You think Apple ignores the cheapskate customer? Hmmm, not sure about that. What of the entry-level iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle during the 2005-2008 era? This crushed the competition. And what of Apple TVs? How will this affect the way people watch the boobtube? Gonna be interesting to see that play out...
Your average power-user (let's say programmers, Apple fanbois, Android users, and me) would say, "Umm hello? Obviously!" But your legions of average regular iPad users (grandmas, and your average college students) might not agree. But if you asked them what an iPad was, if it was a computer, they couldn't quite be able to tell you. "Umm, yes? But wait, it can't do so many other things."
This means, as a society, Apple has forced us to rethink the question: "What is a computer?" and "Is the iPad a computer by this definition?"
I really don't understand your point. How is any of this to the detriment of the average user who uses the iPad to browse the net/read ebooks/watch movies/listen to music/as a digital photo frame? The average user doesn't need to use the iPad as a computer. If the problem is pricing, then that indeed is an issue with tablets, but then Apple's products have always been high priced.
This is what I think motivates Steve Jobs: His insane passion for consumer computer electronics. Juicy and illuminating supporting fact: Jobs's first job was at the HP factory in Palo Alto at age 12. <http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-steven-job...;
"I remember my first day, expressing my complete enthusiasm and bliss at being at Hewlett-Packard for the summer to my supervisor, a guy named Chris, telling him that my favorite thing in the whole world was electronics. I asked him what his favorite thing to do was and he looked at me and said, "To fuck!" [Laughs] I learned a lot that summer."
Every day he works, he energizes that little kid inside him. Not a bad life.
Learn from this. Piracy offers valuable lessons to the budding entrepreneurial programmer. You learn about: consumer behavior, the nature of black markets, iOS piracy tools and techniques.
Quick story: A friend of mine, Carl Lydon, created www.chamberofchat.com, which is an 3D chat-room for Harry Potter Fans that became popular in the early 2000s. This chat-room was promptly infiltrated by a nefarious hacker who assigned himself moderator status and began spewing filth, casting elimination spells, and harassing innocent chatters. At first Carl freaked out but got a hold of himself and re-built a few key modules of his multiplayer log-in code. By the end, the hacker went away, and Carl learned more about security than he ever could have from any one else. A gold-mine of lessons. A fine-art school graduate, he now makes a fortune programming multiplayer online games. Piracy is a gift.
This is a distinct possibility. I believe Jobs is on a secret mission to destroy the hated cable tv box remote, the curséd one-thousand-button behemoth.
For "power users", the Xoom should be a clear winner, no? More free customization, tabbed browsing (and plenty of RAM to handle it nicely), and most importantly, it is free to develop for the Xoom from any OS.
As far as cheaper, maybe the Nook Color would be a smarter buy for the "penny-pincher".
The cornerstone of originality within this book is how Pirsig introduces his philosophy of Quality. Yet, if you read ZAMM carefully, he never defines this term. Overall, a frustrating and thought-provoking read.
psedo-qq/ Quality is that which is good, but if you try to put your finger on it, it sort of squishes out and you end up with empty platitudes and tautologies. / (my apologies, it's been 10 years since I've read it, and my copy isn't here)
He goes into it in the class, teaching it but refusing to define it, and one level higher, does it with the book.
This is similar to the "quality without a name" as described by Christopher Alexander. Btw, his seminal book on patterns is totally worth reading - the GoF patterns seem bland and uninteresting in comparison.
