First iPad ad premieres during the Oscars
By Nilay Patel 
posted March 7th 2010 9:10PM
posted March 7th 2010 9:10PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted March 7th 2010 9:10PM
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What's up with using the word 'magical' to describe the thing? that seems stupid, it makes me feel Apple is talking down to people... other than that (and that it will be as locked up as an iPhone), I really like the iPad concept.
@drcrispin
It basically is magic to most people who don't understand or follow technology closely. Which is most people.
Why are people that are obviously either disinterested in or hateful toward this device even reading this article. It's entirely nonsensical. The internet has an endless stream of content with which to occupy oneself, but they're still navigating to this story... Epic fail for redundancy.
@Bakedisk
It's not hatred; it's disappointment.
@69camaroSS Disappointment. I can understand that. There's still a bit too much malice 'round these parts. Just the trolls. Anyhow, with no webcam and a screen two inches shy of a relatively decent landscape keyboard, the device is somewhat of a disappointment. And the lack of a file system accessible on the user end. That sucks, too. I was hoping to be able to use the iPad as a laptop replacement. I would have paid the extra dough. Gonna end up with a 16gig 3g version instead of the 64. Also waiting six to eight months.
@Bakedisk The iPad has a user file system
"Apple didn’t go so far as to actually expose the iPad’s whole file system to the user. But they gave the iPad something interesting. Each app has its own folder for sharing data and documents with other apps. Apps can also ask the OS “I’m looking for files of a certain type. What’s available?” and get a list of Microsoft Word documents present in all of the other apps’ shared folders.
When you connect the iPad to your computer via USB, it appears on your desktop as a mass storage device. Each of those shared folders is a standard directory ... you’re free to move stuff in and out as you please."
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2083771,ihnatko-apple-ipad-anaysis-030410.article
Hey guys! Stop hating on the iPad! They'll turn commenting off again!
@Steve B
Truest. Comment. Ever.
We may both get banned for this, or at least our comments removed.
Big block of yawn!
The music in the background sadly you will have to play via some other device, as you will not be able to multitask
@Hydra - You can always have the iPod app open, along with any other Apple shipped app.
@Hydra
Used an iPhone much, noob?
4:3 aspect ratio
i don't think so...
@RidEtHeLiGhTNiNg
+1
lol Wow.. I can't believe so many people still find a way hate on a commercial, JUST because there is a Apple logo in there.
I bet if it was the HP Tablet, Windows fanboys would be jizzing their pants RIGHT NOW.
@mtnDewFTW its the way they can sell things and make huge amounts of money just because they are apple... they could sell deodorant and people would buy it for any price apple sets it at... they are mind controllers
@mtnDewFTW
HP wouldn't make shit like this. They aren't neck deep in the soccermom market.
@mattyboy1013 Why are you saying it as a bad thing? Just because people like Apple you're making it sound like a bad thing. Seriously, you need to rethink your logic, and if you're gonna hate, back your shit up, instead of talking shit out your ass.
@FiveGallonBucket As an aside, most people I know with Apple products are hipsters. HP and Dell are the ones that OWN the soccer mom market, as well as the generic, non-enthusiast market.
@mtnDewFTW
They'd already "jizzed" themselves empty from looking at the Courier animated cartoon "concept" video. They'll have a whole year to reload themselves because that's how long it will take for a prototype Courier to ever see the light of day. Apple will have such an easy head start, they'll sell millions of iPads before most companies start production of their own tablets.
@mtnDewFTW
Can't you people control yourselves or Engadget is going to turn off the commenting again? That is so disruptive.
@FiveGallonBucket
Hey, let's say you had to choose between selling to people that buy and people that don't buy, who would you advertise to?
Apple advertises to people that buy. You WON'T buy their products, no matter what concessions they make, so they have NO REASON to give a crap about what you think of their ads.
@FiveGallonBucket Is there any market HP isn't deeply into?
@cherryboom I doubt that anyone complains to the Internet about the other 98.99% of ads they see. It's like Sarah Palin, people. If you feed it with attention, it doesn't go away.
Does any even know what that 'Icon' is on the right hand side of the unlock slider?
Looks like a key... or the gender symbol for women lol
@themil I thought I read somewhere that it is the way to make it display pictures like a digital photo frame.
@hollis is it present on the SDK iPad silulator?
