is just doing the leg work for everybody else to create a market for these things.

And I typed this on my iPad and it took forever, would be nice to have swype.

 

[Superbike81]

What's swype?

I type just as quickly on my iPad as I do on a standard keyboard. But I do tend to make more minor typos on the iPad, but luckily autocorrect catches most of them.

 

[Dragoro]

Swype is an android app that allows for much faster typing on touch screens. You basically drag your finger to each of the letters instead of tapping them. The app learns as you do this and eventually you can swype words with very small gestures making writing extremely fast. It sounds really awkward but is becomes extremely easy to the point where you could swype what ive wrote in this paragraph extremely fast without even having to look at what your swyping.

 

[RAC]

Flash is here to stay people who say no really don't know about the web. When android picks up apple will have no choice but to support it. IOS is king for now but that will change. Just like when windows killed apple it was because windows could be on any hardware. Google vs apple is the same thing. Apple is just doing the leg work for everybody else to create a market for these things.

And I typed this on my iPad and it took forever, would be nice to have swype.

I agree, if Apple doesn't react to the upstarts it will loose ground quite quickly.

I can also see parallels with the Mac which was very innovative but a relatively closed box compared to the Apple II and failed achieve high market share as consequence.

I think Steve Jobs said at the time, that Apple would have to do nothing more for the next 10 years for the others to catch up, and that more or less came to pass ( I can feel the arrows from Apple fans as I type this).

The closed box/software combo may deliver stability but can stifle innovation.

The thing that I fond puzzling is that the omissions are self imposed.

One thing that I can't argue with is Apple's financial success.

 

[bastones]

I have to agree with some points of the OP. No USB ports for transferring documents from pen drive to iWork, as an example. It's a "would like to have" but it didn't affect my decision to buy the iPad.

Flash, I'm more understanding about that with Apple. I know fair well it takes a lot of battery life, uses more CPU power and a lot of games that require keyboard input or right clicking won't really work on the iPad - so there is a fair amount of reasons why Apple doesn't include Flash on it's platform.

Camera is another thing that I would of liked on the iPad, but again, didn't affect my decision to buy the iPad but I would of preferred a camera on the iPad.

 

[FatalDesain]

I have to agree with some points of the OP. No USB ports for transferring documents from pen drive to iWork, as an example. It's a "would like to have" but it didn't affect my decision to buy the iPad.

Flash, I'm more understanding about that with Apple. I know fair well it takes a lot of battery life, uses more CPU power and a lot of games that require keyboard input or right clicking won't really work on the iPad - so there is a fair amount of reasons why Apple doesn't include Flash on it's platform.

Camera is another thing that I would of liked on the iPad, but again, didn't affect my decision to buy the iPad but I would of preferred a camera on the iPad.

If you really believe apple doesn't want flash because of battery life then you fell for jobs and his lies. I mean why not make it an option to turn on or off. Or why can't firefox or chrome be made for the ipad.

Apple locks things down not for any reason but they can and people will still buy. No usb for apple on the ipad only means more money for them. no camera, more money. I mean look at their laptops why do they not have hdmi ports.