Joe Hewitt on iPad: “Exactly the Product I’ve Been Wishing For”
Joe Hewitt isn’t exactly a household name; his former project, however, very much is. Hewitt was the one man wrecking crew responsible for coding the Facebook application for the iPhone — the App Store’s most popular application for quite some time. Back in November of 2009, Hewitt, seemingly pushed to his breaking point, announced that he would no longer be developing for the iPhone: “My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process.” A very respectable objection, and one, in all likelihood, shared by many developers.
Fast forward to today, what does Hewitt think of the iPad? On his blog joehewitt.com he writes: “iPad is exactly the product I’ve been wishing for ever since I wrapped my mind around the iPhone and its constraints…I felt strongly that all Apple needed to do to revolutionize computing was simply to make an iPhone with a large screen. Anyone who feels underwhelmed by that doesn’t understand how much of the iPhone OS’s potential is still untapped.” An interesting view, and one shared by our own — often times equally disgruntled — Boy Genius.
Personally we like all the talk about the “untapped potential” of the iPhone OS and the “revolutionizing of computing” but remain skeptical on how fast users are going to adopt iPad into their digital device portfolio. What do you think? Apple was almost a decade ahead of its time with the Newton, is the iPad a similar situation? Can the iPad revolutionize computing with a tiny user base, or will it need to be adopted on a scale similar to that of the iPhone? Or, was this simply a swing and a miss out of Cupertino?
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I am not an apple fan … in fact I hate them; but the point remains that they do have a place in this world. Millions (billions?) of people drive cars but have no idea how they operate short of filling a gas tank. Apple makes computers that allows for same exact level of competence.
That said, I am so desperate to move off of AT&T back to Verizon, that if the iPhone comes to Verizon in short order, I will buy one; making it my very first apple product.
And @Dave: show me one particular netbook company that has sold 75 million netbooks and has a built-in marketplace for your particular application which happens to be designed SPECIFICALLY for your netbook.
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Well Doc…The iPad hasn’t sold 75 million either
although it might. As someone said the other day “Steve Jobs is second only to Jesus for guiding sheep.”
And you are absolutely correct, netbooks are not confined to what is allowed on a single, controlled,marketplace. Nor do they need to have applications developed for each and every piece of hardware.
Just so that we understand, this isn’t a hate Apple thing. I would give them two thumbs up if they had of put OS X on the iPad.
Dave
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the above was directed at drcaddy.
If a big guy with a baseball bat shows up at your door in the next few minutes, tell him he is supposed to call me first.
One positive gilmmer to glean.. at least the back plate won’t scratch as easily as the ipod touch.
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Joe Hewitt should buy one. In fact, he should buy two. All Apple fanboys (and tech bloggers) should buy one.
The rest of us need a counterpoint to Google’s imminent world takeover. If all it takes is persistent trips to the Apple store by mindless, delusional fanboys, then so be it. We all thank you. It’ll allow me to use my Android phone, with GMail and Maps in peace.
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Unless it is a Nexus One.
iFail
You want a real tablet that does everything?
Archos 9 pc-tablet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cTfXgbuenk&feature=player_embedded
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Big ol’ swing and a miss
Apple is the master at having the public pay for beta testing. This iPad is “good enough” to release. But as evidenced by previous products, the future generations of iPads will be much better. As such users will be enticed to upgrade, refilling the coffers of Cupertino. It’s just capitalism.
And, future generations of non-Apple, non-proprietary, non-totalitarianist hardware will be much better also.
Everyone wins.
No adobe flash support
Majority of website contents use flash. If used primary as ebook reader, this thingis pricey. I’d rather carry a netbook which is a lot cheaper.
Apple is not stupid and they designed a product that won’t cannibalize the iPhone/iPod Touch or their Macbook line. It has its place in coffee shops, libraries, in front of the TV or anywhere else you may be sitting for a while where you don’t wan to drag out your laptop or use a small screen. The iPad is for consuming media, not creating it. We will have HTML5 to replace Flash, partnerships will be forthcoming and a front-facing camera in the future, among other added tech. You don’t really need multi-tasking if you’re not creating media. Press the home button and open up the other app. Done. Next. Give it a chance. Christ, it hasn’t even hit the market yet.
the biggest point here is that Verizon doesn’t have the iphone nor will they for a long long long time
Neither fish nor fowl. At best is it an experiment, it has too many flaws in my view undoing the plusses of media consumption.
- Poor iPod – where do you carry it?
- Poor text input – SMS is OK on virtual keypad, but answering emails?
- Expensive book reader – No airtime charge for the Kindle
- Cannot use Skype or Pandora in background – deal killer
APPLE BLOWS THEY ARE FOR RETARDS WHO DONT KNOW ANY BETTER!…the are SEVERELY OVERATED and DO NOT HAVE HALF OF THE SHIT THAT OTHER PRODUCTS OFFER>>>FOR LESS!
I think your CAPS LOCK is broken.
bringing more and more truth
http://tinyurl.com/63hpm
Does teh iphone still have a 2meg camera?…LMAO!!!!!!!!! It’s a heavy piece of JUNK! that does not boast ANY real advances in technology whatsoever!
The elephant in the room (for me) is the Nokia Booklet 3G (and other premium netbooks). For the price of the base iPad, you get a full computer, a keyboard, a desktop class OS, better battery life, similar (high end) industrial design, the ability to install almost any app you want, Flash, multi tasking, GPS, 3G built in with a standard SIM, SMS messaging, SD slot, 3 USB, HDMI, and 10x the storage, and the option of a subsidy to knock $400 off the price.
How has the iPad killed the netbook?
I waited and now I will replace my PC laptop with a new iPad. Email, surfing, movies inflight, music all the time and my choice for an eReader!
By the time a new model comes out with all the upgrades want like a camera I can hand the first one off to a family member.
I’m glad the Macs i–Pad didn’t come to Verizon.
You guys flame about vzw crippling….this thing is crippled out of the box.
How Apple blew a great opportunity to make a truly magically device…
When Steve was on-stage and said “and you can run all of the existing 140,000 iPhone apps”, if he’d of added “all at the same time” , and proceeded to open app after app, the cheers would have been heard from Cupertino to around the world.
and one more thing…
Imagine if they included a way to use wi-fi to broadcast the video to my wi-fi enabled 56″ TV.
Say you were watching a cool video on your iPad, and wandered into your living room, then with a flick of your finger on the touchscreen you could hurl the image to your TV. Now wouldn’t that be magical?
I read his blog post, and it seems to me that he’s basically excited because its a giant ipod touch. All I read was about how he can make a better facebook app for it because it has a bigger screen. He talks about the potential of the device for developers to create better apps because of screen real estate. I just don’t see how that is revolutionary… there is plenty of screen real estate on a real PC / MAC. It may be just what HE WANTED because more apps means more money for him as a developer, but for non developers, I don’t see this as a particularly useful device. If you read the article, its written about the ipad from a developers perspective…and perhaps from that view it may be a great device. But as a consumer, I just don’t see it as anything more than another device that I don’t need to carry around, that isn’t particularly great at any one thing, and that is missing a lot of features.