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Steve Jobs, Apple and Me

By Kevin on Wednesday, October 5 2011
one comment

I am a computer person. Computers have not been widely available all my life, but I was exposed at a very early age. Learning BASIC on a mainframe at the National Weather Service. My freshmen year of high school I'd take the bus to my dad's office after school and hang out until he was done for the day and we could go home. It was mainly a way to get me out of my dad's hair.

At high school we had Apple ][+ and Commodore PET computers. I was a die hard Apple user. I didn't like using the PET computers and got away with almost zero usage on them. At home my father bought an Apple //e that pretty much ended up being my computer (in fact, I still have it.) I used the hell out of that thing, playing games, learning Applesoft BASIC and eventually 6502 assembly language.

In these early years I was much more of a Wozniak follower. He was the engineer and the did the real work. Steve Jobs, eh, he was the business guy, whatever (hey I was in high school.) I used an Apple //e through college (getting an electrical engineering degree because, hey, I already knew how to program, screw computer science.) Campus computers were either dumb terminals tied to mainframes (oh god I had to learn FORTRAN) or IBM PC's, and even in those early days frequently virus infected. I'd heard/seen Macs but stuck with my tools (not to mention I couldn't exactly afford anything at that time.)

My first job after college used software that was IBM PC only, so I learned to use those (DOS mainly with a bit of Windows 3.1 thrown in, yuck) eventually support them, and to this day use them. Through Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, on up to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (f'in Microsoft names) today.

But at home, it's always been Apple. I got paid to use/support PC's but I wanted to use Apple. At first I just hung onto that Apple //e. Finally, I broke down and got a Macintosh Performa 400 (with the Apple //e card, natch.) This combined with Adam Engst's Internet Starter Kit and Mosaic got me a color computer and on the Internet (and was the cause of the first all-nighter I'd pulled since graduating college.)

This is when my idea of computers started changing from the Wozniak engineering, to the Steve Jobs design. This is when I started to see that it isn't function over form, or form over function, but that form when properly designed for it's function is beautiful and so much more preferable to use. Not every iteration was perfect, but so many more things from Apple fit this than anyone else.

It was Jobs' insistence not just on simplicity, but justification of every feature. Machines weren't just an assembly of parts with a few drivers thrown in. Features needed stories and poorly written stories weren't included. Now matter how many competitors jumbled the parts into their models seeking to differentiate themselves with checklists of functions.

I use, support and make a living from Windows machines. I use Linux servers at home because they satisfy some engineer's sensibility in me, but I, like millions of other people, ENJOY using my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I don't think Steve could've had a better legacy.

In-App Web Viewers vs. Safari

By Kevin on Friday, April 15 2011

I recently got into a bit of a twitter argument with Dan Frakes of Macworld about apps that have links to web pages and open those pages in their own web viewer within the app, instead of handing the link to mobile Safari (hereafter just called Safari as this is an all iOS discussion) and letting it handle it.

Most apps do this because it became the norm when there was no multitasking on iOS. Switching away from an app meant shutting it down. Reopening it sent you back to the beginning. Apps avoided this 'return to the beginning' by opening web pages in a browser built into the app. It worked around this limitation nicely.

But under iOS 4 when an app supports multitasking it can save its state so when reopened it returns to the same exact state it was left in. This means it can send the user to Safari, and when the user returns they resume right where they left off.

When an app with an internal webview works perfectly the workflow is:

  • Click link in app
  • webview opens
  • read web page
  • close app's internal web browser
  • return to what I was doing

When an app sends the link to Safari the workflow is:

  • Click link in app
  • Safari opens, read web page
  • Double-click home button, click app icon
  • return to what I was doing

That double-click home, then click the app icon is the only complaint about this process I've seen that I think holds any water. More on that later.

So why is opening in links in Safari better than opening web pages in an internal page? Because the internal web browsers randomly break on many web pages, plus many actions I typically do when reading web pages aren't available to me.

The number one broken web site on internal browsers is YouTube. I've yet to see any browser but Safari that can open a YouTube page and have the video actually work. Additionally I've seen many other pages break because the internal web browsers User Agent strings are set to something weird which websites don't identify correctly and then present really broken web pages.