( I can't use it yet because im still on ol' Leopard ._. )
@themil
Yes, iPad can act as digital photo frame when locked or in a dock. Works with iPhoto slideshows as well. I think the icon is a frame with a flower.
Typical catchy advertisements. I'm sure this'll sell millions of units. I'm sure neither tidbit will make the majority of the core tech crowd want to fork over $400+ for one.
As an aside, if the Dell Mini 5 and HP Slate had a baby, I'd buy it. This? Not so much.
@kenny goo those are totally different devices.
they are half the size of the iPad, half the battery life, half the function, half the build quality.. So they should be half the price, but guess what, they aren't.
@jellotime91
half the function? lulz
@jellotime91
Totally different devices? You don't say. Wow. This is news to me. I had no clue. Thank you for enlightening my poor, poor misguided mind.
No shit Sherlock. The iPad is running a mobile OS on high end mobile/MID hardware, the HP Slate is running a full on version of Windows 7 with presumably netbook level specs, and the Dell Mini 5 is as relatively pocketable MID that runs Android and also functions as a phone.
Now usually, when a normal, competent human being claims that if two inanimate objects were some how able to birth a child, their product would be something significant, they usually aren't talking about the same type of thing otherwise the comparison would be pointless in the first place. Chocolate and peanut-butter much? Logic. Get some.
As for your comments about battery life, while it's great that Apple has been able to cut back to give the hardware great battery life, it comes at a cost to performance. Given the A4 chip is from the same type of Cortex A8 CPU as the Snapdragon, and this thing only has 512MB of RAM, point for point it's barely more powerful then a Nexus One or HD2. That's really what you want in your tablet computer?
Your other comments are just laughable. While the Mini 5 is obviously a lot smaller then the iPad, the HP Slate is relatively close in size. It's not an MID like the Mini 5 is, it's a tablet computer. Half the function? That's a joke right? You do realize the iPad is running the iPhone operating system do you not? And you do realize the HP Slate is running a full-on version of Windows, the same operating system that powers the overwhelming majority of desktop and laptop computers in the world?
Dumb ass.
i dont get the point of this thing...
i cant put it in my pocket, i look like a tool playing racing games on it, it has features of every other device on the market, and it is massively overpriced...
ill keep my 500 bucks and get me a nice dell mini 5
@mattyboy1013
Smart move. People should never spend more than they can afford. That's why this economy is in such a mess.
@MosesusedaniPad
LOL... good one
@cherryboom Yea, blame it on someone else... Ordinary people are just angels.
@mattyboy1013
The point of it is that it is a different way of doing them that Apple thinks fits better with how you want to do them. Certainly an iPad will be a better experience than a netbook since a netbook is nothing more than a slow PC while the iPad software is written to run quickly and take advantage of the hardware that it was written for.
@mattyboy1013 Massively over priced? This thing is $10 more than the Kindle, and can do an infinite amount more things. How is this over priced?
You know, I was pleasantly surprised when the first few comments I saw on here weren't completely hating the iPad.
...then I refreshed a few minutes later.
That text wrap action at around 19 seconds is AMAZING to me.. That makes me want to buy an iPad.. Is that how iWork is on Macs!?!? That's fucking incredible.
@Atkins Office definitely doesn't do anything awesome like that. :(
@jellotime91
Office definitely can.
@CodeRed really? I'd really like to see a video of any program in Office where a person is dragging an image in and the text wraps around it live like that..
@Atkins How can you prefer a document suite that doesn't autosave?! Sorry, but macs do occasionally crash, and I can't believe that, on its 3rd generation, iWork still lacks this feature.
@CodeRed Bullshit office doesn't have a feature like that. You lying apple hater. Check your facts
@CodeRed youtube or it didn't happen
@jellotime91 It is possible with a png file with transparency. Then activate the transparency option for your image in Word and voilà your text flows in all the transparent spaces!
@stueck I know that, but I don't think Word is that fluid and easily adjustable.
@mikethebigo
Hmm, I didn't think about that but that's a good point in Office's favour. I can't honestly remember having had iWork crash on me but I can appreciate that it is possible and that not having saved your work would be annoying. Having had Office (or the PC in general) go belly-up at work, I can safely say that I appreciate auto-save with Office.
Like the iPhone ads, this one looks hopelessly sped up. I wish my iPhone were 1/4 as snappy as the ones in the ads. Very deceptive.