patrick.net

SF ace says

To me, 10′ and 1 or so pound is just too big for eveyday use. It takes me the same amount of effort to carry my laptop which does the sames thing as the Ipad and much much more. So from that perspective, the bigger and faster is more than offset by the inconvience.

This is a good point. Apple is directly competing with $500 netbooks that are getting pretty capable.

The iPad advantage AFAICT is half the weight, twice the battery life and as TOT says above an entire ecosystem of apps specifically designed for the iPads different capabilities.

Tenouncetrout says

Ask your self, has Apple ever had a Lemmon?

The G4 Cube from 2000 was the main one. Apple tried to charge more for less and fell flat on their face. (Going back in time, the Apple III, Lisa, Mac 128K, Mac Portable, IIvx/IIvi, Newton, plus many others . . .)

I think Apple has learned that lesson finally and the $500 price point is very, very aggressive. At $1000 the iPad would be a dud since it's hard for the average tech spender finding $500 worth of utility out of the device compared to netbooks, PSPs, Android devices, etc.

TOT, I like your stock trader app idea. Imagine being able to lay out stops and orders by touch on a chart on the beach. Killer app!

Troy said: I’ve got a dozen apps on my plate to get out this year, none of them doable on the iPhone’s HVGA screen.
Not asking you to bite the hand that feeds, but I'm curious if you think 800x480 would be sufficient.

losing 224 pixels one way and 240 the other is borderline. It's less than half the real estate as XGA.

Overhead perspective games like Civ work better with the squarer XGA, than HD.

Most of my utility ideas wouldn't fit well with 800x640. Some would be doable, and I did think Apple would make a 8" HD device, but I'm glad they didn't. Perhaps the rationale was if it can't fit in a shirt pocket then the next step up is the pocket of a backpack.

Tenouncetrout says

Ask your self, has Apple ever had a Lemmon?

Yes, almost every product they produced in the 1990s.

Also, The G4 Cube, Apple TV, .mac,

Tenouncetrout says

A device you can hook up to your television, that accesses any YouTube content, and displays it HD and can play through your Surround sound system. The iTouch is just that device. Now consider a device even bigger and easer to see, read and use.

That gizmo alone is worth 499 surely.

No it wouldn't be, and that isn't what the ipad is anyway. You can't watch HD content on your TV from an ipad.

Tenouncetrout says

Now imagine a NetFlix app, pay your bills apps, banking apps, a useful atlas biger than car GPS display by far, apps for analyzing stock prices, Order groceries or take out. I can go and on but what’s the point. you get the idea.

Holy crap the internet!

No, seriously -- I already have all of these things, right now, in front of my face on my laptop.

Tenouncetrout says

Sure a laptop or computer, but it’s ten times easier just to flip the unlock on the iTouch OS and be in business, rather than wait for the computers boot sequence.

The only situation I can recall dealing with a "boot sequence" in the last two years was for OSX upgrades. The same sort you'd have to deal with when upgrading ipad firmware.

If the battery is dead on the ipad, expect to deal with the same minute+ boot time as the iphone after you recharge it.

Kevin says

Yes, almost every product they produced in the 1990s.

Also, The G4 Cube, Apple TV, .mac,

Not for Mac person, they didn't mind those pitfalls, and their only alternative was Windows 95, and 3.1. It's easy to look back in retrospect and say "What a POS that was".

Look you obviously like your mouse and keyboard. Since having my iTouch I see a restructuring of how we use computers. Computers will be for production, and these devices will dominate the Infoscape, for quickly obtaining information or ordering and purchasing over the internet on a whim.

Here's the competition (as I see it).
1. Netbooks -- Already mentioned by others. More functionality, but different form factor.
2. Other tablets. Will The JooJoo beat the iPad to market? Higher res (1366x768) widescreen display.
3. Pocket computers with phone functionality. My current favorite in this space is the Nokia n900. Resolution of display is 800x480 (2.5 times that of an iPhone). This seems to be the mythical convergence device, but is it hampered by screen size? Remember, its Linux but spelled Maemo.

