Skip to main content

Apple Hater Converted? I want an iPad!

I've tweeted several times about my misgivings on the Apple iPad.
  • Still not getting an iPad (I'm a h8r), but Gruber's got a point against my main beef (the closed platform) http://bit.ly/a0vO6j
    Apr 02 2010
  • No scripting/coding on the iPhone was pad enough. But the iPad could have been great 4 kids to learn 2 code. Too bad. http://bit.ly/ayKHYM
    Jan 31st
  • if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today -- Alex Payne http://al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html
    Jan 29th
I'd prefer an open platform. I think the changes to section 3.2.2 of the developer agreement are a small step in the right direction, and  I'd like to see more openness. From Boy Genius:
Apple has again tweaked section 3.2.2 of the agreement, adding in a loophole which will allow them to approve certain interpretive code tools. The old section 3.2.2 read like this: No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).
While the updated version looks like this: Unless otherwise approved by Apple in writing, no interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). Notwithstanding the foregoing, with Apple’s prior written consent, an Application may use embedded interpreted code in a limited way if such use is solely for providing minor features or functionality that are consistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application.
And I particularly hope that Squeak and Scratch and other great programming environments for kids and otherwise make it onto the iPad or similar devices.

But, the iPad is just too good for me to not want one. Stefan Miller let me try his iPad a couple of times and I'm sold.

The main reason is that I want a great PDF reader. The iPad is significantly better than the Kindle or even the Kindle DX for reading PDFs. I also want to annotate, and that capability is available as well.

I read a lot of books on programming. These books tend to be heavy and expensive. The PDF versions can often be had for less than half the cost. But, that means carrying a laptop. (I've been known to hold my HP EliteBook sideways with the screen orientation on portrait.

Hopefully innovative programming environments like the Lively Kernel will make it possible to write some code on the device and do some programming with kids. Quoting an interview with Dan Ingalls:
The fact that the Lively Kernel is just a web page and you click on it and you're running this system, it's a system that can do graphics editing, can produce images, can do simple programs, like Squeak that you can save a page from, means that basically anywhere you have a network computer, you can have authoring.
That's one ingredient. Another is I noticed that there is a certain challenge you have before you can become a developer for say the iPhone and yet the iPhone has Safari in it and it runs Lively Kernel applications just fine. It seems to me there is an opportunity here for something much more open than the App Store in which everybody can contribute and produce and share active content.
And, I hold out hope that eToys, Squeak and Scratch will someday be approved as well.

But, for now, I am looking forward to compromising my principles! The iPad is on my birthday list! As are a number of apps, gift cards will be welcomed!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Refactoring – Ruby Ed.

The original Refactoring book by Martin Fowler had a big impact on how I thought about writing software. I’d used the refactoring tools in Smalltalk, but the book changed the way I thought about refactoring and gave names to many new refactorings. This Ruby edition of the book is highly anticipated. I received my copy at a drawing in our local Ruby user’s group. Part of the deal was you had to write a review (you are reading it) in exchange for the book. Nearly everyone at the meeting wanted a crack at the book. The authors suggest that if you have the original work, you probably shouldn’t purchase this new edition. I don’t agree. There is plenty of new content with around 20 new refactorings and a few new code smells to make the difference worthwhile. There is a tremendous amount of thoughtful Ruby code snippets inserted throughout the text. In fact, this is one of those books that is great for everyone on a team to have a copy. It is the kind of book that can be used to raise t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hands-on Microformats: Quickly build an hCalendar-based view with XSLT and Seaside

I gave a talk with the title, "Hands-on Microformats: Quickly build an hCalendar-based view" at the 2009 BarCamp Omaha . Since the presentation was really looking at code, I didn't have a slide deck. So I thought I would share my notes in a series of posts. This is the first. Short version: By adding a few specific attributes and abiding by some date formatting rules, you can generate a great-looking monthly calendar with surprisingly little effort. That is, get something like this: From HTML that looks like this: A microformat lets you use standard XHTML but add in some semantic goodness without resorting to a separate XML namespace and corresponding set of tags (or formally, an XML application ). For our example, hCalendar uses a 1:1 representation of standard iCalendar ( RFC2445 ) VEVENT properties and values in semantic XHTML . hCalendar wouldn't have caught my attention if it weren't for js-hCalendar . This bit of JavaScript created by David Glasser and ho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Iowa Code Camp 5 on May 1, 2010

The site is still showing ICC4 info, but the countdown clock has been updated to a new date! Looks like I need to free up a spring day for some hacking! While browsing the site, found a picture of me presenting Seaside at ICC4. The book in the picture is Learning Programming with Robots. I think I was answering a question about Alice.
Post a Comment
Read more