While
many people thought the iPad announcement Wednesday was exciting,
AppleInsider
says that Microsoft, Nokia, and Nintendo weren't among them. Each
found ways to take a shot at the iPad and Jobs' announcement speech.
Mark Squires, head of social media for Nokia, posted a commentary titled “A Fruit Confused” in which he said Jobs' claim that Apple was the largest mobile devices company in the world got “my blood pressure rising” to an unreasonable level. He points out that Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has said that Nokia is the world's biggest mobile device manufacturer “when you use a generally accepted and stable definition of mobile devices (i.e., not a laptop).”
There's no report on what laptop Nokia employees use, but Macbook users seem to think they're pretty mobile.
Microsoft chose to attack the iPad's reliance on the iTunes app store. Brandon Watson, Microsoft's director of developer product management told Technologizer, “It is a humorous world in how Microsoft is much more open than Apple.” Watson has a point there, though jailbreakers may not agree. The Free Software Foundation said the “iPad is iBad for freedom”, and represents an “unprecedented extension of DRM” that is “a huge step backward in the history of computing.”
Watson also tried to woo developers away from creating new products for the iPad, claiming that many iPhone app developers aren't making money. He also said that developing applications for the iPhone OS (which the iPad also uses) was more difficult because it used Objective C rather than Microsoft's .NET platform. Of course that's also why iPhone OS apps require less memory and run well on lower-end hardware.
Even Nintendo felt the need to take a shot at the iPad. That's probably not surprising since president Satoru Iwata said last year that for its future, Nintendo needed to differentiate itself from the iPhone. With the demonstrations of iPad gaming Wednesday—including an endorsement from Electronics Arts—it's easy to see why the larger, better screen in a portable device could deserve some attention. According to the NY Times, Iwata told The Associated Press that it was just “a bigger iPod touch” and he was “totally unimpressed.” For Nintendo's sake, let's hope he was a lot more impressed than he implied.
drmnez707
January 30, 2010 at 12:05pm
Blanket statement or not, for the time being it holds a lot of truth. Aside from iWork the ipad hasn't shown much promise in being different from and iPhone or and ipod touch other than the bigger screen, "battery life" (which is probably if you don't use any of the hardware "intensive" features. I don't understand why people are super excited for this device. Cuz steve jobs crew made a new product?
I'm actually surpirsed jobs priced it at $500 cuz he said himself that he can't make a good computer for such a cheap price. As a netbook the pad fails, as an ebook reader I haven't read anything that makes this device scream as really better than any other one. I hate how it uses iPhone 3.2. Some kind of osx interface would be nice cuz if this is just a "netbook" for games, reading books, surfing the Internet n such I'd rather just use my iPhone. If it's not meant to be a netbook then it really is a big iPhone/iPod touch
carmelapple
January 30, 2010 at 6:10am
No...some aren't making a lot of money...but this guy Watson thinks he can woo them away from iPad...for what? WinMo? A platform that is almost completely irrelevant? Yeah they'll be making money hand over fist on WinMo. Well played, Watson. Well played.
Also, in regard to Apple being the largest mobile devices company in the world...well there's more to mobile devices than just junky cell phones, Nokia. Yes I can call them junky...I have one of their cell phones and while the price was right and I really don't need anything too sophisticated (I have an iPod Touch for that kind of stuff)...the interface on this thing makes me cry sometimes.
So Apple makes smartphones, laptops, tablets and portable media players. Nokia just makes crappy cell phones. Maybe they make a lot of them...but their product portfolio is a lot less diverse in terms of the kind of mobile products they make and the quality.
As for Nintendo...I think Iwata is probably more scared than he makes himself appear to be. The whole "its just a larger iPod Touch" is a generic blanket statement that is only really true on a very basic level. There are going to be a lot of things the iPad does a lot better than the iPod Touch. That aside, the games for iPhone OS are far cheaper than DS games, you can buy them in the comfort of your own home (or anywhere with 3G or wi-fi), they are much more graphically beautiful (I have a DS...some games are nicely rendered...a lot of them are not) and plus you don't need a clunky stylus to do anything with them. Some say the games on iPhone/iPod Touch use something even more clunky: fingers. Perhaps...but it lets you interact with the game in a way that the DS doesn't allow. Now that the iPad has a lot more screen real estate, people can't say there isn't enough room now for their thumbs/fingers on a crowded space. The iPad may not be as portable as a DS or an iPhone/iPod Touch but it will certainly improve the way we interact with games, which is a lot more than can be said for the DS which itself really isn't really impressive at all. Its like a WinCE stylus driven device that only plays games. Big deal. The day the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad plays all iPhone OS games and doesn't drain the battery in 30-60 minutes...is the day Nintendo's portable gaming division should be scared out of their minds.
