At the raw hardware level, an xD card is simply an ordinary NAND flash integrated circuit in an unusual package. Comparing the pinout of an xD card[17] to the pinout of a NAND flash chip in a standard TSOP package,[17] one finds a nearly one-to-one correspondence between the active pins of the two devices.
...
In March 2008, Olympus introduced an adapter (part number MASD-1) allowing its latest cameras to accept microSD cards in the xD slot. This adapter works only with recent models that were designed for it because the MASD-1 adapter is purely mechanical containing no electronic components, and thus relies on support for the SD card protocol within the cameras themselves, though this fact is not advertised by Olympus.
This makes it very clear that at the software level, a device which is meant to accept raw flash (including xD and SmartMedia cards, which really are raw flash) does not automatically support SD unless specific drivers for SD are included in the software.
Which should be kind of obvious even from the Windows phone example, since as I wrote before somebody had to actually write the code that puts the SD card in this obscure mode that hardly anything else supports, and those SD modes are a function of the SD controller chip, not the flash.
Oh... but I've never had to do anything special in my Spin code to use SD cards, considering I just talk to them via my SPI interface. In fact, I use my Flash memory exactly the same as I do my SD cards... with no code differences at all.
Now that this revelation for the need of a different driver has come to light, are all my SD cards going to suddenly quit working? :-D
Bill, your argument is just plain getting strange. Let's go back to this, which you said upthread:
That goes back to the original problem. Microsoft didn't design the OS to support SD cards at all. They're using the SD format internally to protect the internal Flash. The device manufacturers were told not to use SD, but they did it anyway.
My eyes sort of skipped over that second sentence the first time I read this, probably because it parses as nonsense. Exactly what does "using the SD format internally" mean? Ultimately they are either using a SD card controller, which does wear leveling and implements the SD standard, or they aren't. If they aren't, and they are using the flash chips directly, the hardware and software that do that aren't compatible with SD at all.
So it sounds like what you are saying is that Microsoft told the manufacturers to basically build their own SD circuitry into the phone, but not use an actual physical SD card to do it -- which is kind of a stupid thing to ask, since the SD card comes with an enclosure and the SD controller pretty much for the same price as the raw flash. Hacker Bunnie mentions that in this article about investigating bad uSD chips which were supposed to be installed in chumbys:
Overall, the MicroSD card market is a fascinating one, a discussion perhaps worth a blog post on its own. Id like to point out to casual readers that the spot price of MicroSD cards is nearly identical to the spot price of the very same NAND FLASH chips used on the inside. In other words, the extra controller IC inside the microSD card is sold to you for free. The economics that drive this are fascinating, but in a nutshell, my suspicion is that incorporating the controller into the package and having it test, manage and mark bad blocks more than offsets the cost of testing each memory chip individually.
So Microsoft asked the manufacturers to use SD controllers, makes some sense since you get the wear leveling and bad-block detecting functions automatically, but not to use actual SD cards? That doesn't make sense. They are supposed to do for themselves a bunch of research and fabrication that the SD card manufacturers are willing to do for free? OF COURSE they used actual SD cards then. They'd have been stupid to roll their own. At the volume phones are sold in that ends up being a considerable wad of money.
So it comes back to the decision to use something standard, the SD controller if not (by intent) the entire SD card, for something it wasn't ever really intended for; the whole reason it exists is to facilitate removable and exchangeable media. The DRM functions Microsoft is using to lock the card to a particular device are cruft left over from a suite of related functions that never gained any traction (largely because CSS, which was another big part of it, was broken). So why use them? Why sow confusion when it would be just as fast, easy, and convenient to use the card in a way that doesn't break compatibility with the rest of the observable universe?
Honestly, I'm not trying to argue whether that was a good or smart move. But I fail to see why people find it too difficult to understand the simple fact that Microsoft DID NOT DESIGN the OS to support this removable media. It's that simple. Yes, they designed it to support the encrypted storage mechanism similar to what SD cards use, but on the internal flash only. The hardware vendors choose to implement that with real SD card interfaces, which Microsoft doesn't support at this time, period.