Kevin says

Yes, almost every product they produced in the 1990s.

The early 90s sucked for Apple, but of course Windows sucked more so it was a wash. I bought my IIcx in May 1989 and it was still "good enough" right through 1994.

Apple got its act together in the mid 90s with the PCI Power Macs. The 7500 was a must-upgrade for me -- just in time, since I was seriously tempted to get a 133Mhz Gateway box in late 95.

But yeah, Apple made tons of lame products in the 90s. And their 80s stuff was overpriced thanks to their monopoly on a usable desktop GUI + APIs. No denying that.

Apple again lost the plot in the late 90s, really slow keeping up with AGP 2X, 4X.

Kevin says

No it wouldn’t be, and that isn’t what the ipad is anyway. You can’t watch HD content on your TV from an ipad.

Actually it does 720P out.

Kevin says

No, seriously — I already have all of these things, right now, in front of my face on my laptop.

With an 11hour battery life & a form factor that weighs 18 ounces?

Laptops are fine for most situations. Right now I'm typing this on a MacBook in my lap. But I think the iPad has a niche for use outside the home, for people stuck places like on the train, etc. It's only a netbook replacement obliquely.

Tenouncetrout says

Computers will be for production, and these devices will dominate the Infoscape, for quickly obtaining information or ordering and purchasing over the internet on a whim.

yeah, that was my analogy, that laptops are frypans and tablets are serving plates -- designed for consuming not producing.

the keyboard experience is the weakest link for the iPad. I really thought Apple was going to do something cool like predictive layouts or something. But we just got a big iPhone keyboard. Hrrm.

Such tools married with information internal nets can be highly successfull commercially.
Companies spend/waste paper by the ton everyday. Portable devices can help
eliminate paper waste and reduce costs.

Apple found a great niche with broadcasters (video/audio/entertainment) in the past 5 years.
If you ever walk into a local TV/Radio Station, its mainly all Apple products.
Much of their broadcasting (commercial products) go unnoticed, but are doing a great job.

Rather amazing history how we got here...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_PC

1888: U.S. Patent granted to Elisha Gray on electrical stylus device for capturing handwriting.
1915: U.S. Patent on handwriting recognition user interface with a stylus.
1942: U.S. Patent on touchscreen for handwriting input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook

Troy says

Actually it does 720P out.

Why are people claiming this? There is no video output on the device capable of HD output. No HDMI, no DVI, not even display port.

What there is as an add on VGA connector, which will output at a max of 1024x768 (i.e. the ipad's native resolution, 4:3 aspect ratio), or 480p with the component cables. It's right there in the tech specs. Neither of those are "HD", and the idea of using VGA for anything other than presentations is laughable.

The ipad itself does not display anything in HD. It will play back 720p (1280x720) video files, but they are fit into the 1024x768 resolution of the device by letterboxing them into 1024x576.

Troy says

With an 11hour battery life & a form factor that weighs 18 ounces?

About 8 hour battery life and about 30 ounces, which is perfectly fine for carrying with me wherever I go. I suppose those extra two hours might come in handy on some international flights, though I prefer having a swappable battery for such situations anyway.

I would have much rather they just put the iphone OS on macbook pros, dropping the touch pad entirely and making the screen a multi touch surface. That would be a genuinely better general purpose computing solution.

Kevin says

Troy says

Actually it does 720P out.

Why are people claiming this? There is no video output on the device capable of HD output. No HDMI, no DVI, not even display port.

hmm, I don't really see any publicly-available specs to confirm this for you. Never mind : )

With an 11hour battery life & a form factor that weighs 18 ounces?

About 8 hour battery life and about 30 ounces, which is perfectly fine for carrying with me wherever I go. I suppose those extra two hours might come in handy on some international flights, though I prefer having a swappable battery for such situations anyway.

