Did iPad live up to the hype? Steve Jobs debuts Mac iPad tablet with iPhone OS

January 27, 2010 by vongsundara · 1 Comment 

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: Event guests play with the new Apple iPad during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. CEO Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: Event guests play with the new Apple iPad during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. CEO Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

Apple has a habit of crashing the internet. At 1:00 p.m. today, January 27, many servers were overloaded and crashed from the volume of traffic looking for news on Apple’s big tablet unveiling. Apple’s product announcements have become big-time events. Their last major announcement, the iPhone, basically blew away the entire world with concepts that nobody could have even dreamed about, so the hype surrounding their tablet announcement had reached fever pitch. Ultimately, the unveiling was good but didn’t blow anyone away outside of its ridiculously low price. I suppose it was too much to ask to live up to the hype, though the iPhone did just that and then some.

Prior to the announcement, most people had predicted that the iPad would be like a bigger iPhone. I was hopeful that Apple would be able to dream up something better than a bigger iPhone. Unfortunately, I was kind of wrong. Now, I’m not giving Apple enough credit, because there is much more to the iPad, but the perception and word on the street will be that it’s just a bigger iPhone, and Apple will have no one to blame but itself. They even included the exact same home button.

Enough of that though; let’s move on to the positives. The biggest feature to jump out at me is the price point: $499 US dollars. This is the SAME PRICE as the top model of the iPhone. That is absolutely ridiculously low and places the iPad into impulse-purchase territory. Let me repeat that again: the iPad is the same price as an iPhone. Keeping that in mind, the other faults seem to almost disappear.

Instead of comparing the iPad to laptops, this pricepoint lets us compare the iPad to digital photo frames and the Kindle. The cost of the 10-inch LED premium Sony S-Frame is also $499, and that’s just for a digital photo frame. The iPad is also backlit by LED, which makes it at the very east a good digital photo frame. The Kindle has the same dimensions roughly, and the iPad makes the Kindle basically obsolete as a book reader.

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs demonstrates the new iPad as he speaks during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Apple introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs demonstrates the new iPad as he speaks during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Apple introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

Now down to the bad points. Instead of using a modified Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the iPad instead runs on iPhone OS. I can see why Apple went this route, as this allows easy incorporation of iTunes and the App Store and 100 per cent compatibility with all 140,000 iPhone apps. I still disagree with this decision, however. The iPhone OS was not meant for such a large screen, and Apple should have taken some time to develop a hybrid Mac OS X and iPhone OS, which shouldn’t have been too out of the question as iPhone OS is already a modified Mac OS X. The Mac OS X dock would have made much more sense on a 10-inch screen than the spread out App icons of the iPhone OS.

Also, while it is indeed nice to have the ability to run 140,000 apps off the bat (with the option to zoom in 2X full-screen, blurry but still workable), Apple should have modified Mac OS X and added an App store. Heck, I’m surprised Apple hasn’t added an App store to Mac OS X already (they must be saving this for version 10.6).

Will I buy an iPad? The question isn’t if but when. I’ll probably wait until Apple updates the iPad to at least second generation. I would have bought first generation had the iPad been closer to what I wanted, but the price is just too undeniable.

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: An event guest plays with the new Apple iPad during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. CEO Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO - JANUARY 27: An event guest plays with the new Apple iPad during an Apple Special Event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California. CEO Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. introduced its latest creation, the iPad, a mobile tablet browsing device that is a cross between the iPhone and a MacBook laptop. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Content © 2010 Getty Images All rights reserved.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the second BIG feature that Apple announced: 10 hours of battery life. That’s amazing for a 10-inch screen device (1024×768 resolution) and blows away the battery life of any laptop I’ve heard of.

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Commenting on Conan O’Brien’s treatment by NBC and Jay Leno over The Tonight Show

January 20, 2010 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment 

Conan O’Brien Says He Won’t Host ‘Tonight Show’ After Leno. VTda.info

I love Conan O’Brien. There’s something about his style of comedy that has always appealed to me. He’s just so strange, so awkward, so ugly, and yet it all comes together in an amazing package. This is why the current situation with Conan O’Brien and NBC is so disheartening to me. This is the biggest network television screw-up since ABC drove Who Wants to be a Millionaire into the ground by over-saturating the airwaves.

