So was USB support.

"you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,' said Dr. Adrian Owen"

In other news, the same Dr. Adrian Owen claims to have discovered that penis size doesn't matter.

Ok, speaking as someone who has had an iPad since launch...

I've maybe printed 10 pages in the last 31 months. And each time it's been "just in case they don't have a scanner" to read the barcode off my display. However, each time I printed those 10 pages, I used either my iPad or iPhone.

DVD... are you friggin' kidding me? I pulled the DVD from my MacBook Pro years ago. Netflix, torrents, rips, and a whole bunch of apps from TiVo, Comcast, and the major networks, along with YouTube and the like.

Fragile... I've yet to break one. I've always used a cover/case, but the insurance cost isn't that bad... and neither is the screen replacement.

Tiny screen? 10" held at arm's length is equivalent to being much larger than a standard widescreen TV, let alone a notebook.

Fingerprints? Nope, just keep your hands clean.

"they don't run 99% of software ever written"

That's funny because they run like 99% of the cool new software being developed today. Really, there's a reason why the running joke, "there's an app for that" got stale a long time ago.

"everything they do on it is designed to cost money"

I totally disagree with this one. Sure, not all software is free, but a lot of it is, especially if you already have a service for something else. For example, TiVo, Netflix, Comcast, etc... those apps are already free. Many are free ad based apps... YouTube, CNN, USAToday, etc... And apps on the iPad (or other mobile platforms) are MUCH cheaper than what we've experienced to date on desktops or other platform types. There are a lot of 99 cent apps, that offer functionality that on the PC back a few years would've matched for a ton more $$$.

"the browsers don't display pages correctly"

They mostly do now. Websites have moved away from Flash requirements, which is a good thing. Sure not all sites do display correctly, but they don't on every desktop browser either. On the other hand, many websites have native apps which provide increased functionality and features not present on their websites. Take a look at how much better sites like Reddit are as native apps (Alien Blue) or sites like eBay, Craigslist, YouTube, Facebook, CNN, etc...

"most don't have USB flash drive capabilities"

Many do if that matters to you. Those that don't, like the iPad, still can use wireless flash devices, or flash drives with an adapter.

The bottom line though is that the satisfaction level on the more popular tablets is incredibly high. Netbooks never really achieved this. Netbooks were falsely attractive because of a convenience that was offset by nothing but negatives. Other than size and weight, they offered no advantages, and the size/weight were unrealistically achieved. The negatives of a tablet over a PC still exist, but they're offset by the numerous advantages.

Sitting with a computer in my lap, or even on my desk, I feel no desire to reach out and touch the screen... not with a decent gesture based trackpad like the one on my MacBook.

However, standing over the shoulder of someone, it makes perfect sense to touch the screen as opposed to push them out of the way to use their trackpad. It also makes sense sometimes standing over your own computer, especially when demonstrating something to people.

Here's the thing, other than cost, there really isn't much downside to adding this functionality, and the cost may not be that significant, so why not add it?

"After all, how many iPad minis come with sandpaper for filing fingers down?'"

Every 7" iPad mini that Apple has ever sold has come with sandpaper. On the other hand, 7.9" iPad minis do not. Steve was talking about 7", not 7.9". That may seem pedantic, but he was being very specific about the crop of 7" tablets at the time, and the call for Apple to do a 7" iPad. That .9" may not seem like much, but when you actually get your hands on one, it's a HUGE difference.

I've had a variety of tablets, phones and notebooks, and the number of use cases "on a ladder" is pretty low. Certainly the number of cases where I'd much rather have a solid case and keyboard like with a MacBook Air versus a Surface is much higher. I think that's true with most people. There may be specialized fields where this isn't the case, but are those that need a "tablet on a ladder" needing to run the full version of Office or legacy apps? Or would they be better suited with a real tablet that has dedicated apps?

To me, the Surface RT seems like too small of a fragmented niche that won't have sufficient development and be abandoned by Microsoft, while the Surface Pro seems like the same old tablet strategy that Microsoft did for a decade without success before the iPad.

