iPad: Your thoughts?

[mouseykins]

Every time I see an iPad thread on this forum, I'm excited that we might discuss Telltale games running on it. Playing Monkey Island on the iPhone is reasonably fun, but the extra screen real estate of an iPad would seem to be ideal for Telltale games.

I, for one, would love to play Sam & Max on a tablet like the iPad. And with Telltale's recent wholehearted support for the Mac, surely iPad versions of Telltale games must be a realistic possibility when the iPad user base picks up?

[Friar]

I know a fair few people who are getting one, and i have asked each one of them one question. Why? Noone has given me an answer yet other than "dunno" or words to that affect. That is the power of apple.

[OMA]

Originally Posted by mouseykins

I, for one, would love to play Sam & Max on a tablet like the iPad. And with Telltale's recent wholehearted support for the Mac, surely iPad versions of Telltale games must be a realistic possibility when the iPad user base picks up?

It seems you got your wish granted

[Thriftweed Fancy Pants]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Some of the ideas of the iPad are neat, but the implentation leaves a lot to be desired, I think. I want multitasking, I want a(relatively) open platform, and I want the internet to "just work", without relying on the web to change for my sake.

I agree with this. But I also think that in order to support the ideas for further development, there has to be support for the early implementation of those ideas.

Originally Posted by Friar

I know a fair few people who are getting one, and i have asked each one of them one question. Why? Noone has given me an answer yet other than "dunno" or words to that affect. That is the power of apple.

There's nothing terrible about trying out something unknown. If they don't like it, they can sell it. At least they're not saying, "Because it's magical!"

[GuruGuru214]

The chances of me buying one are zero, unless I win the lottery and have more money than I know what to do with (the chances of which are also zero, since I don't play the lottery). It's cool and all, but it's a very low priority for me. I'd sooner buy myself a new iPod Classic to replace my old one. On the other hand, if I were to win one or otherwise acquire one for free, I almost certainly would keep it, at least until I tried it out.

Originally Posted by Friar

I know a fair few people who are getting one, and i have asked each one of them one question. Why? Noone has given me an answer yet other than "dunno" or words to that affect. That is the power of apple.

I get the same sort of answers when I try asking people why they liked Avatar.

[Ray-The-Sun]

No flash = No canabalt = No purchase.

I just thought of an idea for a (potentially damaging) app for it; a coaster app that lights up a ring around the base of your drink. Think about it.

[Visstix]

I hoped people were smarter then buying this useless.. thingy. and then I saw the people waiting in line.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Ray-The-Sun

No flash = No canabalt = No purchase.

I just thought of an idea for a (potentially damaging) app for it; a coaster app that lights up a ring around the base of your drink. Think about it.

What? Canabalt was designed as an iPhone game. I play it there all the time.

Flash isn't supported within the iPhone OS's web browser, but people use Flash to compile standalone games for it. Canabalt was one of the first.

[natlinxz]

Aside from the amount of flash content on the web that won't be compatible, HTML5 is much, much better than flash for the iPad. Here's a quick comparison: Flash 10 (the latest version of flash) can just barely run the original DOOM. HTML5, on the other hand, can run Quake 2! That's a pretty big difference if you ask me. I'm not saying that the iPad will be running Quake 2 any time soon, but think about how quickly HTML5 will become mainstream with that kind of potential.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by natlinxz

Aside from the amount of flash content on the web that won't be compatible, HTML5 is much, much better than flash for the iPad. Here's a quick comparison: Flash 10 (the latest version of flash) can just barely run the original DOOM. HTML5, on the other hand, can run Quake 2! That's a pretty big difference if you ask me. I'm not saying that the iPad will be running Quake 2 any time soon, but think about how quickly HTML5 will become mainstream with that kind of potential.

I'm not going to spend half a grand on a device that will work perfectly in a hypothetical future, no matter how likely that future may be. I like my consumer devices to work really well now.

[Chyron8472]

People on here are mentioning how playing adventure games on the iPad might be cool, but I assume that means they'd like playing them on a device with a touch-screen.

Why then wouldn't someone buy a small tablet pc instead of an iPad? That would make a heck of a lot more sense.