The workflow for working with an app that opens links that won't work with it's internal viewer is:

  • Click link in app
  • webview opens
  • Me: "oh it's a YouTube page" (frequently disguised behind a URL shortner)
  • Click button to bring up menu of other options
  • click button to send web page to Safari
  • watch video
  • switch back to app
  • close app's internal web browser
  • return to what I was doing

For an app that always hands off links to Safari the workflow:

  • Click link in app
  • Safari opens, watch video
  • Double-click home button, click app
  • return to what I was doing

One of Dan's points was that with internal webviews context sensitive options are available. In other words when you click a link in a twitter app you're most likely want to do twitter things with that link in the future. This is true occasionally, but far more often because it's a web page I'll want to do many more web things with it than twitter things.

What if I want to make a bookmark to the website so I can read more goodies in the future without waiting for someone to tweet about it? Can't do that with an internal web view, i have to send the link to Safari then bookmark. What if I want to send the link to some other web service? Apps with browsers are pretty good about supporting Instapaper these days, not so good at supporting Read It Later, and pinboard.in support is very rare. But all these are available in my Safari. Future ones not yet invented won't have to wait to get popular enough to be supported by iOS apps, they just need to support Safari and app support is there.

One final pain is when the link is to a website I frequent and when I'm finished I want to comment on the article. But since this isn't Safari I'm not logged in. Now I have either go fetch my password from 1Password in order to login via the internal web page, or send the page over to Safari where I'm already logged in.

Felix Metzger on twitter mentioned that sending links to Safari has the disadvantage that returning to the original app is 3 taps (2 on the home button, one on the app). He's correct, and you'll have to do this every time. My argument is that this is so LESS annoying than randomly having pages not working and then opening them in Safari anyway (frequently requiring 2 or more clicks), that the 3 click return for every link doesn't bother me at all. I already do it for every broken link, plus I have to then additionally close the internal web viewer in the original app -- adding one or two more clicks that wouldn't have been necessary at all.

Sending links to Safari always works (so long as the website itself is in working order). The workflow is consistent every single time, click link, go to safari, read web page, 3 taps to return. Internal web viewers frequently break, I estimate around 10% of the links I get don't work at all and another 10% end up with me opening in safari anyway so I can bookmark or comment or add to pinboard. That means the workflow is sporadic, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The Mac way has always been to go for the method that "just works". Internal web viewers don't. They should go away.

Apple's Newish In-App Purchase Policy

By Kevin on Tuesday, March 1 2011

A follow up to my Apple vs. Sony post. Apple has specifically stated that if you link to a website store in your app, anything digital you offer for sale on that website store has to be made available to app users via an in-app purchase. Apple charges developers 30% of the in-app purchase price.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball wrote an article covering these topics as well, I pretty much agree with everything he wrote and reinterate some of his points below.

Again the big question here for consumers is how does this affect Amazon Kindle app. Apple just accepted an update from Amazon last week that still includes a button that has a link to the Kindle Store on each page. So to date Apple appears to be OK with Amazon. They may be waiting for iOS 4.3 to ship before enforcing the policy with Amazon, or they may be in dicscussions with Amazon, or they may just be ignoring Amazon. It's Apple, all three are likely.

Even if Apple rejects the Amazon Kindle app from the store it's doubtful they'll delete the app from everyone's devices. Although they have the capability, Apple has never done this (which puts them ahead of Amazon, who has deleted several books from Kindles.)

A bigger question is why is Apple doing this? And many seem to be saying "Oh my god Apple is so unfair" or "30% is too much money!" I'll take a shot at answering these.

Why is Apple doing this? I see two reasons behind this. One is about books and magazines. Apple doesn't want iBooks to become irrelevent in the ebook market. Currently a book publisher that wants to make ebooks available can go to Amazon and have the book available on way more devices, including Apple's, than if they negotiate with each ebook reader individually. If Apple can reduce the use of the Amazon Kindle app on iOS devices it will force those publishers to either create their own apps and sell the books with in-app purchases, or to make books available via iBooks. Either way the publisher gets 70% of the price, Apple gets 30%, Amazon gets circumvented. Win-win for Apple, and no loss to the publisher (Amazon's cut is 30% or worse on Kindle books, so the publisher doesn't lose money this way.)

