The saddest part of the iPad story: No root
Like every other self respecting geek, I spent the afternoon eagerly watching live updates from Apple’s iPad keynote. At the end of the presentation one thing stuck with me: No root access. Its not a Mac.
The iPad seems to be under the same sort of draconian control as the iPhone is. That might be forgivable on 2.4 inch wide phone, but for a device which is essentially a $500+ keyboardless netbook with a very slick interface, I need to control it. I can edit spreadsheets on it, give presentations with it, hook it up to a keyboard, but I can’t open up a terminal and type ‘ls‘?
I don’t know of any other general computing device with so much potential that doesn’t give users full access. Its the same walled-garden as the iPhone, same app store review process, and same anti-competitive practices. Its a very mobile computer, without a keyboard, and without root.
Yes it will be jailbroken, but why should we have too? When I buy a netbook, I don’t open up google and start figuring out if my software version has an available exploit in it, all while crossing my fingers hoping it doesn’t void my warranty.
This device could almost meet Paul Graham’s description of handheld device developers could program on. I’m sure it wouldn’t be ideal, but geeks could develop software for an iPad on an iPad. Paul describes this as a great way to get developers to fall in love with your platform.
Except Apple won’t let that happen.
(Note: Information is still tenuous at this point, if anyone has corrections let me know at chris@varenhor.st)
It runs the IPhone OS which is in turn running a skimmed down ARM port of the Darwin/xnu kernel. Just as you mentioned, root access is a jailbreak away.
The real surprise is that you’re actually expecting full blown OSX on mobile hardware for sub $1000.
Incidentally, given the number of IPhone apps out there it’s hard to say that developers haven’t fallen in love with the IPhone platform.
iPad’s been a totally disappointment not because it lacks a built-in camera or it doesn’t implement Flash by default, but rather because of the allusions and the one-sided decisions its introduction makes.
In only one night, Steve Jobs might turn from a loved and respected visionary into a loser whose future might be a sheer fiasco. But he still has a chance; he might foresee the wrong beforehand and really cancel the physical production of this device. If he does this, he will save himself and his company from a bigger failure and we’ll rest assured that we still have that old Steve Jobs as we knew him so far.
Someone should urgently remind Steve that computing history contains many different failure stories too and that another one is in the making with the story of iPad .
Having enough of the limitations and foolishnesses of SmartPhones, I would never ever buy such a restrictive device as the iPad no matter how cheap or well-designed it is.
I’m looking forward to openness, extensibility, larger possibilities and freedom in all respects and I just can ‘t tolerate (nor do I care) to have obstacles on this way. In this age of technological abundance we have and will have many options such as the HP or Panasonic or Lenovo’s Tablet PC’s. Given this surprising ignorance of Apple, such devices and their Linux-based OSes might have better chances on the tablet PC market.
1. Lack of root sucks, but I’m sure the jailbreakers will go to work as soon as they lay hands on the hardware. You didn’t *really* expect Apple to do anything else, did you?
2. Lack of camera – meh – who cares. Its a tablet, not a camera.
3. Lack of flash – YAY Apple. Flash sucks. You want your website to work on the iPhone/iPad/: DITCH THE FLASH!! For video just give the direct link to the video itself. For interactivity use standard HTML, which I can resize so I can see it (unlike flash), copy/paste (unlike flash), run on any browser/platform (unlike flash), and runs fast (unlike flash)