[Leak]

Originally Posted by natlinxz

Aside from the amount of flash content on the web that won't be compatible, HTML5 is much, much better than flash for the iPad. Here's a quick comparison: Flash 10 (the latest version of flash) can just barely run the original DOOM. HTML5, on the other hand, can run Quake 2! That's a pretty big difference if you ask me. I'm not saying that the iPad will be running Quake 2 any time soon, but think about how quickly HTML5 will become mainstream with that kind of potential.

Comparing apples to oranges, eh?

The recent HTML5 Quake2 "port" relies on WebGL for the rendering (i.e. it's using OpenGL) so it's performance is no big surprise.

The flash DOOM port does the rendering all by itself, like the original DOS version did, with no hardware acceleration at all... and still manages to run at 30 FPS here, so "can barely run the original DOOM" is quite inaccurate.

np: Bomb The Bass - Beat Dat (Freestyle Scratch Mix) (Into The Dragon)

[natlinxz]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

Why then wouldn't someone buy a small tablet pc instead of an iPad? That would make a heck of a lot more sense.

Here's my point, simply put: Tablet PCs suck.

Windows 7 (or vista, or XP) was never meant to be run on a multi-touch interface. On that note, 99.9% of Windows Applications weren't meant to be run on a multi-touch interface. The iPhone OS (and every last one of it's programs) was designed from the ground up for enhanced multi-touch manipulation of it's features. I've used a Windows Tablet PC before, and it was the most unpleasant computing experience I have ever had.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

I like my consumer devices to work really well now.

With an attitude like that, it's hard for the technology industry to evolve. Do you remember when the iMac originally came out? It was very controversial because it lacked a Floppy Disc drive. Now, weather this was a convenience or an inconvenience is irrelevant, the point is: Apple dropped the format of the past (in this case, Flash) for the format of the future, Compact Disc (in this case, HTML5). And for those who say I'm comparing "apples to oranges", HTML5 and Flash both play games and web video. The only difference for me is that Flash sucks on Apple products, end of story.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by natlinxz

With an attitude like that, it's hard for the technology industry to evolve. Do you remember when the iMac originally came out? It was very controversial because it lacked a Floppy Disc drive. Now, weather this was a convenience or an inconvenience is irrelevant, the point is: Apple dropped the format of the past (in this case, Flash) for the format of the future, Compact Disc (in this case, HTML5). And for those who say I'm comparing "apples to oranges", HTML5 and Flash both play games and web video. The only difference for me is that Flash sucks on Apple products, end of story.

If I lived in a world in which floppy discs were consistently used for many things, which I did at the time? Then yeah, I'm going to want floppy support. In fact, I remember having floppy disc support in my computer towers WELL after they had been phased out.

I don't have a floppy drive in my tower now, no. I have a USB floppy drive, but not an internal floppy drive. Why? The world adapted to not need floppy drives, NOT because Apple paved a golden future for every one of us, praise be to the Apple, but because the CD tech was better and eventually reached the point where it had a big enough market share that it was profitable.

When will all the Homestar toons go to HTML5? When will Newgroiunds switch to an all-HTML5 site? When will flash all of the Flash-based menu navigation sites that litter the web completely disappear?

All of my computers support Flash and HTML5. My browsers are ready for both types of content. Chrome OS is ready for it. Almost all other commercial tablets are ready for both types of content.

Apple is fighting the battle of "World, change to MY product's design". You generally can't get away with that, but it's Apple, so who knows? But out here, in the real world, when I go to a website and it doesn't work because there is no Flash support, that doesn't feel like innovation. That feels like Apple locking me out of another thing because it's not good for their bottom line.

I'm not going to buy a toaster that only toasts future bread. Future bread may be AWESOME, and there may even be a few companies making future bread. But if I go into my grocery store and the stock of future bread is intermittent and unreliable, with only promises of "big things" in the future, I'd rather have a toaster that could handle the bread I can get from my grocery store NOW.

Technology moves forward fairly naturally, as cost goes down and availability goes up. No slapping consumers on the wrist and saying "You don't want that" required.