The second reason is this: Does Wal-mart allow Costco to setup little stores inside of their stores? Hell no. Apple feels the same way. They went to all the trouble of creating this awesome device, and awesome market, and now they're getting circumvented? That would piss them off a great deal. So they're putting an end to it. By the way, Amazon does allow other companies to sell stuff via Amazon's web site. I'm curious to what cut Amazon takes from those companies. Would be an interesting perspective to the "30% is too much money" argument.

Does it hurt the customer? Not immediately. Customer's probably won't lose access to any current applications. If Amazon's app gets pulled I believe it will be Amazon's decision to pull out, not Apple kicking them out. There is the potential that some developers may decide to opt out of developing for iOS because the costs, but I don't see that happening anytime soon while the iOS has so many more people actually buying apps (with real money) than other platforms.

"Apple is being unfair." Apple is only being unfair to resellers. If you want to setup a web store and cater to iOS users with a custom app, Apple wants a cut. If you're a publisher you're already used to giving a cut to various retail outlets. Apple's deal may actually be better for them. But if you're an aggregator of content and you already negotiated taking a cut from publisher, Apple's 30% is probably coming from your cut. And you may be screwed. Apple doesn't really care, they want to bring publishers direct to the customers, not through multiple layers of middle men.

Is 30% too much money? I honestly don't know. Amazon wanted more, when they were the only game in town, then Apple undercut them and they dropped their own pricing pretty quickly, suggesting 30% cut is more than generous. Press releases announcing price cuts are greeted much more enthusiastically than announcements of price increases. If Apple determines 30% is keeping away too many publishers or developers, they can lower later. As a consumer I don't really care what the deal is between the publisher and Apple. Just as I don't really care what the deal is between Costco and the various manufacturers. I'm looking at my total cost. If Apple reduces the 30% cut will app prices drop? Some may, but I actually think most developers would keep the extra money (and there is nothing wrong with that!)

I think publishers are currently using to paying way more the 30% to get their books on shelves of bookstores. They have to pay the author, editor, the printer, advertising, the middle men, etc... If they negotiate directly with Apple or Amazon or Sony or Barnes & Noble they know they'll get 70% of the price. They'll still need to cover the author, editor, and advertising but other costs are eliminated, Apple is now the middle-man for all the other stuff (bandwidth, storage, store front development costs, etc...) and it comes out of the 30%. Currently publishers are most likely avoiding ebooks because they don't want to risk their paper book sales, which are probably still larger than their ebook sales. So they'll keep the prices artificially high while they transistion. I expect prices of ebooks to start dropping in 4 or 5 years as paper book sales tank.

Apple vs. Sony

By Kevin on Tuesday, February 1 2011

Full disclosure: I own Apple stock and am a (paying) member of the Apple iOS developers program, although i've no apps in the app store.

Well in typical Apple vague as shit manner they've muddied up the waters of how ebook apps have to work on iOS devices. Apple rejected an app from Sony that, according to Sony was for reading ebooks on iOS devices, specifically books people bought from Sony's ebook store for their Sony ebook readers.

Apple never talks about apps it's rejected, and recommends dev not talk about them either. Probably good advice, it's easy to piss off Apple and hard to un-piss them off after. Sony probably figures they're big enough to get away with it, but Apple really doesn't care how big you are.

Anyway, all we know about the app is what Sony says it submitted, which according to the New York Times story is an app which works just like the Kindle application. The Kindle app has a button labeled "Kindle Store". Pressing that button opens Safari to the Kindle store at Amazon.com. That's it. You can't search for authors or titles in the app, and can't buy anything in the app.

Assuming that's true (and I wouldn't be surprised to find Sony shading the truth somewhat) then it would appear Apple has changed it's policy regarding apps in the app store.

In a clarifying statement (which you just know pissed them off having to issue,) Apple said:

We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines. We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.

First they claim they aren't changing terms or guidlines, but their very next statement is "We are now requiring," (emphasis mine) which implies that they weren't previously requiring this and therefore it's a new requirment. Ugh.

"If an app offers the customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app." It doesn't say if the company offers ability to purchase books outside of the app, it says if the app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app. Sounds like the Kindle button is no longer allowed. But really that's just a web link. If you offer a link in your app to someone else's store, such as a link to Baen's ebook store, which has all DRM free books in many formats, or Fictionwise, which has some DRM free books, is that no longer allowed, even if it isn't your store?

