Apple iPad launch

[vuzedome]

I hear there's a smaller iPad coming out? The size fits just in between iPhone and iPad.

[mgz]

I hear there's a smaller iPad coming out? The size fits just in between iPhone and iPad.

is it the ipad mini or the itouch XL

[Lupin]

I hear there's a smaller iPad coming out? The size fits just in between iPhone and iPad.

who needs a smaller iPad?

(click to show/hide)

[Stsin]

Went with my Sis to Best Buy to help her decide.  After looking at the netbooks and iPad displays, she definitely wants the iPad.  The cosmetic look means a lot to girls.  Also the screen is just bigger and she was using it fully at first touch since she's used to her iPhone.

Unsure about the limitations posted by others.  But I tested it on YouTube and it played the flash fine.  Also going widescreen if you tilt it.  Though it didn't play the 1080p AirTV opening on YT, but unsure if it's that specific video.

[PowerMac]

Went with my Sis to Best Buy to help her decide.  After looking at the netbooks and iPad displays, she definitely wants the iPad.  The cosmetic look means a lot to girls.  Also the screen is just bigger and she was using it fully at first touch since she's used to her iPhone.

Unsure about the limitations posted by others.  But I tested it on YouTube and it played the flash fine.  Also going widescreen if you tilt it.  Though it didn't play the 1080p AirTV opening on YT, but unsure if it's that specific video.

Its probably using the HTML5 YouTube player, it does not support flash.

[Stsin]

Aah, that explains it.  Well, hopefully everyone will convert to HTML5 eventually.

[lapa321]

Aah, that explains it.  Well, hopefully everyone will convert to HTML5 eventually.

I'm not quite sure about that. Can you tell me what an HTML 5 IDE looks like? Is it still text based? How easy is it to develop for?

Regarding the apparent CPU usage, while it's true that it does use more processing cycles, what's being neglected to mention is that any basic PC today (even a netbook) is enough to run a heavy flash based site. So unless you're using a 10 year old PC, it shouldn't be an issue. Any high power app will consume high CPU. Simple html, java or flash site will consume minimal resources, complex ones use high resources. Flash will not have your processor running at 100% just to display a banner.

Regarding stability and efficiency. One curious thing is that a friend of mine got a mac and he's trying to code flash on it. It kept crashing and had a ton of incompatibilities which doesn't happen on the PC. When i looked into it, apparently Apple wouldn't release the API's so Adobe has actually been working blind. The PC versions are now using less resources and hardware acceleration, the mac is still doing everything in software.

And apples comment on security issues is kinda hypocritical, considering the innumerable ways they've been hacked through the safari, quicktime and jailbreak.

[Stsin]

Well, never really looked into it, other than checking out videobay.

But the reasons for it, is already described by you.  Removing proprietary apps for normal browsing.  Sure, the recent flash may use less resources using hardware acceleration in latest releases, but also brought some instability with it.  Not sure why you brought up banners not taking up much resources, when we were discussing about YouTube.  Well, flash does take up a lot of resources, especially having multiple pages open.  If you use tabs, you'll likely have multiple pages open at once...and that may kill that netbook.

I'm for open source, even if it initially isn't as good.  Knowing that will change down the road with more aids and tools than before.  It's just not two OSes that we should worry about.

[ilk3000]

It's up to the browsers and the users, not the developers. I'd love to see more HTML5 and CSS3 implemented, but until the browsers support it and people (and companies) stop using IE6, there's no point in developing for it.

[lapa321]

IE's CPU usage with three fully animated flash banners. (Intel atom 270)


IE's CPU usage with the flash banners covered.


Flash by design doesn't draw anything unless it has to, try covering half a banner, and the cpu usage drops 50%. Scroll down a bit until the banners get pushed off screen, and it drops to 0. Heck, even if you're showing the entire banner, if the only animation is a tiny part of it, it'll only use enough CPU to draw that part. Killing the netbook with flash is rather unlikely.

PS: The instability you claimed i described is because of adobe not being given access to Apple's API's. You can't honestly say something is crap on your system if you're not letting them properly program for it in the first place.

[Stsin]

Please stop using banners as an example.  I thought I already addressed that.  Try using some real flash, lol.

When I first started using Opera after it first came out, it had little flash support.  Adobe chose to sit on their ass for this lesser known browser.  Later work arounds were done, by installing another browser and having flash plugins installed on that, then copying parts into Opera for some compatibility.  Something Adobe could have easily released themselves.

It's not just the OS these proprietary apps have to be made for, but also for each browser and future ones to come.  HTML5 does away with that.

[fohfoh]

Question: Disabling flash, does that also consider games as well as videos and banners? I'm thinking stuff like games and whatnot that can really go off the deep and and aid the fucking up of the processor. (ie: Facebook games like restaurant city which is a fucking memory whore)

[Stsin]

Yes.

But take a look at Flashblock:
"Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content."


Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433

Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gofhjkjmkpinhpoiabjplobcaignabnl?hl=en-US

btw, to check out HTML5 on YouTube:
http://youtube.com/html5

[fohfoh]

So to a certain extent, flash wasn't fully meant for videos, but games? That way Apple doesn't have to deal with as many hardware failures due to people burning out their unit by leaving it on a facebook game that uses a lot of processing power and consequently causes their unit to overheat?

[iindigo]

It also keeps people from spending all their time on flash game sites, draining their batteries faster than normal, and then immediately after complaining about the device's battery life sucking and giving the device a bad rep in that area.

[ilk3000]

Brilliant! Perhaps they could disable the touch pad and install a confirmation popup for every program so people don't accidentally click on the wrong things!

[fohfoh]

Brilliant! Perhaps they could disable the touch pad and install a confirmation popup for every program so people don't accidentally click on the wrong things!

What touch pad? You mean the screen?

[ilk3000]

This is why I don't like the iPad: http://www.slate.com/id/2250993. By buying into Apple products, you are giving up control of how you want to use the products and forced into further purchasing from a single supplier other applications you want to use. I'm not an uber-tinkerer with either hardware or system software, but I benefit from people who are. There are people who will never need to go beyond Apple's proscribed limits for their device and that's fine. But don't call it a true computer, because it's not.

And this is interesting: http://www.slate.com/id/2249872/

[fohfoh]

Some of those comments are really biased and stupid imo...

[ilk3000]

Such as?