The best place to be on either of these graphs is generally Early or Late majority. At some point along that top of the curve, the technology is heavily supported, costs and has less problems overall. If you're going to adopt the tech early, don't pretend the still-prevalent tech does not exist. The early adopters that pretend floppies didn't exist or were stupid were in some trouble when someone wanted to transfer files via floppy, which still was the norm and had been the norm for ages. And what of people who adopted early to Betamax? To HD-DVD? To Laserdisc? To...oh, that one video format where you slid in the cartridge thing and the disc came out into the player? Whatever that was called. There was a first-generation iPhone, what happened a year later? New tech categories are at the very least risky in the short term.

[guitarsareboring]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

I'm not going to buy a toaster that only toasts future bread. Future bread may be AWESOME, and there may even be a few companies making future bread. But if I go into my grocery store and the stock of future bread is intermittent and unreliable, with only promises of "big things" in the future, I'd rather have a toaster that could handle the bread I can get from my grocery store NOW.

Have you ever read anything by George Saunders? I reckon he would LOVE that paragraph.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by guitarsareboring

Have you ever read anything by George Saunders? I reckon he would LOVE that paragraph.

Never heard of the man. But I'm always looking for new reading material, so he's now on my list of upcoming readings.

[guitarsareboring]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Never heard of the man. But I'm always looking for new reading material, so he's now on my list of upcoming readings.

I first read Pastoralia by him but it was this that really won me over.
http://www.amazon.com/Persuasion-Nat...0488585&sr=8-2

You can read a few pages there.

[natlinxz]

Rather Dashing, have you ever used flash on a Mac? How about on a PSP? Try combining the two together, and that's what you would get for Flash on the iPad. I'm not going to get into an argument about Apple making everyone change for their products (which is a flawed argument), but I will say this: Flash isn't perfect on all platforms. And rather than wait for Adobe to perfect Flash on Apple hardware, how about apple does something? Something like, oh I don't know, switch to HTML5? It makes perfect sense to people who have actually used flash on mac.

[Tor]

Why are you guys discussing minor issues like flash support when there are far more important questions at hand? For example, will it blend?

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by natlinxz

Rather Dashing, have you ever used flash on a Mac? How about on a PSP? Try combining the two together, and that's what you would get for Flash on the iPad. I'm not going to get into an argument about Apple making everyone change for their products (which is a flawed argument), but I will say this: Flash isn't perfect on all platforms. And rather than wait for Adobe to perfect Flash on Apple hardware, how about apple does something? Something like, oh I don't know, switch to HTML5? It makes perfect sense to people who have actually used flash on mac.

So...Flash is unnecessary on Apple devices because they suck at Flash.

...

Why not just get something that does Flash, you know, well?


You don't make a toaster that doesn't fit bagels because you assume bagels will be phased out for a breakfast item that accomplishes the same general goal of a bagel. People will still want to eat bagels while the SupahBagel™ catches on. People who wake up every morning to eat a Sun-Dried Tomato Bagel aren't going to like waiting for the flavor to start being produced in SupahBagels™. Also: yes, I missed breakfast this morning.

A device whose primary purpose is to experience web content should not be locked out of the vast majority of video and games on the web. Flash is a currently used development platform, and it has been used for a large variety of the web's most famous and consistently-visited content. HTML5 may be the future, but Flash is the present, and the idea that Apple is going to be the shining knight that will smite the evil Flash dragon and fill the entire web with the glorious riches of HTML5, leading to world peace and happiness and glory for all...the idea seems somewhat unrealistic.

The current web is not designed with HTML5, and it is only now starting to get its first big steps. I don't even need to know or care WHY Flash is not supported on the iPad. I don't need to know WHY Apple decided to lock me out of my means of watching television shows(Hulu), deciding that I should instead go to iTunes and give them a 30% cut of a paid purchase for the same episode that I can view for free on Flash-compatible devices.

If Flash is so horrible on Apple devices, I see no reason to own one until either Flash DOES work on them, or Flash is as phased out as the floppy disk. Either way, the iPad is a horrible device NOW, and why should I care what the reason is? Why should the reason convince me that I don't need 50% of the sites I regularly visit? I'd rather wait for a web-centric device that works with the WHOLE internet, not the parts Apple doesn't find harmful to their revenue stream.