What about Amazon's store app? This is separate from the Kindle app. It allows you to search for MP3 downloads, but you can't buy them, only add them to your wishlist for purchase from your computer later. Is this allowed (Apple's statement only references books, but i imagine it applies to all digital content purchases)? If they duplicated this in the Kindle app for books -- searching and browsing but no puchases just wishlists, is that OK? If I were Apple this would irritate me more than the current link to Safari does.

So as a stock holder, what do I think? Overall I think Apple is starting to get just a bit greedy on wanting a cut of every purchase made with an iOS device (I'm sure they're doing this with the near field networking they're setting up for adding to iphones sometime in the future as well, if you want to use it Apple will need a cut.)

Am I selling my stock? Hell no. They've got a ways to go before i reach that point. Besides, I'm not sure any of the interpertations of this are correct. Two sentances from Apple and a story from Sony (I really am not fond of Sony, they are the original "lock it up" device maker, the reason they've never made it in the digital music player market is their initial insistance on using ATRAC only, no support for MP3 at all.)

When Apple can release an app for the Sony e-reader that lets me buy iBooks I'll be more concerned about Sony's welfare on iOS devices.

The New AppleTV and Ping

By Kevin on Thursday, September 2 2010

Apple's iPod event was yesterday. As usual rumors abounded before hand, and failed to come through. The funniest was Apple didn't rename Apple TV to iTV as every-freaking person in the world predicted. Apple TV also didn't become a touch driven interface (touch provided via the Magic Trackpad Apple introduced). This is a good thing, mostly. I don't recall hearing too much that Apple might roll-out a social networking deal (Ping), so I guess most people missed that too.

I'm going to confine my comments to just 2 things: Apple TV and Ping. Most of the rest of the announcements were typical. Shuffle and Nano changes are neat, like most people I think the Nano would be a cool watch, but I hate wearing watches so I can't bring myself to get excited about it.

Ping

I've signed up for an account, played with it for an hour or so, hate it. I'm not a huge social network user. I've got a twitter account for spewing forth my idiotic observations to the void and that is tied to my Facebook account (if the void has to put up with my idiotic observations, so do my family and friends.) My Facebook profile is mostly empty. It's got my name and hometown. My birthday is a lie. My high school and college - not filled in. To find me you have to remember how to spell my name correctly.

I frequently post about music on Twitter, typically when I'm downloading stuff from E-Music or found an album I just can't stop listening to. My tastes are very wide-ranging. Classical, Blues, Rock, Alternative, World music, I've got something from every genre imaginable.

Ping is completely worthless for this type of interaction. The whole purpose of Ping is the iTunes Store. There is no link between your iTunes music library and Ping. The only way to comment on a track you like is to leave a review of that track on the store. The only way to like a song is via the store. In other words, even if you've bought all the albums from your favorite artist via the iTunes store, the only way to tell other people how much you liked them is to jump to the store and click the like button there.

If you're like me (and everyone should be!), you've purchased tons of music from other sources. I've been a member of e-music since the good old days of "download as much as you want for a flat fee". It was awesome. I bloated my music collection by several gigs during those days. To this day I still download 2 or 3 albums a month from e-music. If e-music doesn't have something I want, I'll check iTunes and Amazon MP3 store (before iTunes went DRM free, I'd check Amazon first. Now I check Amazon's $5 album specials and I love their 99 classical tracks for $5 specials.)

If it's an artist that isn't in the iTunes store, then you can't like them in Ping. That's right, nobody on Ping likes the Beatles, those haters.

Next issue is right in the same line. There is no web site for Ping. Not even through Apple's Mobile Me server. Only usable in iTunes. This means I can't use it from work, or even a friends house. Once again, tied to tightly to the iTunes store. Plus this means it's very difficult for me to encourage non-iTunes users to look at my music tastes, and gasp buy some of that music from iTunes -- bringing them into the fold. Short sighted thinking from Apple.

Apple TV

Apple did a better job with the upgrade to the Apple TV. I've got the old Apple TV, and I've already ordered the new one (I'm such a sucker.)

Back in January I killed my cable connection. I use my Tivo HD to record HD over the air signals for the shows available that way. Cable shows I really love I buy subscriptions to via Apple TV. I buy the standard def versions (they fill my wide screen TV but they look like upscaled DVDs rather than even 720p HD) so I pay in the range of $20-$40 for a season of shows (I've only purchased about 7 shows this year so far, so that's a pretty huge savings over the $60 a month I was paying for HD cable.)

