Pugwash

Simply not true. Apple TV is still a poor-seller and Windows outsells Mac OSX to this day. You're rehashing old ground that has been debunked over and over again. The "Only hipsters with goatees buy Apple and they would buy anything with an Apple logo on" meme has died. While you were sniggering at the sheeple with their iPhones the world moved on. Look back at the state of the phone industry, especially in the US, to before the iPhone was released. All the power was in the hands of the networks and everything cost. The iPhone was able to break the hegemony and force the phone companies to return to their job of just managing the networks instead of dictating features. Before iTunes, buying digital music sucked and before the iPhone, smartphones sucked. You may not like the products, but you have to admit they've been a huge boon to consumers. Android exists because of the iPhone; flat-fee affordable 3G internet exists because of the iPhone. So, yeah, keep on being smug about how Apple Fanbois are mindless automata while the revolution is happening regardless of what you think. Seriously, just look back to the world of mobile phones before the iPhone. It's frightening. And now look forward and you'll see why Flash will go the way of Java applets.

Not going to happen. I don't know why people think it's such a big deal, but you need to stop assuming it is. iPad sales are through the roof, and there isn't a single iPhone competitor on the market that does Flash. http://gigaom.com/2010/04/19/adobe-ceo-has-his-own-reality-distortion-field/

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/14advisory_ipad.html Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad

Mechanical watches are not dead even if quartz won. See my point about a zero-sum game earlier. Just because we have quartz and digital doesn't mean people don't make beautiful mechanical watches. You get it now. If Cory Doctorow were right, we'd all be wearing digital watches.

Yet making cars automatic is considered idiot-proofing. Also, removing the ability for the general public to tinker with their engines has certainly not reduced demand for car designers.

Yes, that was my point. Sorry if it wasn't clear. I could also make out that Americans as a whole were worse drivers than Europeans because over 90% of them drive Automatics whereas it's under 10% in Europe, but the statistics don't bear that theory out either.

In 1980, I typed a basic programme into my mum's Commodore Pet and watched with amazement as it worked. Later on, I did the same on a ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro in the early 80s. Ah, what heady days! It's easy to romanticise over these years, much like it is to look back fondly on sailing ships across the atlantic, when the reality is that it was a scurvy-filled hell. No-one complains they can't root their microwave or overclock their coffee machine. In fact, console gamers have been perfectly happy to be locked into the exact same business model since the early 80s. Sure, you get the occasional hacker that will try to crack and chip their Xbox, but the majority of users don't care about that sort of thing. Same with the iPad; of course, it's already Jailbroken, why wouldn't it be? Idiot Proofing doesn't create more idiots. How many race drivers can rebuild their engines? How many digital artists know how to write Wacom device drivers? And, to use a computing analogy, 99% of programmers haven't programmed in assembly since the 90s. Surely the C compiler would have killed programming dead, or Java would have done it, or Perl. How can you possibly imagine that creating more computer users than before would reduce the demand for high-quality programmers? It's a very unimaginative slippery slope fallacy, especially when you consider that introducing the iPad doesn't suddenly delete every other computer in the world. Cory Doctorow is assuming a zero-sum game. He assumes that if the iPad succeeds, every other computer or tablet must fail, which is patently untenable, especially to a student of computer history. Besides, who says putting a device like the iPad in the hands of children won't make them all more creative? When faced with an eBook reader they can also write on, who's to say we won't have a necessary increase in literacy? It's time to call bullsh!t on the argument there is one right way. Open-Source is great, so is closed-source. Good software doesn't need to be tied to one political view before it can be considered valid. Linux? Fantastic. Photoshop? Brilliant! Windows 7 Phone? Looks awesome. Mac OSX? Superb! Cory is a beard spurt away from becoming Stallman, the man who shackles himself to an inferior laptop simply because it's the only kind on the planet with an open-source BIOS. As long as there are nutters like him around, hackable devices will never disappear. Excuse the length of this rant, but Cory Doctorow is wrong.

Most of the higher res ones are 1024x600, which is less than an iPad, but even that doesn't matter. Look, the iPad isn't a NetBook. It isn't a PDA. There are a lot of things it's not. What it is is what appears to be something new, and something very welcome. I'm also looking forward to the Android pads in the hope that they don't suck. It's a new form factor that no-one has made work before, and it looks like Apple may have solved the problems. Of course this means everyone else can get on with higher-specced devices that may or may not be any better. You'll say the Netbook is a better and cheaper solution today, but once that's forgotten, you'll universally hail another tablet as the iPad killer, then another and another. That is the way of things. Don't write it off until you've used it. I'm not.

Cory Doctorow is wrong about this. There have been so many responses to this article explaining why, but I'll just pick one: http://daringfawnyball.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/expertise/ Yeah, Cory is very, very wrong on this one. On the subject of a 16:9 screen, this isn't a 4:3 screen, it's a 3:4 one that can be turned on its side. Oh, and what you call a full web experience, I call a netbook with a tiny, tiny screen. If I wanted an Asus eePC, I'd have got one ages ago. I'm still waiting for you to tell me three non-video sites I'm not getting the full versions of. It shouldn't be hard. Try an iPad and tell me if I'm wrong.

Confirmed sales of 300,000 on day one.

Not even close. It's been Steve's open and visible mission statement from day one to change the world for the better. Design aesthetics are not the top priority; usability is. I think you must be taking stuff for granted simply because it's so easy to use you assume it's nothing new. However, remember MP3 players before the iPod? Do you remember what a smartphone was like before the iPhone? Do you remember floppy disks and parallel ports? Remember computers without CDs? Remember computers without a mouse? Usability, usability, usability. The design is a slave to that. And yes, both profits and customers are a result of usability, not the goal. If you still think Apple's priority is design aesthetics, you're missing the big picture. It's like a finger pointing at the moon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= sDW6vkuqGLg&feature=player_embedded Have you tried one? And once again, tell me what sites we can't use because of no Flash. Farmville? Oh, whoop. Find me one popular NON-VIDEO site that won't work because of the lack of Flash. If there is one, would it work with a touchscreen and without a persistent mouse/keyboard in the first place? If it's as important as you say it is, find me three.

I've been waiting for a Marinemaster 600 (spring drive) to crop up at the right price. If anyone sees one at a decent price, I'm interested.

Estimated sales of 600k-700k, and that's of the non-3G version, and US-only. I'm quietly confident we'll hit the 2.5 million very soon.

Wow, an impressive piece of work!

That is a "If I win, it proves I'm right. If I lose, it proves I'm wrong" cop-out if ever I've heard one. Since when was 752MB a large download? I download TV episodes I'll never watch that are almost twice that size.

Just like with the iPhone. Oh, wait

Oh, and iPad pre-orders are so high that they've sold out of the first batch before anyone has even taken delivery. Second wave due April 12th. Feeling confident for my $20 wager.

As long as you set it to Aperture Priority, metering works fine.

It's a PO Humpday!

I use the reverser ring, but I got mine off ebay for a fiver.

I got k2222 AR on my v3. It's amazing, as you'd expect. http://pugwash.info/posts/breitling/skyland-11-640.jpg

Shame, mine is a v3 then. Still, the after-market AR makes a huge difference.

Excellent pictorial as usual. I'll have to wear mine tomorrow in honour of the review. I got rid of my graphite BCE when I got one of these. I'll be honest, I don't even know which version mine is, but I think it's a v2.

Mine's fine too.

LVs look like they're replaced by the ceramic "Full-Kermit".