It was their choice based on their needs and constraints... your opinion wasn't considered in their business plan. If you don't like it, then don't buy their product. Simple enough?
OPEN question to ALL.. Do you consider the IOS or the new WIN mobile OS to be FULL OS comparable to a Desktop OS .. I have rather big fanboy ( emphasis on Boy here ) On Youtube who thinks he is a expert . saying the OSX is Just like the IOS and that apple can make the IOS just as powerfull as OSX .
Considering how the IOS is not built to reconiise a External MEM device it is no way near the ability of a Real OS ..
same with Win Mobile 7
AND is there more then One kind of a OS ( I know the real answer ) .
I want to know what everyone here thinks as I consider everyone here to be experts in the art ....
Interesting question, Peter. But, when you get back to the basics of what an OS is, yes, they're all full OSs.
They all control memory allocation, define hardware access and execute programs. They also all control all I/O and user interaction as well as provide additional services specific to the platform they are running on (like the radio stack and communications APIs.)
BTW... Microsoft has two small OSs now... Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 7. The former is the new phone os, while the latter is based on the previous software and is designed for those applications where custom hardware or lower level access to the OS is required. Windows Phone was specifically designed for handsets... Windows Mobile can run on anything.
All of Apple's OSs are based on their OS X codebase (which itself was BSD derived... via NextStep, etc.) But they are all most definetly considered OSs... it's just that some of the "more modern" features have been removed or replaced with new services.
Given the CPU power of the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPads, there's no reason why the OS shouldn't be capable of doing just about anything you want. The limitations that exist are blocks imposed by Apple for one reason or another.
It all depends on what you define as a 'real OS'.
The task of an OS, as I learned it way back in the stone age of computing, is to facilitate sharing of resources, hiding the complexities of the underlying HW for user programs and handling exceptions.
Anything else is just 'fluff'.
Web-browser, file manager, text editor, document viewer, MP3-player? All user programs.
Given the CPU power of the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPads, there's no reason why the OS shouldn't be capable of doing just about anything you want. The limitations that exist are blocks imposed by Apple for one reason or another.
exactly Apple is holding out on us .
the printer is a easy fix . the PPD files could be parsed or wrapped to run on the pad . then normal USB could run printers.
and mass
EDIT : looking at that adapter it makes it more pathitic that apple did not just implant the USB jack right IN the pad . and save US and them the headache.
just one EULA breaking jailbreak and the device almost does everything what I want it to.
and apple .. Loose the dock connector . its a HUGE bottle neck to the real world .
miniUSB IN USB out . and the thing should mount like a mass storgea device .
use mini displayport as a Video out . ..
fendly poke to Bill S. and Bill G .. opportunity is knocking to kill the pad .
the best customers make the best designers .
WE here on this forum repesent the most hard to please users one can find .
WE want the world in our devices ..
If company X would have US put our ideas in then those who do no want the extra ports can just not use them ....
Il bet if the MiPad "Microsoft pad " had USB 3.0 In and out . was a X86 compatablr .
had a CF and a SD slot . had a mic in and out . used normal cables . had bluetooth .
Keep IRDA .
does not need a CEOs blessing to make a APP. used inductive charging .
could be used as a WIFI NAS drive . and it was NOT "brickable" ..
was $500-1000 . was not locked down to a OS .. EVERY ONE here would buy 2 !
I know I would ....
the andriod comes close but its wraped up in google .
personaly I dont like MS or google . there too big . but MS is not a data mineing company sans bing . and there HW in the past is not too shabby ( besides there red ring xbox) but google's user policy's scare me . there WiFI war driving events are proof of there very baddd user policy's
MS got slammed back in the 90s and learnd from it. its google's turn and then apple's turn next . Illl be the first to admit apple has gotten rotten.. there tech support is snobby . . in the 90s . there was not a Ipod so apple did not have a big head .
now they have a big head . its sad . ...