OK, we've established you've got the typical crap netbook that is under three pounds . . . is it capable of actual usable 3D performance and ability to play HD? AFAICT without exception these don't go together in the netbook space; you've got to pick lightness + battery life or any sort of non-suck performance envelope, you can't have both.

I realize you were saying a netbook makes a good webpad, but I think the difference is in the details, how well the netbook functions. IME, there's just too many corners cut on the cheap-ass netbooks for me to want to use them. I read the customer reviews on newegg and just shake my head, eg:

"This is the first laptop I've owned that can reliably sleep and wake. Shut it down, it goes to sleep--open it up, press On, and you're back where you were in 15-20 seconds. Truly remarkable. Windows 7 is largely to thank for this."

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115658

20 seconds to wake? Macs wake in 1 second, and I expect the iPad will wake instantly, like MacOS 9 used to do.

*that's* the advantage of the iPad -- just like the Mac in 1984, Apple is the only tech company able to innovate from the circuit board to the API (Google is coming close here with their Android platform).

Note, I don't think the iPad is a particularly *good* netbook -- the fake keyboard is a step backwards, and the $400-$500 netbooks with the 9400M have some decent graphics performance.

I would have much rather they just put the iphone OS on macbook pros, dropping the touch pad entirely and making the screen a multi touch surface. That would be a genuinely better general purpose computing solution.

Touch requires new UI. People thought Apple didn't need to make Macs, just port Quickdraw to the IIgs. The Apple way is to reinvent the future, ditching all backwards compatibility hassles that aren't important, before somebody else does.

The iPad functionality has a good value proposition at the $500 pricepoint (take your five favorite capabilities @ $100/each). At the $1000 pricepoint, maybe not, especially in this economy.

Troy says

OK, we’ve established you’ve got the typical crap netbook that is under three pounds . . . is it capable of actual usable 3D performance and ability to play HD?

It has "3D performance" as good as you're going to get on an ipad (and something packing an ion would blow it out of the water).

And it also has DVI out. The screen isn't big enough to due HD playback natively, but I can hook it up to a full size monitor with no problem.

...not that I'd use a device like this for that anyway. If I want to watch HD video, I'm not going to be doing it by hooking my computer up to the TV, I'm going to have a box sitting there all the time (currently my device of choice is an xbox).

And I certainly wouldn't use an ipad for anything that actually wants "3D performance", i.e. real games. People are still amazed that they can play games at all on crappy mobile devices that they forget that the games themselves suck, except for a small selection of really brilliant casual games (and these aren't graphically intense).

Troy says

I realize you were saying a netbook makes a good webpad, but I think the difference is in the details, how well the netbook functions. IME, there’s just too many corners cut on the cheap-ass netbooks for me to want to use them. I read the customer reviews on newegg and just shake my head, eg:

Fully functional, highly capable *laptops* are available for $500 that are vastly superior to the ipad. They aren't going to give you 11 hours of battery life and they don't weigh a pound and a half, but the difference isn't big enough to matter to anyone who actually has a life other than sitting on the couch reading digital newspaper. There just aren't enough situations where the typical 4-5 hour battery life you can get out of the machines that toshiba and asus are offering to matter.

Troy says

*that’s* the advantage of the iPad — just like the Mac in 1984, Apple is the only tech company able to innovate from the circuit board to the API (Google is coming close here with their Android platform).

Oh please. Apple is the only company able to innovate? That's exactly the sort of attitude that caused the company to nearly go bankrupt during the 90s.

And macs don't wake in one second. I have a current generation MPB and it still takes a good 5-10 seconds to wake from hibernation (which is *fine*).

Troy says

Touch requires new UI.

Yep. That's why I said they should have put their superior OS on the MPB form factor. In many ways OSX has fallen behind windows (because apple is focused on iphone / ipad), and they'd be better off just sticking with the ipad.

Of course, they won't do that because it means rewriting all of the apps that draw power users to macs, like protools and photoshop. Given hardware like the MPB, these would run fine, but a complete rewrite would be a very hard sell.