First they announce that he’s going to be the new host of The Tonight Show five years in advance as a way to dangle a carrot in front of him so that he won’t leave NBC for greener pastures. Now that he’s done his time and waited the five years, they have completely messed up his transition to official host of The Tonight Show.

I began to grow concerned when I heard that Jay Leno was going to have a show in prime time that preceded The Tonight Show (and local news). Come on, NBC, if you’re that hardcore about Jay Leno then why did you let him off of The Tonight Show to begin with. This move completely undermined Conan’s rise to hosting duties of The Tonight Show, as it showed clearly whom NBC felt was their premiere late-night host.

Now NBC is saying that Conan’s ratings weren’t up to snuff? Well how could they be when NBC spent all their money promoting The Jay Leno Show while undermining The Tonight Show. Goodness sakes, give the dude a chance. Jay Leno and David Letterman are great at what they do, but Conan should have been given more of a chance to do what he does best.

His humour appeals to a different crowd, and I think he really could have had a successful run as The Tonight Show host. Now we’ll never know. Thanks a bunch, NBC. Way to take a great talent and screw him over.

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US Open 2009 Controversy: Serena Williams versus Kim Clijsters, Racially Motivated?

September 12, 2009 by vongsundara · 11 Comments 

U.S. Open: Serena Williams penalized on match point to fall in semis -- ESPN.

To start off, please let me say that I am not a big Serena Williams fan (though I do love Venus Williams), more for her after-match press conference remarks throughout the years. That being said, I really respect Serena Williams as a competitor on the court.

What happened to Serena Williams at the US Open 2009 tonight was absolutely ridiculous. If this was the first incident against the Williams sisters, I might look at it differently, as Serena did clearly verbally abuse the lineswoman. Sure, by the rules, everything went according to the book. I just can’t see this as an isolated incident, though.

The horrible part (not as horrible as what happened to Serena of course) is that I’m actually a really huge Kim Clijsters fan, and she was outplaying Serena and had a huge shot at winning the match had it gone on. That being said, Serena has been down in similar situations and still gone on to win the tournament (like this year at Australian Open and French Open). So Kim not being to close it out does indeed leave doubts. Serena holding serve would have had a shot at a tiebreaker to even the match with the third set being 50/50 odds at winning. So let’s be clear that Serena was by no means out of the match when this happened.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I should explain the situation.

Serena Williams was serving at 15-30, second serve, against Kim Clisters who was leading 6-5 in the second set. Serena was called for a foot fault, meaning she stepped over the line on her serve. Now, it was foolish of the commentators to try to comment on whether she foot faulted or not. First of all, the camera angles are really difficult to see and second of all, calling a foot fault to give someone match point is almost unheard of in tennis.

Yes, unheard of. Especially for a baseline player who was not approaching the net.

There have also been many, many times worse arguments that did not end with a point violation to end a match. Yes, Serena did have a previous code violation for smashing her racquet earlier in the match. Yes, getting a second violation is an automatic point penalty. Still, though, compared to what has happened in the past in tennis, this was way overboard to have the match end this way. This is when judgment should be used. Ending the match was not good judgment.

Let’s combine this knowledge with all the past incidents that have happened against Serena Williams and Venus Williams, the most notable is of course the Serena vs. Jennifer Capriati match from the US Open 2004 tournament.

Now, this is where it gets iffy, and I know people are going to get upset at this and accuse me of bringing up the race card, but seriously . . . this would not have happened if Serena was white. Yeah, I said it. You all know it’s true too.

Like I said, as an isolated incident, it might be seen differently, but the treatment Serena has received over the years (which by the way I can’t think of the same types of incidents occurring over and over to any other players) leads me to this conclusion.

Yes, Serena could have handled herself better (which I think she did during the Capriati incident), but enough is enough people. Yes, I realize the lineswoman was not white.

Anyhow, that’s still how I feel.

Also, the fact that these incidents ONLY happen during tiebreaks (like Venus getting screwed because the score was incorrectly called “by accident”), or to give break point (Capriati match), or to give match point (Clijsters match). . . well, doesn’t that say a lot.

Having rewatched the calls from the YouTube video above have made me even more mad again.

Please have a look at the video before commenting, as it shows how ridiculous the history has been and why Serena Williams probably lost her cool today.

Just to remind everyone, the treatment of Serena has been so bad in the past that it’s generally agreed upon that it is the single defining moment that pushed the Grand Slam tournaments to adopt a challenge system.

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