Back on topic
Bill , MS has a good chance of becomeing a good chunk of the moble market.
and thease reports of non complaint devices are not good for MS . I would urge MS to take up action against samsung for abusing the image of your company .
the WIN moble may be a fine OS . but due to the image of the SD incendent many users may shy away . not knowing that its not MS's fault .
I may not like MS products/user policys from a personal level . but on a professional level I respect them . they have done some very good things in the industry .
and dont desirve this stigma of a shoddy phone painting a bad picture of what I assume to be a deacent OS ..
And not all of them were their idea, either.
On the iPhone, some limitations are decided by the networks.
DRM in iTunes? The record labels. St. Steve would prefer to avoid it altogether.
No USB port? = No need to implement a whole lot of services. Makes for a leaner OS with shorter response time. Not to mention that it stops the whiners that buy some gadget then whines about no drivers existing for the platform they want to use it on.
(This was probably not an issue for Apple, as everyone is used to there not being drivers for kit anyhow for their OS)
When putting in a USB-port, how much power are you going to let a device draw from the port? This is kind of an important issue as you're running of a small battery.
SD-card?
Should it be integrated into the normal file-system, or for limited use so that only pictures from the camera can be stored on it?
If it's integrated into the normal file-system hierarchy, how can you stop people from installing non-approved applications?
Anyone ever used one of the first Palm Pilots with SD-card slots?
(Yes, I have a few Palms... Palm OS was even more limited than what IOS is, but no one complained... much... )
most of the same limitations as you find in the iPhone are also in the iPod touch and the iPad because they share the same base HW and OS.
then why do they selll a DOCK to USB adapter . thats easy to loose and snap off.,
the comments I made were for a Ideal world . not the sad one we live in now ...
/
Perhaps my philosophy is to add things and not take things away ..
once we started on using removable flash storage I would expect IN MY world that from now on every device will have it for years to come . same with printing with out a computer .
same with sharing files VIA irda now BLuetooth .
I understand why apple did thigs the way they did . . .. I was a dev tester for the first Iphone..
But I dont agree with them ..
the isssue is simple ...
in close to the same volume / size area as I Ipad teh Mac Book Air 11" does every thing I want . but its not a tablet .
iit has deacent batt life and is plenty fast .
So I Know its a apple being apple issue not a engineering or a design issue
If I could modbook a "air 11" I would .. it can be done . so why not sell the ipad as a full computer too.
OR make a macpad for $1700 I would buy one ..
My main sore point is the USB . with it so many more cool things coud be done . . I HATE ATT . they are horred where I live . ney where ever i lived I have had badd signal.
I would rahter Choose my provider ..
REAL computers give you full chose on your ISP . your mouse . your everything .
why not the Ipad that is touted as a " normalcomputer"
to me its just a media device . and as labed as such is a good one .
but when foulks call it a computer . Yes it is by defnition . but so is a prop chip from parallax.
but to realist . a lay person . I would not give the title of " normal computer" to a ipad . not yet ....
its frustrating casue its so so so close to being what I want yet is so far away .
iam shure every body here feels the same way about a device in there life
..
Look at the prop . fouks want XyZ but like a tad more speed ot more USB support and it pains them to have a great product be 1 point from being the best chip ever .
Its casue I know what possible ( not necessary practical)! that if I dont see a company give 100% I feel cheeted .. what if I had XYZ) how much more could i do ..
I wanted a Ipad for the car as a car computer .. DeLourm GPS and a Verizon 3g stick and a USB flash stick too.
allI want is a over sized tom tom . with a MP3 and a brain .
let me run it as a Networked HD so I can Via WiFI Admin it from my dorrm room 300' awway..
the HW is plnety fas enough for it . My old Ibook G4 12" I just got insteed of a ipad Runs OSX . and does everything . but its a laptop .
allI want is a over sized tom tom . with a MP3 and a brain .
