teh "what did you buy today"-thread

[BlueBMW]

Got in some new stuff this week.  An odd arrangement of stuff if I do say so myself.   The supergrafx was a local find.  The nuon, an impulse buy.  And the ipad was forced upon me at too low a price to say no.  (might be up for trade here soon, I have NO use for it really)

[Mathius]

You found a SGX locally???

[BlueBMW]

You found a SGX locally???

It was on ebay, but I noticed the guys location was my city, so I broke ebay rules and contacted him and completed a deal outside   Turns out, the guy works maybe 5 minutes from my work.

[SignOfZeta]

Why is that iPad so thick looking? Is that what the 3G ones are like? Or maybe its actually a pirate Famicom or something? I bought one for my mother for Xmas and it was much thinner.

I don't have any use for one either. I played with the one I bought for my mother for quite a while getting it set up and stuff, and while it is absolutely fascinating and a total joy to use, its really just a toy and in reality I'd always rather use my Macbook.

[Mathius]

You found a SGX locally???

It was on ebay, but I noticed the guys location was my city, so I broke ebay rules and contacted him and completed a deal outside   Turns out, the guy works maybe 5 minutes from my work.

Groovy 

[BlueBMW]

Why is that iPad so thick looking? Is that what the 3G ones are like? Or maybe its actually a pirate Famicom or something? I bought one for my mother for Xmas and it was much thinner.

I don't have any use for one either. I played with the one I bought for my mother for quite a while getting it set up and stuff, and while it is absolutely fascinating and a total joy to use, its really just a toy and in reality I'd always rather use my Macbook.

It came with this bluetooth keyboard / hard case thing.  That's why its so thick.

[TheClash603]

Why is that iPad so thick looking? Is that what the 3G ones are like? Or maybe its actually a pirate Famicom or something? I bought one for my mother for Xmas and it was much thinner.

I don't have any use for one either. I played with the one I bought for my mother for quite a while getting it set up and stuff, and while it is absolutely fascinating and a total joy to use, its really just a toy and in reality I'd always rather use my Macbook.

It came with this bluetooth keyboard / hard case thing.  That's why its so thick.

Good move! That keyboad will make it so you actually use it!

[SignOfZeta]

I doubt it. It will just make the thing bigger.

[BlueBMW]

Good move! That keyboad will make it so you actually use it!

It is pretty neat.  It makes you WANT to use it.  But like SoZ said, its a toy.  Even though my laptop is huge and has a fraction of the battery life, its just so much more usable.  If I need an ultra portable tablet I'll just use my droid phone or itouch.  I am letting my mother play with it to see if its something she might use.

[SignOfZeta]

For casual viewing of webpages the thing is unmatched. Its also pretty rad for ebooks, Netflix, and other ultra-casual "consumptive" internet behaviors like Facebook or just cruising through Flicker or eBay.

If you are into astronomy, there is SkySafari, which I used to help me track the most recent lunar eclipse. The interface is a bit smoother than what I use on my Mac (TheSkyX).

Another thing I like are those apps devoted to specify radio shows or webpages. The IMDB one is nice. The one for This American Life is pretty rad (if you like that show) because it also doubles as a donation to the show. It only costs a few dollars and you get all the TAL stuff organized in one place with a load of bonus junk too.

Now, all of this stuff can be done on an iPhone as well, but here's something that works much better on the larger screen: Virtuoso Piano.



At first glance it looks like a pretty no frills piano emulator, and it is, but what is totally cool is that you can chose which part of the keyboard those rows represent, and you can flip them to make it a versus dueling pianos thing, which is really fun if two people know how to play. You can probably do that on the iPhone/Touch version, but it would be much harder.

All of this stuff is, as I said, a distraction. I can do it all better with other hardware. If you add a keyboard all you have is a shitty laptop. Apple stuff is best enjoyed the way it is. If you fight the design, you just end up pissed off at it. If you have a lot of typing to do you should be using a real computer, not carrying around some stupid thing that triples the size of the iPad. Another thing to avoid: "free" apps. The ones that shove so many f*cking adds in your face you might as well have bought a Toshiba netbook for half the price.