I think a better strategy for Microsoft would've been to develop the market for the Surface Pro only, and start of with a very aggressive price point and be ready for the market to really take off when Haswell arrives.

I can't believe how many people here feel so entitled to free content, free of ads.

Look, the websites are providing you content in exchange for receiving the ads. If you don't like the ads so much, the *right* thing to do is to send an email to the publisher and stop visiting the site until the reduce the obnoxiousness of the ads.

Stripping the ads may not be illegal or stealing, but you are receiving the content in a manner such that the publishers aren't getting paid for your viewing.

So ya, think only about yourself and strip those ads, or think about other viewers, and those who worked and invested in the site and decide you'll endure the horrible torture that is a friggin' ad.

Oh, and keep in mind that technology will always be a cat and mouse game. Ad strippers will advance and so will the advertisers. This is why the *really* obnoxious ads are fully gated, pre-roll, embedded, or breaking the wall between editorial and paid content. So keep it up, and things will only get worse.

All this said, I'm not for legislation, but come on people, be reasonable here and think a little bit more about what is right or wrong versus your own self interest and sense of entitlement.

What's odd to me about that is that I have over 36GB in apps alone... worse, I don't have all that many of the big games or text books. Text books can be HUGE. For example Pearson’s Biology: 2.77GB.

Or a pirate!

" the "Install0us" app installed, which is to be fair used solely for app pirating."

No it's not.

It's also one of the easiest (and in some cases only) way you can revert to previous versions of apps. I don't pirate apps on iOS, and I rarely have a use for Install0us, but a couple of times it's saved me when a newer version of an app was unusable and Install0us was the only way to get a previous version re-installed and running again.

In the spirit of being fair though, ya, it's mostly for pirating, but I wouldn't jump to the definitive conclusion that someone who has it on their iOS devices is pirating apps.

I realize that Surface RT may never get a library of 16GB worth of apps, but it's not uncommon on iOS for someone to have that many. All it takes is for a few hard core games and reference apps.

If you don't live in a swing state, voting for Romney or Obama won't make a difference, but it's not necessarily a "lesser of two evils". Do you really believe Obama and Romney would do everything exactly the same? If so, well... that would be pretty clueless. I could understand though if you felt Obama and Romney had their strengths and weaknesses and would weight them such that rating them would be exactly the same... but really what are the chances of that?

If one candidate seems even slightly better than the other, and you live in a swing state, I would strongly encourage you to vote for that candidate.

"They're only able to pick from two people pre-selected for them by the elite (meaning those with enough money and influence to boil the choices down to the final two they want to see you pick from). "

I totally disagree. We had a chance to vote for Gary Johnson as a Republican. He failed to get enough support early on, so he dropped out and is now "running" as a 3rd party candidate, but this is silly. It's not only that he can't win, but that he couldn't even win within one party.

Sorry, but I hear far too many people who don't participate in the primaries...and really even before that, who then complain about "the lesser of two evils" and then decide to not vote or vote 3rd party.

You have a binary choice that you're presented with today. Vote for Obama or vote for Romney. Not voting for either is not making the binary choice.

If you want more choices, sorry, but you're too late. 2016 is coming up, so be prepared and get involved early enough to make a difference... no not to support another 3rd party who has no chance, but support someone who can first get the nomination of one of the two parties.

I think a lot of people don't realize how unlikely this process is to ever change, or how unlikely it is that there will be a 3rd party president. In order for Johnson to win now, he'd have to get more votes than Romney and Obama ***combined***. That's a huge challenge considering he couldn't even beat Romney in the primaries.

And who's going to change the system? Neither Obama, nor Romney, nor anyone in either of the two parties in power. While occasionally we get a 3rd party who gets people in Congress, these people either usually don't last long or gain significant power within Congress.

Whatever you decide though, I respect your opinion, and right to vote however you want, including not at all.

I think you're missing the larger point due to the details.

I won't argue that developing across Windows all the way to the Xbox is easier than developing across iOS and OS X, but to your point, there is also code that can be shared going iOSOS X, developing across both is easy and an advantage. But it still doesn't mean much from the consumer who has to *purchase* per platform, and learn to use each with the different platform differences.