You might want to rethink the Tom Tom. I had mine for almost a year and it died. The problem now is trying to find a place to repair it and I'm not sure there is a place. If you get one and it breaks, you will face the same problem.
I'm afraid companies that make one trick gadgets, like TOM TOM, are not long for this world. They will be overrun by the general purpose tablets or even smart phones.
Fendly [sic] poke to Bill S. and Bill G.. opportunity is knocking to kill the pad. The best customers make the best designers.
Yep... I can't wait to see our answer. We've had TabletPCs forever but they've really never taken off due to the "standard" Windows OSs that are run on them.
What we need to do is add a Silverlight style interface (like on Windows Phone 7) that is specifically built for them to one of our Tablets... like the the new Dell Duo and show off just what it can do. I've heard rumors that we're even working on a marketplace that would allow Silverlight/XNA apps, just like the Windows Phone to run on them, but that's just rumors... I've not seen anything concrete internally or publically. That would certaintly be sweet if it pans out, however. Considering that XNA and Silverlight are both cross platform... it'd be a no brainer!
I hope it goes well .
As Long as it not too Fat ( not file system har har ) it should be OK .
Mind I never was to excited about the netbooks with full windows on them .Esp Vista or 7 ..
its like stuffing a fat elephant in a VW Bug ..
It will move . just not very well.
I am evin uneasy of apple with there 1st Gen mac book Airs with OSX .
cause the first ones were a tad under powered for there age .
sadly OSX is getting kinda pudgey too. it used to only need 256M RAM to run now its up to a gig .
So was the 200Meg to 2 Gig jump for XP to Vista .
We've had TabletPCs forever but they've really never taken off due to the "standard" Windows OSs that are run on them.
Yea I had a motion tablet for a few months . it never worked right .
its living out is final days as a over complicated 40gb picture frame....
Bill do you think the new pads with MS on them will support "" normal " SD use .
and or USB ?
is the OS capable of it .
I hate to ask this but can it "execute" any of the nasty Desktop viruses or the like .
I started to laugh and then cringe when i saw a add for a norton AV for the Win Moble platform.. I was like " no where is safe now ahhhhhhhh"
and will I be able to ISO my pad to a file to archive it .
My palm backes up everything so nicely . I have had to use the restore a few times after a banana got goo in my phone .
it would be nice to have a app backup and restore function.
and or with a ghosting like abaility for enterprise it would save set up time for large deployments ..
I was just speculating as to what our direction might be. :-) Whether that happens or not, I can't say.
I've been using TabletPCs since the beginning... in fact, I've had 4 of them from Acer, HP, Toshiba and now another Acer (actually, I have two of the latest gen.) I use them as my primary "work" computers. The latest Acer actually has a dual core chip and I've upraded them both to 8 gigs of Ram and 256 solid state hard drives. With that set up, they'll easily run a full day on battery alone and I never shut them off. (I just close the lid... when I open it back, the machine resumes in just 2 or 3 seconds.)
As for viruses... actaully, there hasn't been a virus attack on a PC in a very long time. Most of the current attacks are against the soft part of the computer... the user via malware from malicious websites. However, the security improvements in Vista and 7 have been nothing short of amazing and I think that if you actually look at the numbers, Microsoft has done an amazing job tackling that. The biggest change in helping combat that is the reduced security level the user runs in. Most malicious code runs in the users security context, so reducing the users to a "non admin" role by default helped lower that risk signficantly... now the user has to explicitly run the bad code to get it to work. The other thing is the fact that any downloaded code from the internet won't run by default... it prompts the user instead. Those two changes reduced malware intrusions by over 90%. Microsoft also built in hooks into the OS to allow anti-virus vendors to hook into the system without degrading performance. (Now, most haven't fully implemented them yet, but AVG and Microsoft's own Security Essentials have very very low impact on the system performance wise.)