Because I killed my cable connection, the Apple TV has become the most used component in my media system. Haven't used my DVD player in years (I rip the DVDs I buy and put them on the Apple TV), Tivo is just recording over the air, haven't fired up the xbox in a few months.

Even though it's the most used component doesn't mean I love it. The thing has problems galore, and is barely usable. I'd probably have switched to a mac mini connection instead but the Apple TV was limping along (and i upgraded the hard drive in it to 320GB, which helps.)

The biggest problem with the Apple TV is how freaking slow the hardware is. It plays H.264 video great, but that's about it. Moving around the menus is horrible. Half the time I switch my system from the Tivo to the Apple TV I have to turn the TV off and back on before the video will show up. Random reboots (very rarely when watching, but frequently if I've left something paused for a long time to switch to watching the Tivo.)

The new Apple TV does away with the old hardware. They've adopted the A4 chip for it's CPU, the same chip that powers the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch. They've eliminated the hard drive, and got rid of the component connections. These changes let it drop the size to a 1/4 of the previous Apple TV size, plus they dropped the price to $99.

Software-wise the interface remains mostly the same (with the elimination of locally stored stuff) adding on Netflix streaming and a system for accessing TV show episodes from your favorite tv shows (this ties into their new, limited to a few networks, $.99 tv show episode rentals).

Dropping the price to $99 is the biggest point in Apple's favor. This makes it much more competitive with the Roku boxes used for Netflix and Amazon streaming. Hopefully the A4 chip fixes some of the speed issues (although not mentioned, it would be nice if they doubled the memory. Current model has 256MB of memory. 512MB would go a long way towards fixing some of the speed issues.

Dropping the component connection is a typical Apple move. They were the first to abandon a whole slew of interfaces (floppy, Apple propritetary keyboard ports, SCSI) for newer USB and Firewire technologies. It's right in line with their dismissal of Flash as "old technology". It pisses people off for awhile, but goes away as everyone else catches up with Apple. Even Flash stories have changed from "Apple will die without Flash support" to "look how crappy Flash is on these other mobile devices." No component connectors saves Apple on space and money at the cost of a few individuals with older TVs.

I have a bigger issue with dropping the hard drive. I actually like syncing to my Apple TV. Currently my media center connection to my main computer is fairly slow connection between floors so when I do stream, especially video, it can occasionally get laggy. rewinding and fastfowarding also get a bit weird on a stream.

The new Apple TV still includes an "Apple use only" USB port, the same as the original Apple TV. This was used to hack the old Apple TV, so hopefully it will be possible to do so on the new one.

The biggest disappointments to most people was that Apple didn't appear to adopt the iOS operating system, and there are no 3rd party apps available.

I'm pretty sure Apple is using iOS, and has been using iOS, on the Apple TV for a long time. iOS and regular Mac OS share a great deal of underpinnings, differing mainly in how apps run (sandboxed in the case of iOS), user permissions (very restricted for iOS) and interface (mutli-touch for iOS).

My guess is that Apple TV uses iOS, with a different interface (in other words, sandboxed apps and restricted user permissions but AppleTV menu system). Touch interfaces will never work on a TV. Touch interfaces are TERRIBLE when what you are trying to touch is not immediately under your finger. Try turning off your iPhone screen and touch where you think an app is. Turn the screen back on and see how close you were. You were probably off a bit. Probably enough to have launched the wrong app. While voice over works wonders for vision impaired, it requires a lot of gliding over the phone to find out what is going on. This will be insufficient for the majority of TV users. I've found even touch sensitive remote controls are terrible unless they are gesture based, rather than target based (use gestures like swipe down to move the cursor down, swipe right to fast-foward, etc...) Most people don't want to look at their remotes to rewind the good scene they just watched.

Apps would be nice. The absence of Pandora on Apple TV was pretty noticible to me. But they would have to be dedicated to the AppleTV, not just allow the existing apps to run. The non-touch interface just wouldn't allow existing apps to translate to the AppleTV. But until this new form factor settles out, and the iPad is further along, I don't see Apple dedicating resources to this until next year. So we might see apps in 2011, but I'd guess 2012 more realistically.