"there are plenty of separate iPhone and iPad versions of apps out there"

Yes, but most aren't, and it's very clear when they're separate. Again, having separate is a disadvantage. iPhone/iPad doesn't score a perfect 100 in this regard, but it's a hell of a lot better than 0.

" If anything, the common look and feel is their whole *point*. "

While there is more look and feel mobile to desktop with Metro, it's still not 100%. It depends on who you ask of course, but some feel it's a bastardization of both wherein having to use drop down menus on a phone or tablet sucks, while using something designed for touch on a desktop sucks. But even with this, it's still different enough to add to the confusion that Surface RT is not going to give someone the same experience.

"There is no reason Microsoft can't just install the correct version for each platform via that store."

Right, but the problem comes from a customer *buying* one and then going back to install on the another. They'll have to buy it again. Again, Apple isn't 100% perfect here, but much better than 0.

"And, while I agree the "2x mode" iPhone apps did help the iPad initially, it was never a particularly good experience. And in no way are they "universal binaries" - that term means binaries running on more than one CPU architecture"

Call them whatever you want, but the point is the app package contents contain resources and code which are designed to run optimized for different devices. I've never heard a different term for this. 2X on the other hand obviously wasn't optimized or ideal, but good enough to allow the iPad to be used for critical uses on day 1 until the optimized apps came out.

I'll try not to sound like a fanboi here...

I was reviewing products for CNET back when MP3 players and software was starting to take off...before Apple had anything and SoundJam was its own thing.

I remember back then it seemed like everyone had a player before the iPod. Every consumer electronic company had one, as did Intel, Virgin, Coke, Nike, etc...

The one thing most of these had in common, along with many digital cameras, was that they didn't desktop mount, but required platform specific software. In fairness, this was in part an issue with how USB was implemented on PCs prior to Windows XP, but many vendors even after XP were thinking they were doing the consumer a favor by requiring the use of software that "facilitated the use" of their products.

I was dual Mac/PC platform at the time (now I use mostly Macs except to develop/test for PC). It was very frustrating that devices couldn't just mount on the Mac, although some devices that required software on the PC did just mount on the Mac.

So when Apple came out with iTunes and the iPod, at first, it seemed pretty screwed that they themselves went with a software required syncing system.

However, things have changed radically since then.

My *main* iTunes library is almost 1TB. I have other iTunes libraries on several volumes that I use for work, production, a media server and other uses. On my main library, I have, I don't know, a bazillion playlists? I have multiple iPads, iPods, and iPhones. I also sync iTunes with a media server, Sonos system, as well as flash cards in my car and other devices. It's not uncommon for me to sync multiple devices at the same time, some wirelessly and some plugged in via USB.

For the life of me, I have no idea how I could even begin to manage all of this on a system level without software. Likewise, without playlists, the idea of duplicating folders would be a nightmare, since many of the playlists have the same songs in them.

For a casual user, I can understand the "why can't I just drag and drop from the system", but for me, the filesystem is actually a generic purpose filesystem app, be it The Finder on the Mac, or Explorer on Windows that absolutely sucks for specific file purposes such as music or photos. And iTunes/iPhoto/Aperture are file management apps only much better suited for these file types.

I'll admit that iTunes is far better on the Mac than Windows, and of course there is no iPhoto/Aperture on Windows, but still it's far better than trying to manage everything yourself from the generic file system management app be it Finder or Explorer.

Just to nitpick...

When the iTunes Music Store launched, it was with DRM'd AACs (at 128kbps). The iTunes Music Store never had MP3 files. When iTunes (the player) 1.0 launched it ripped to MP3, AIFF, or WAV, but could play any format supported by the QuickTime engine it used. The rest is correct... Just to add that Apple then transitioned to 256kps AAC files without DRM, and you could pay to upgrade individual files that were 128kbps DRM AAC from the store. Now, through iTunes Match, any DRM files that are matched are automatically replaced with 256kbpsDRM free AAC files.