Microsoft includes a backup utility in all versions of Windows, however, it only backs up your documents and settings. They left it to 3rd parties provide solutions that can backup your entire hard disk. (Some of them are actually hardware solutions, which work great!)
Actually, as for your enterprise ghosting capability, that has been done for years. Microsoft has enterprise deployment features built into Windows and Windows Server called Windows Deployment Services. You can build an image of a machine and clone it and then deploy it to any number of computers. That is via a technology called PXE boot that runs before anything else on your computer. You can also use Microsoft's SMS tool to deploy software.
About the storage and usb... since the current Tablets are simply Windows 7 based... they easily support "standard" SD and usb currently and I doubt that'll change. As I stated elsewhere, the phone os wasn't designed for SD, but the hardware manufacturers added anyway, which is why there is a preceived problem.
Comments
This is not so. The Wikipedia article on xD Picture Cards, which really are raw NAND flash chips in a fancy package, makes this clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XD-Picture_Card
This makes it very clear that at the software level, a device which is meant to accept raw flash (including xD and SmartMedia cards, which really are raw flash) does not automatically support SD unless specific drivers for SD are included in the software.
Which should be kind of obvious even from the Windows phone example, since as I wrote before somebody had to actually write the code that puts the SD card in this obscure mode that hardly anything else supports, and those SD modes are a function of the SD controller chip, not the flash.
Oh... but I've never had to do anything special in my Spin code to use SD cards, considering I just talk to them via my SPI interface. In fact, I use my Flash memory exactly the same as I do my SD cards... with no code differences at all.
Now that this revelation for the need of a different driver has come to light, are all my SD cards going to suddenly quit working? :-D
Bill
My eyes sort of skipped over that second sentence the first time I read this, probably because it parses as nonsense. Exactly what does "using the SD format internally" mean? Ultimately they are either using a SD card controller, which does wear leveling and implements the SD standard, or they aren't. If they aren't, and they are using the flash chips directly, the hardware and software that do that aren't compatible with SD at all.
So it sounds like what you are saying is that Microsoft told the manufacturers to basically build their own SD circuitry into the phone, but not use an actual physical SD card to do it -- which is kind of a stupid thing to ask, since the SD card comes with an enclosure and the SD controller pretty much for the same price as the raw flash. Hacker Bunnie mentions that in this article about investigating bad uSD chips which were supposed to be installed in chumbys:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918
So Microsoft asked the manufacturers to use SD controllers, makes some sense since you get the wear leveling and bad-block detecting functions automatically, but not to use actual SD cards? That doesn't make sense. They are supposed to do for themselves a bunch of research and fabrication that the SD card manufacturers are willing to do for free? OF COURSE they used actual SD cards then. They'd have been stupid to roll their own. At the volume phones are sold in that ends up being a considerable wad of money.
So it comes back to the decision to use something standard, the SD controller if not (by intent) the entire SD card, for something it wasn't ever really intended for; the whole reason it exists is to facilitate removable and exchangeable media. The DRM functions Microsoft is using to lock the card to a particular device are cruft left over from a suite of related functions that never gained any traction (largely because CSS, which was another big part of it, was broken). So why use them? Why sow confusion when it would be just as fast, easy, and convenient to use the card in a way that doesn't break compatibility with the rest of the observable universe?
except when Apple does it the world screams murder...
It was their choice based on their needs and constraints... your opinion wasn't considered in their business plan. If you don't like it, then don't buy their product. Simple enough?
Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm0AkFUYpLQ&feature=player_embedded
Wow... that was expensive!!!
Bill
OPEN question to ALL.. Do you consider the IOS or the new WIN mobile OS to be FULL OS comparable to a Desktop OS .. I have rather big fanboy ( emphasis on Boy here ) On Youtube who thinks he is a expert . saying the OSX is Just like the IOS and that apple can make the IOS just as powerfull as OSX .