All of this cool stuff makes me hope that the huge success of the iPad brings me the product I've wanted for ages, a touch screen MacBook. Basically what I have already (a real CPU, OS, keyboard, etc at real resolution) but with a bendy touch screen. That would be so f*cking rad, especially for music programs.

[ceti alpha]

Got my belated Birthday gifts from my brother last night! Woot!

The new Tron DS game. Online lightcycles on the DS? Sold! And non other than Rocket Robin Hood, season 2. This cartoon and the old 60s Spiderman cartoon are produced by the same Canadian production company. Season 2 of Rocket Robin Hood was particularly LDS...errr...LSD induced. A lot of the animation from this season can be seen on the old Spiderman cartoon. LSD must have been the popular lunch choice at that company because these shows will whack your brain. lol

For casual viewing of webpages the thing is unmatched. Its also pretty rad for ebooks, Netflix, and other ultra-casual "consumptive" internet behaviors like Facebook or just cruising through Flicker or eBay.

Unmatched? The Motorala Xoom with Android Honeycomb (optimized for tablets) pretty much trumps the iPad in every department. I'd be very surprised if the iPad 2 will have half the features of Android Honeycomb. You're pretty much guaranteed that the iPad 2 won't have USB or an SD Card slot, which is unacceptable. Those are absolutely bare bones features on any media device and not including them is highly dubious. Just saying that the iPad isn't unmatched; in fact, Apple is going to have to really step up their game if they want to stay competitive in the tablet market. Even the Blackberry Playbook is a great alternative, if not better. I'm personally still not sold on the whole tablet wave, as my Android phone works just great for casual browsing.

[Opethian]

got Metal Eye for FM towns. was on the cheap heh

[Mathius]

I want an FM Towns so badly!

[Arkhan]

got Metal Eye for FM towns. was on the cheap heh

Did you get those from BESTYEAREVAR.com?

[esteban]

Unmatched? The Motorala Xoom with Android Honeycomb (optimized for tablets) pretty much trumps the iPad in every department. I'd be very surprised if the iPad 2 will have half the features of Android Honeycomb. You're pretty much guaranteed that the iPad 2 won't have USB or an SD Card slot, which is unacceptable. Those are absolutely bare bones features on any media device and not including them is highly dubious. Just saying that the iPad isn't unmatched; in fact, Apple is going to have to really step up their game if they want to stay competitive in the tablet market. Even the Blackberry Playbook is a great alternative, if not better. I'm personally still not sold on the whole tablet wave, as my Android phone works just great for casual browsing.

Dude  

Up until this point, there really hasn't been any viable competition (in user experience)  to the iPad (a friend has Galaxy Tab...it's OK, but is not a workhorse like iPad: battery is annoying, frequent reboots, apps for tab...not here yet). And, honestly, it is far too early to suggest that the mere feature lists of the Xoom or PlayBook (both look very nice) will actually amount to something substantial (Xoom has Android Marketplace, but I am not sure if the PlayBook, with QNX, will blossom or wither). We will see.

Meanwhile, for nearly an entire year already, our iPad has been an absolute joy to use. My wife got the iPad at launch and it has been used constantly (me, wife, daughter) in our household ever since. We battle over the goddamn thing. Naysayers can nay all they want, but, if you can afford it, it's a welcome addition to any household: easy to use for luddites/clumsy kids, far more convenient to use than a laptop for a majority of use cases, fantastic battery life.

I'd say reading/browsing, playing games, watching tv/movies, emailing/scheduling are the top use cases for the iPad in our household. We all have laptops at our disposal. 99% of time, the iPad is what we grab if it is available.

I rarely get to use the damn thing, which is something I've just had to accept