Dear Mr Jobs
On behalf of the international community of Apple consumers I would like to protest at the way Apple is apparently leaving us out in the cold with the Apple iPad product.
We have been fed either misinformation or no information at all and it is starting to cast doubt over Apple’s intents, at least it is to me.
I live in Switzerland and as yet we have no idea what the Apple iPad will cost here, if it is anything like the international pricing we have been used to to date on other Apple products, then it will certainly not be an “unbelievable price” as stated in your marketing.
If the delays and lack of pricing information is due to Apple doing it’s level best, to make sure that we are not being ripped off, then I applaud that work. However, as previously mentioned, I am doubting this.
Twice to my knowledge you have falsely stated international availability of the iPad and while I do not believe this is any fault of your own, I can imagine that you are not happy being shown as deliberately pulling the wool over the rest of the worlds eyes.
This is what you said at the iPhone OS4.0 announcement
11:10AM – Q: Will iPad’s success impact its international launch?
Steve: No, we said we’re launching internationally later in April, and we’re launching later in April.
Please can you clarify what is happening and why it has taken so long for information to be released to the international community.
May I suggest the following: Make it easier for us to purchase your products directly from the USA online Apple store. Many of us would be happy to do so and pay extra for local Applecare.
I look forward to your response.
Steve’s response:
“deliberately pulling the wool over the rest of the worlds eyes”
Are you nuts? We are doing the best we can. We need enough units to have a responsible and great launch.
iPad Not Having Flash
everyone complains about the iPad not having flash. this is stupid!! why should we as consumers be supporting technology’s that can be acheived with html and css. flash is just a lazy way for developers to do things! and besides, who needs updates for viewers every five minutes! if you want games on your iPad or iPhone, just get them from the app store, they even are integrated with the technologies of the device. WOW… *rolls eyes at stupidity of some people*
LOL Steph, this is one of the reasons why you shouldnt get an iPad, it doesnt have Flash.
It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.
– Bill Gates Joins the iPad’s Army of Critics. (via imartien)iPhone-to-iPad development: How’s the timing going to work out?
Either I’m missing something, the initial iPad apps are going to suck, or we haven’t yet been told that iPad-native apps won’t be available for some period of time after the iPad’s launch.
We have strong incentives to port our iPhone apps to the iPad quickly and completely so they’re ready for sale on day one. As soon as people start getting iPads, they’re going to want apps for them, and they’ll quickly realize that the experience of running an iPhone-native app on an iPad really sucks. Any iPad-native apps in the store on day one are going to receive huge advantages in publicity and ranking that could last months, and any apps that wait too long will lose favor among iPad users and may be abandoned for competing alternatives.
The problem, of course, is that before day one, we won’t have iPads ourselves for development and testing. This wasn’t a problem for iPhone development: by the time the SDK was released, we had all been using iPhones for many months. We knew how iPhone apps should look and behave, and we could test our apps on our iPhones during development for three months before anyone could sell apps to customers.
But we have very little guidance on how iPad apps should behave, and if we want our apps to be in the store at its launch, we have to do the majority of development without ever running our code on a real iPad (or even having used one).
This leaves a few possibilities for developers:
- Develop the entire app without using a real iPad, submit the binary to Apple, and have it available on day one. But, having never run it on a real iPad, the app will probably have a lot of issues, and it will get panned in reviews for being buggy while you wait in the very long app-review queue for your updates.
- Get an iPad on day one, rush home, test the app, iron out any little bugs or inopportune design choices, and submit it to Apple. This doesn’t really give much more of a testing and design advantage over option 1, and you’ll still be stuck waiting in the app-review queue for weeks as every other developer does the same thing.
- Wait for initial app submission until after you’ve tested extensively on a real iPad. You’ll have the best release, but you will have missed the launch window, which could cost you dearly in revenue and market share. And even when you finally submit, the app-review queue will still be bogged down with people who took the first two options, delaying your presence even further.
All of these options are terrible. Not only are they bad for developers, but they’ll be bad for Apple as initial reviews ding the iPad for the first batch of sloppy native apps.
This is one reason why I suspect there’s something we haven’t been told yet: I don’t think anyone’s iPad-native apps will be available on day one. My best guess is that the iPad will be released with only the built-in apps and iPhone-native app capability. After a few weeks or months, as the SDK gets another revision or two and everyone has solid, universal (iPad and iPhone) apps submitted and (hopefully) pre-approved, the iPad App Store will officially open. This could happen sometime closer to WWDC in June.
I hope it goes something like this, because I don’t want to have to choose between those options.
The Maniwa Wooden Car
The vehicle, which was designed and handbuilt by wood craftsmen at Sada-Kenbi, is street-legal in Japan.
(via inhabitat)