Considering how the IOS is not built to reconiise a External MEM device it is no way near the ability of a Real OS ..
same with Win Mobile 7
AND is there more then One kind of a OS ( I know the real answer ) .
I want to know what everyone here thinks as I consider everyone here to be experts in the art ....
They all control memory allocation, define hardware access and execute programs. They also all control all I/O and user interaction as well as provide additional services specific to the platform they are running on (like the radio stack and communications APIs.)
BTW... Microsoft has two small OSs now... Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 7. The former is the new phone os, while the latter is based on the previous software and is designed for those applications where custom hardware or lower level access to the OS is required. Windows Phone was specifically designed for handsets... Windows Mobile can run on anything.
All of Apple's OSs are based on their OS X codebase (which itself was BSD derived... via NextStep, etc.) But they are all most definetly considered OSs... it's just that some of the "more modern" features have been removed or replaced with new services.
Bill
The 'missing' external memory is more a HW issue than SW.
One example is the 'Camera connection Kit hack'.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/ipad-camera-connection-kit-supports-external-hard-drives/
Given the CPU power of the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPads, there's no reason why the OS shouldn't be capable of doing just about anything you want. The limitations that exist are blocks imposed by Apple for one reason or another.
It all depends on what you define as a 'real OS'.
The task of an OS, as I learned it way back in the stone age of computing, is to facilitate sharing of resources, hiding the complexities of the underlying HW for user programs and handling exceptions.
Anything else is just 'fluff'.
Web-browser, file manager, text editor, document viewer, MP3-player? All user programs.
exactly Apple is holding out on us .
the printer is a easy fix . the PPD files could be parsed or wrapped to run on the pad . then normal USB could run printers.
and mass
EDIT : looking at that adapter it makes it more pathitic that apple did not just implant the USB jack right IN the pad . and save US and them the headache.
just one EULA breaking jailbreak and the device almost does everything what I want it to.
and apple .. Loose the dock connector . its a HUGE bottle neck to the real world .
miniUSB IN USB out . and the thing should mount like a mass storgea device .
use mini displayport as a Video out . ..
fendly poke to Bill S. and Bill G .. opportunity is knocking to kill the pad .
the best customers make the best designers .
WE here on this forum repesent the most hard to please users one can find .
WE want the world in our devices ..
If company X would have US put our ideas in then those who do no want the extra ports can just not use them ....
Il bet if the MiPad "Microsoft pad " had USB 3.0 In and out . was a X86 compatablr .
had a CF and a SD slot . had a mic in and out . used normal cables . had bluetooth .
Keep IRDA .
does not need a CEOs blessing to make a APP. used inductive charging .
could be used as a WIFI NAS drive . and it was NOT "brickable" ..
was $500-1000 . was not locked down to a OS .. EVERY ONE here would buy 2 !
I know I would ....
the andriod comes close but its wraped up in google .
personaly I dont like MS or google . there too big . but MS is not a data mineing company sans bing . and there HW in the past is not too shabby ( besides there red ring xbox) but google's user policy's scare me . there WiFI war driving events are proof of there very baddd user policy's
MS got slammed back in the 90s and learnd from it. its google's turn and then apple's turn next . Illl be the first to admit apple has gotten rotten.. there tech support is snobby . . in the 90s . there was not a Ipod so apple did not have a big head .
now they have a big head . its sad . ...
Back on topic
Bill , MS has a good chance of becomeing a good chunk of the moble market.
and thease reports of non complaint devices are not good for MS . I would urge MS to take up action against samsung for abusing the image of your company .
the WIN moble may be a fine OS . but due to the image of the SD incendent many users may shy away . not knowing that its not MS's fault .
I may not like MS products/user policys from a personal level . but on a professional level I respect them . they have done some very good things in the industry .
and dont desirve this stigma of a shoddy phone painting a bad picture of what I assume to be a deacent OS ..
