Paulscott's Profile

I use a Macbook Pro at home and when I travel. The machine is fast and powerful and I don' t have to worry if I have data on my desktop or laptop I only have the laptop. Plus I can move it around the house and not be anchored to my desk. I can work in the office, on the patio, in the living room, or where ever I want.

Now that I have an iPad the laptop doesn't come to the living room or dinning room table anymore I use the iPad to look things up and keep up with email and only use the laptop for the heavy duty tasks.

Well you can apparently guess if someone is male or female based on browser history.

http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/

It also would depend if it is work browser, home browser, portable browser like iPad or iPhone. Different devices in different locations likely influence your browsing.

Yes he should get a second term. We have a lot of problems in this country and it has taken a long time to get to the mess we are in. It won't be fixed overnight. We have a soundbite, Attention Deficit Disorder, Microwave Food culture that expects everything to be fixed RIGHT NOW with NO WAITING.

That isn't reality. I was hoping with President Obama's election to see immediate sweeping changes. I am guilty of it too. But having someone take a little time to think things through and then act isn't necessarily a bad thing. We are just getting started we need to give him another year to see where we are and if we are making progress in the right direction.

The last President had 8 years to make a mess and spend the budget surplus President Clinton spent 8 years trying to fix the budget and did it. So let's give Obama a second term and see if we can turn things around again.

Join Jason Calacanis in the killing his Facebook persona Friday @ 1 pm.

1. Why does Steve Jobs not allow Flash or Adobe Air?

I am guessing here they are processor hogs and would reduce the battery life. HTML5 is the future and no one knows how to get rid of legacy cruft like Apple.

2. Should the government investigate Apple's hard line against Adobe?
Is it anti-competitive?

Was it anti-competitive to get rid of ADB Ports, Parallel Ports and Floppy drives in the late 90's?

3. Will you buy one today, tomorrow or never--and why?

I bought two on Saturday. One for myself as an IT Guy and Blogger it was important to be familiar with the device and I bought my Mom one for her birthday because she is in school and likes to read and uses her laptop in the living room all the time.

4. What impact does the lack of a USB post, Flash, Adobe Air, a memory
card slot, camera and swappable battery have on your decision in
#3--if at all?

None. Instead of USB I store data on iDisk, Evernote, and Drop Box all of which I can access over the network on my iPad. The battery I can charge. When I carried a blackberry and an older laptop with a replaceable battery I never had a spare battery or charger then and it really didn't affect me. The Camera you got me on. This would ROCK as a video conferencing device. Perhaps a Bluetooth Video camera accessory could be in the future and a built in camera in a future rev. Apple does have a patent for a camera located behind the screen between pixels that would allow you to center a camera in the iPad screen and allow you to look right at the person you are talking to vs. appearing to look down when you are talking to them because the camera is at the top of the screen.

5. Will Steve Jobs move the iPhone/iPad operating system to your
desktop next? Why or why not?

No, the Mac community loves the Mac OS Operating System and the usefulness comes from both it's simplicity for some users and the power of Unix for others. It is very flexible and I don't think Apple wants to give up that advantage.

6. Does the brilliance of the iPad and iPhone forgive the evilness of
the closed platform?

I wouldn't say evil. It is certainly brilliant and they need to improve some processes. Switches to allow us unapproved apps would be a good start.

7. What price will the iPad have in one, two and three years from now?

I think we will see refurb units come out at a 15% discount but I don't see much downward movement in pricing.

8. Do you have one, have you used one and what are the single most
impressive and depressive features?

Impressive I would say is the screen is beautiful. Depressive I would have to say syncing files between the iPad and the Desktop. Would it have killed them to make it look like a USB drive on the desktop and drag and drop files into the system for use with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

9. What could I have included in this review that would have made it better?

It was a good review. I liked the 140 characters to keep it on point. I wrote one on Sunday that ended up being 2000 words and I didn't even really go into apps. blog.macguy.info if you are interested in checking it out. I had 24 hours with it and was still gushing a bit.

10. Is it clear that I am in awe of Jobs and wildly frustrated by his
control issues? Why am I and other pundits obsessed with this?

It is clear and I don't blame you. I think Jobs could stand to loosen up a bit and let the the Apple Fan community help with ideas for opening up the platform and making it more useable for the experienced and the novice users.

When Apple first launched the Music Store years ago it was DRM'ed. Today the music is DRM free and I can move it around as I please. Once Apple gets enough leverage on the Movie industry and the Movie industry realizes DRM only slows down the honest users it will go away too, it just takes time.

As for exploring the device and taking it apart. I do agree people should be able to dig in and understand what is going on inside these devices instead of treating them like a magical screen. When I go do RAM upgrades for clients I show them how I do it so hopefully they can do it on their own in the future. I would much rather teach a person to fish than give them a fish.

But we do hear stories of kids and adults alike getting iPhones and iPod Touches and using Xcode that comes free with their Mac to write some compelling applications that they make good money on. Instead of hacking the hardware they are moving into the software space. They can make the device better by writing apps for it which is still a creative process and with the iApps store they can post their app and get it in front of everyone who owns the device and not spend a dime on marketing.

Is it the perfect solution today? No it isn't. I wish they would allow developers to live outside the App store if they choose. Put a switch in the OS allowing users a choice of only approved apps or any apps. Maybe some day those features will come to us.

In the mean time there are already lots of users who are imaging what it will be like to have an iPad. To be able to rent a movie and hop on a plane and watch it in flight. Then open a book and read for it bit. Maybe thumb through a magazine, then update their email when the plane lands. People who don't have the best vision so the iPhone isn't very useful to them and they just want to consume content in a portable way.

Others will take their new iPad and write apps for it and put them in the app store and I give it a couple of weeks before someone jail breaks it so people can do whatever they want on the iPad.

Would I jail break mine? I am not sure yet. I am waiting to get the device in my hands and see what it is like.

I would say no. I have read from several sources that Apple has several bold new initiatives that are currently planned to be rolled out over the next year or two. I think Steve has a few years more before he decides to take it easy. He has already transformed Apple over the last several years but I think he wants to make a few more huge technology changes before he hangs up his turtle neck.