So as far as I see, the Apple TV is still a hobby. A more significant hobby. Hopefully they got the hardware right this time, the price point is pretty darn good, and the software is where they'll focus next.

The iPad

By Kevin on Thursday, January 28 2010
2 comments

I do like the iPad. I think its a new category of device. Fat iPod is a visual description but I think it does the device a disservice. I can't count the number of times I've talked to people that have gone to a dual monitor on their computer. It changes their workflow, they feel more productive, etc.... Technically that's just a fatter computer but it's made them use it in a different way.

I have the same feeling about the iPad. It's a dual screen iPhone and it's going to trigger different uses and workflows. Things you don't even think of until you have it in hand.

Most specifically what the iPad ISN'T is it isn't designed to replace any device you have now. It's not an iPhone replacement (or even an iPod Touch replacement). It's not a laptop replacement. I've even seen it said that it'll fail because it doesn't replace an XBox. Well duh it's not an XBox. Neither is a netbook, neither is a laptop, neither is a Mac Pro.

I think everything left out that people complain about was left out on purpose because it actually made the product worse. Given that the original iPhone was called the Safari Pad (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/03/safari-pad-tech-used-to-create-iphone.ars) it's obvious Apple has been working on this for a long time. My guess is they made lots and lots of prototypes and tried them extensively and if it was awkward or not working, out it went.

The use case I see for this is when you are sitting down. Recliner, couch, airplane seat, less so an office chair (unless next to the monitor of your "real" computer). iPad will spend most of it's time in your hands. Next most common will be propped up (probably by the case), the dock less than that (I'm sure there are people that will dock it with the keyboard and leave it that 24/7 but I think this will be rare outside the blogging/writer adopters.)

I also think this device will be left at home far more than smaller devices. I'll leave it on the arm of the couch when I go to work. Unless it works alot better for taking notes from the virtual keyboard then I'm picturing, I don't think i'll take to meetings with me (I do take notes on my iPod Touch). When I travel I definitely take it. For business travel I'll take it WITH my work laptop, not instead of. For personal travel I think it will be sufficient on it's own. At the bar, restaurant, bathroom I still use my iPod Touch.

Most common complaints I see are:

  • No phone - duh, it's a 10" device. You don't want to put this up to your face (by the way, I believe VOIP will work on the device.)
  • No back facing camera for taking pictures. Really? You want to pull out a 10" device to take pictures. Give me a break. Your phone is faster and more portable.
  • No foward facing camera. I thought about this one for awhile. On the surface it makes sense for things like iChat and Skype, but think about my use cases. If the most common use case is sitting down with the iPad in your hand, it's going to be in your lap. A camera would be angled straight up your nose. Even if you're tilting your head down the angle makes your head look huge. Next use case is propped up on a table. In landscape mode the camera would point at your chest (unless you angle it back more, then you're back to up the nose.) Portrait mode, on a dock might work, but unless you're very short I think this camera would shoot. your chin. To me a video chat works best with the camera at eye level. Which is a rare position for the iPad.
  • USB/firewire/HDMI - I don't want cables dangling all around me on the couch. The camera connection adds a USB to connect a camera will be curious to see how useful this is.
  • No 1080p - duh, the device is 10". 1080p at 10" is stupid waste of disk space, and you're already limited to at most 64 GB on
  • Only up to 64GB memory - it's thin and cheapish device. More memory is expensive, and the device has to be thicker, and heavier. This one will change over time. I'll never argue against more space (my iTunes library is over 500 GB, so the more I can put on a portable the happier I am).
  • No tethering from iPad to iPhone - this would be nice to avoid another data charge. I'm hoping for a wifi tethering mode in a future iPhone OS (similar to mifi functionality.) I'm guessing this was more a carrier decision than an Apple decision. I'd also like to tether to the iPad if it has 3G.

So what I see is Apple has come up with a nice device that supplements your other devices. It isn't designed to replace any of them, especially not combinations of them. Apple wants to sell lots of devices so their design is specifically set to be an additional device, not a replacement for existing ones. I can clearly see a use for Computer, iPhone/iPod Touch, and an iPad as a group of devices. Those whining it isn't awesome because it doesn't let them dump their existing devices don't know what they're talking about.