And not all of them were their idea, either.
On the iPhone, some limitations are decided by the networks.
DRM in iTunes? The record labels. St. Steve would prefer to avoid it altogether.
No USB port? = No need to implement a whole lot of services. Makes for a leaner OS with shorter response time. Not to mention that it stops the whiners that buy some gadget then whines about no drivers existing for the platform they want to use it on.
(This was probably not an issue for Apple, as everyone is used to there not being drivers for kit anyhow for their OS)
When putting in a USB-port, how much power are you going to let a device draw from the port? This is kind of an important issue as you're running of a small battery.
SD-card?
Should it be integrated into the normal file-system, or for limited use so that only pictures from the camera can be stored on it?
If it's integrated into the normal file-system hierarchy, how can you stop people from installing non-approved applications?
Anyone ever used one of the first Palm Pilots with SD-card slots?
(Yes, I have a few Palms... Palm OS was even more limited than what IOS is, but no one complained... much... )
most of the same limitations as you find in the iPhone are also in the iPod touch and the iPad because they share the same base HW and OS.
the comments I made were for a Ideal world . not the sad one we live in now ...
/
Perhaps my philosophy is to add things and not take things away ..
once we started on using removable flash storage I would expect IN MY world that from now on every device will have it for years to come . same with printing with out a computer .
same with sharing files VIA irda now BLuetooth .
I understand why apple did thigs the way they did . . .. I was a dev tester for the first Iphone..
But I dont agree with them ..
the isssue is simple ...
in close to the same volume / size area as I Ipad teh Mac Book Air 11" does every thing I want . but its not a tablet .
iit has deacent batt life and is plenty fast .
So I Know its a apple being apple issue not a engineering or a design issue
Ever heard of a Mod Book. here
If I could modbook a "air 11" I would .. it can be done . so why not sell the ipad as a full computer too.
OR make a macpad for $1700 I would buy one ..
My main sore point is the USB . with it so many more cool things coud be done . . I HATE ATT . they are horred where I live . ney where ever i lived I have had badd signal.
I would rahter Choose my provider ..
REAL computers give you full chose on your ISP . your mouse . your everything .
why not the Ipad that is touted as a " normalcomputer"
to me its just a media device . and as labed as such is a good one .
but when foulks call it a computer . Yes it is by defnition . but so is a prop chip from parallax.
but to realist . a lay person . I would not give the title of " normal computer" to a ipad . not yet ....
its frustrating casue its so so so close to being what I want yet is so far away .
iam shure every body here feels the same way about a device in there life
..
Look at the prop . fouks want XyZ but like a tad more speed ot more USB support and it pains them to have a great product be 1 point from being the best chip ever .
Its casue I know what possible ( not necessary practical)! that if I dont see a company give 100% I feel cheeted .. what if I had XYZ) how much more could i do ..
I wanted a Ipad for the car as a car computer .. DeLourm GPS and a Verizon 3g stick and a USB flash stick too.
allI want is a over sized tom tom . with a MP3 and a brain .
let me run it as a Networked HD so I can Via WiFI Admin it from my dorrm room 300' awway..
the HW is plnety fas enough for it . My old Ibook G4 12" I just got insteed of a ipad Runs OSX . and does everything . but its a laptop .
Peter....
You might want to rethink the Tom Tom. I had mine for almost a year and it died. The problem now is trying to find a place to repair it and I'm not sure there is a place. If you get one and it breaks, you will face the same problem.
You mean like this: http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/
I'm afraid companies that make one trick gadgets, like TOM TOM, are not long for this world. They will be overrun by the general purpose tablets or even smart phones.
Yep... I can't wait to see our answer. We've had TabletPCs forever but they've really never taken off due to the "standard" Windows OSs that are run on them.
