Can we file a class action against Apple?

[joshstrike]

@Hanratty - If you think the day is coming when a huge corporation orders 10k of these with their own app pre-installed...you're just dreaming. Not least because no corporation has a use for its workers to be watching YouTube between punching in orders. The iPad may be a lot of things to a lot of people, but it is definitely not a wise business decision from 30,000 feet.

@Gerbick - The "something" missing for me is the ability to install Apache, PHP and Eclipse, crack some knuckles, code something, launch an FTP program, open a terminal, or generally do something "useful". All this device does is play movies, music and games, and show magazine articles. When I start doing any of those things, I know I've finished my work for the day; I turn off my computer and go out to have a life, instead of an iLife. My job is to manipulate those zombies through design and UI. I wouldn't buy an iphone or an ipad because I don't want to turn into one of them. (My phone is a $20 Nokia basic w/o a camera I picked up in Vietnam).

@jAQUAN - There are custom apps, and in-house custom apps. I don't actually care about putting out an iphone app with Flash for general use in the store. I would really like to see Flash run on an iphone because existing private Flash apps I've built for clients could be used on that platform.

In the last 4 years, I've billed around $250k for custom business apps written in Flash/Flex, that operate on intranets, as separate from websites or anything else I've built. There were only two reasons for writing the apps that way. Firstly, they had to have a high level of GUI interaction that isn't possible with AJAX alone. Stuff like secure PDF readers, private filesystems, and enormous project management and color-coded reservations calendars, FLV preview and splicing systems that work across scalable architectures, etc. Secondly, they had to be accessible on any platform, because for the most part my clients are franchisors who can't dictate to franchisees what computers they install in their offices, or otherwise need tools to make it profitable and easy to manage a distributed workforce performing specific technical tasks.

Taken together, it was exactly Flash's combination of flexibility and platform independence that made it worthwhile for clients to develop custom in-house apps for their businesses with it. While it's not impossible to imagine a client asking for a custom iphone app for internal use under certain circumstances, platform specificity often defeats the purpose of developing a custom solution at all versus using one off the shelf.

[silverx2]

@Hanratty - If you think the day is coming when a huge corporation orders 10k of these with their own app pre-installed...you're just dreaming. Not least because no corporation has a use for its workers to be watching YouTube between punching in orders. The iPad may be a lot of things to a lot of people, but it is definitely not a wise business decision from 30,000 feet.

because there is no way in hell they would lock them down at all, give them to people with full admin rights, the ability to install ****. thats what id do.

[joshstrike]

No access to the glorious app store? Why would a company pay premium prices for a slim, sexy, color, video-playing, music-playing device -- which is completely not ruggedized and isn't backed with a warranty if an employee drops it -- that will only run the one application they bundled with it? I could see a silicon valley firm buying them for their employees...if the employees could actually code something on it or use it for anything other than wasting time. But it's pretty hard to imagine this in use as a business device anywhere else. Doctors in hospitals, as has been pointed out, already port around their own iphones, netbooks, etc. for data tracking purposes, and the hospital doesn't need to underwrite that. "Replacement for paper" has been the mantra for this stuff since the Newton, and it might work one day;

but paper would have failed, too, if paper manufacturers banned people from writing whatever they wanted on it.

[Frets]

but paper would have failed, too, if paper manufacturers banned people from writing whatever they wanted on it.

親愛的閣樓論壇。
我從來沒有創作的，以本出版物之前，但我不得不告訴兩個女孩的故事，會議在湖南省

[silverx2]

Why would a hospital want doctors to install stupid ****ing aps on the device they are using to fill out charts, receive and look over x-rays, and all sorts of other medical required tasks?


oh right, they wouldnt!

Stop thinking as a normal consumer/gadgetwhore joshstrike.

[Frets]

Silver all that stuff has been covered.
Hospitals already use netbook and tablets on a daily basis

The most popular is
http://www.panasonic.com/business/to...ughbook-h1.asp
The newest model is
http://www.panasonic.com/business/to...ook-19.asp#/C1

Because it has two batteries you can always have a charged battery ready to go. It' works round the clock without having to be plugged in and runs W7

The software is already out there and the H1 as well as other variations have been on the market for a long time.