What we need to do is add a Silverlight style interface (like on Windows Phone 7) that is specifically built for them to one of our Tablets... like the the new Dell Duo and show off just what it can do. I've heard rumors that we're even working on a marketplace that would allow Silverlight/XNA apps, just like the Windows Phone to run on them, but that's just rumors... I've not seen anything concrete internally or publically. That would certaintly be sweet if it pans out, however. Considering that XNA and Silverlight are both cross platform... it'd be a no brainer!
Bill
I hope it goes well .
As Long as it not too Fat ( not file system har har ) it should be OK .
Mind I never was to excited about the netbooks with full windows on them .Esp Vista or 7 ..
its like stuffing a fat elephant in a VW Bug ..
It will move . just not very well.
I am evin uneasy of apple with there 1st Gen mac book Airs with OSX .
cause the first ones were a tad under powered for there age .
sadly OSX is getting kinda pudgey too. it used to only need 256M RAM to run now its up to a gig .
So was the 200Meg to 2 Gig jump for XP to Vista .
Yea I had a motion tablet for a few months . it never worked right .
its living out is final days as a over complicated 40gb picture frame....
Bill do you think the new pads with MS on them will support "" normal " SD use .
and or USB ?
is the OS capable of it .
I hate to ask this but can it "execute" any of the nasty Desktop viruses or the like .
I started to laugh and then cringe when i saw a add for a norton AV for the Win Moble platform.. I was like " no where is safe now ahhhhhhhh"
and will I be able to ISO my pad to a file to archive it .
My palm backes up everything so nicely . I have had to use the restore a few times after a banana got goo in my phone .
it would be nice to have a app backup and restore function.
and or with a ghosting like abaility for enterprise it would save set up time for large deployments ..
Peter
I was just speculating as to what our direction might be. :-) Whether that happens or not, I can't say.
I've been using TabletPCs since the beginning... in fact, I've had 4 of them from Acer, HP, Toshiba and now another Acer (actually, I have two of the latest gen.) I use them as my primary "work" computers. The latest Acer actually has a dual core chip and I've upraded them both to 8 gigs of Ram and 256 solid state hard drives. With that set up, they'll easily run a full day on battery alone and I never shut them off. (I just close the lid... when I open it back, the machine resumes in just 2 or 3 seconds.)
As for viruses... actaully, there hasn't been a virus attack on a PC in a very long time. Most of the current attacks are against the soft part of the computer... the user via malware from malicious websites. However, the security improvements in Vista and 7 have been nothing short of amazing and I think that if you actually look at the numbers, Microsoft has done an amazing job tackling that. The biggest change in helping combat that is the reduced security level the user runs in. Most malicious code runs in the users security context, so reducing the users to a "non admin" role by default helped lower that risk signficantly... now the user has to explicitly run the bad code to get it to work. The other thing is the fact that any downloaded code from the internet won't run by default... it prompts the user instead. Those two changes reduced malware intrusions by over 90%. Microsoft also built in hooks into the OS to allow anti-virus vendors to hook into the system without degrading performance. (Now, most haven't fully implemented them yet, but AVG and Microsoft's own Security Essentials have very very low impact on the system performance wise.)
Microsoft includes a backup utility in all versions of Windows, however, it only backs up your documents and settings. They left it to 3rd parties provide solutions that can backup your entire hard disk. (Some of them are actually hardware solutions, which work great!)
Actually, as for your enterprise ghosting capability, that has been done for years. Microsoft has enterprise deployment features built into Windows and Windows Server called Windows Deployment Services. You can build an image of a machine and clone it and then deploy it to any number of computers. That is via a technology called PXE boot that runs before anything else on your computer. You can also use Microsoft's SMS tool to deploy software.
About the storage and usb... since the current Tablets are simply Windows 7 based... they easily support "standard" SD and usb currently and I doubt that'll change. As I stated elsewhere, the phone os wasn't designed for SD, but the hardware manufacturers added anyway, which is why there is a preceived problem.
Bill