Hospitals do actually perform resarch before making a purchase decision on any hardware they purchase. How practical is the device how well it integrates with other stuff etc etc. Hospitals are not some banana republic that buys any old gadget and tells management here is your new pos we don't know if it will work with anyting but use it anyway.

[silverx2]

Frets, i'm not saying a hospital is going to act like a Denny's and just buy which ever spatula is on sale.

im aware that hospitals use netbooks, what im saying is the ipad COULD COULD COULD be a better solution, which is also why i said HR's suggestion of 12 months was a little bit to ambitious in my opinion.

[gerbick]

From Silver's side, he's saying that he's doubtful that people will install specialized apps that have to be approved and use the restrictive policies of the iTunes Music Store.

Frets... there is no doubt that hardware is being used already. It's that the advantages of the iPad in that area have yet to be actualized.

I think that's what is being said, at least... that's my take.

[joshstrike]

My corporate customers want to be able to access the same in-house software from their phones that they already use on their desktops and laptops. Some of that runs in pure PHP and some of it in Java, but most of it is based on a Flex framework. So my advice to them obviously is to buy an Android phone.

It's astounding to me that Apple fans point fingers at Adobe Flash for being a closed platform, when what the iPad is running is the most restrictive platform ever built from a developer's perspective. We sure have come a long way since I started writing Pascal on a Mac Plus. Under the new Apple terms, you probably couldn't even bootstrap that on these new devices.

Apple's gonna start to rot, if they continue keeping good developers out. Which is a total shame because I like Apple and Adobe equally. It's hard to imagine my daily life without several products made by both companies working in harmony.

[gerbick]

Apple's gonna start to rot, if they continue keeping good developers out.

That's the problem. The whole "Apple is clamping down on too many layers above the OS/device and thus protecting their users" mentality it too prevalent now.

People think that they are being protected by a company that's not as evil as Microsoft or Google. The restrictions are in place to protect them. And if you're a good developer, you'll bend to their restrictions...

Which, dumbfounds me.

[Frets]

So my advice to them obviously is to buy an Android phone.

Knowing mac addicts that must be driving both you and your customers insane.

[admedia]

I am going to go on record and 100% disagree withe the above. Aside from the gadget heads who will cling to this thing like it provides them air to breathe, I think you'll start seeing them used in the financial industry, medical professionals and others who need a portable machine with a high usability factor, elegant interface, low learning curve, etc. Let's check back one year from today to see who's in the right.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/21/hospi...ses-100-ipads/

I can't download the iPhone SDK fast enough.

[FlashLackey]

There you have it. Price point wins.

[Frets]

Wait till the feasiblity issues set in.
Okay they bought a bunch of ipads. Now they'll have to higher x amount of staff to translate data into a record system. Which could have been eliminated by simply buying a tablet for $50 more.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...leID=224201477

And it has a webcam

[WannaBe_80z]

Did you even read it? They already have the software for iphones so translating the program to the ipad is going to be very easy. Also this is just pretty much a walking screen/keyboard with no information stored ON the devices. It will all be stored in a central location that the app just connects to.

[FlashLackey]

^ this

That said, I could see a PC variation like the one Fret's linked to out-selling the ipad for this type of use.

[jAQUAN]

This is the software Kaweah Delta Health Care District will be using. It's a free app from the app store, not custom enterprise software. It's exactly the kind of avenue that would make me hesitant to commit all of the time and money required to convert my infrastructure when with a few keystrokes, apple could kill the whole deal. You have to admit a virtual windows desktop stands dangerously close to apples guillotine.

[Frets]

I'm imagining easy hack someone comes into the hospital and wipes the system. Cue Human Target episode. The skeleton key that can take down a network.

[hanratty21]

I'm imagining easy hack...

Yeah...you're probably right. A Tablet PC environment will MOST CERTAINLY prevent that...

[gerbick]

To be honest, since it's a compiled app on a non-standard CPU ISA... I'd actually say it's probably more secure actually.

But that's neither here nor there. There's uses for this thing. No doubt. Even honestly, I just don't see it yet.