This is why the first companies to ship grown up sized form factor devices with useful touch UIs will be the people without a vested legacy. MS won't do it and apple won't do it.

Troy says

The Apple way is to reinvent the future, ditching all backwards compatibility hassles that aren’t important, before somebody else does.

Oh *please*. The whole reason that the ipad has 1024x768 resolution is so that iphone apps can be scaled up without breaking things. Ditching backwards compatibility my ass.

The whole reason that the ipad has 1024×768 resolution is so that iphone apps can be scaled up without breaking things. Ditching backwards compatibility my ass.
Well that IS interesting. I can't see how Apple can continue to thumb their noses at widescreen formats, but for now they do have the pull. That said, it was nice to see my personal (cheapskate) projection standard (576p) validated by the release of the iPad.

An iPhone or iPad would look a little strange with a 16:9 or wider aspect ratio, wouldn't it? It's got to fit in your pocket, after all. If you're going to watch widescreen video on an iPhone (or iTouch), you can live with the little black bars on the top, or else live with the crop.

An iPhone or iPad would look a little strange with a 16:9 or wider aspect ratio, wouldn’t it?
Here are some side-by-side shots with the Motorola Droid which has the much higher resolution 3.7″ 854×480 screen. I don't see why Apple couldn't do it; except for the, ahem, 4:3 legacy support.
you can live with the little black bars
Yes, but meanwhile all other modern smartphones allow you to watch a full res DVD (480p).

Brand says

An iPhone or iPad would look a little strange with a 16:9 or wider aspect ratio, wouldn’t it? It’s got to fit in your pocket, after all. If you’re going to watch widescreen video on an iPhone (or iTouch), you can live with the little black bars on the top, or else live with the crop.

Almost every other smartphone on the market (except those made by RIM) has a 16:9 aspect ratio, precisely for people who are watching video on it.

The iphone could be made the exact same size with a widescreen aspect ratio -- they'd just have to make the top and bottom bezels smaller, and probably modify the home button a bit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a future iphone does exactly that once apple bites the bullet and implements proper resolution independent rendering.

Not that this has *anything* to do with the ipad, either. The ipad would have also worked perfectly fine in 16:9 (IMO it would actually be better, a lot like the screen portion of a MPB), but apple chose to stick with 4:3 because they wanted to allow iphone apps to scale up out of the box.

Kevin says

Troy says

OK, we’ve established you’ve got the typical crap netbook that is under three pounds . . . is it capable of actual usable 3D performance and ability to play HD?

It has “3D performance” as good as you’re going to get on an ipad (and something packing an ion would blow it out of the water).

Not after about 60 minutes . . . While I don't think the PowerVR renderer will be as performant as 9400M, it is no slouch. The purpose of the iPad is mobile computing w/o a power cord, and 9400M isn't exactly the right solution for that.

The first time I saw the Ion package I busted a gut:

http://www.pclaunches.com/motherboard/nvidia_ion_platform_with_9400m_graphics_and_atom_processor.php

Talk about an asymmetric system. The HP Mini 311 has a 65W draw, while the iPad draws 10W.

And it also has DVI out. The screen isn’t big enough to due HD playback natively, but I can hook it up to a full size monitor with no problem.
…not that I’d use a device like this for that anyway. If I want to watch HD video, I’m not going to be doing it by hooking my computer up to the TV, I’m going to have a box sitting there all the time (currently my device of choice is an xbox).

The whole point of the tablet as a media player is to provide media when one is on the go. My main use cases will be when I'm on the train (should I return to Tokyo this decade) and when I'm on the treadmill.

Granted, if one doesn't have a need to watch mobile media the iPad's value proposition drops substantially.

And I certainly wouldn’t use an ipad for anything that actually wants “3D performance”, i.e. real games. People are still amazed that they can play games at all on crappy mobile devices that they forget that the games themselves suck, except for a small selection of really brilliant casual games (and these aren’t graphically intense).

This strikes me as whistling past the graveyard. I think we'll find that some genres work and some don't with a touch, but my 3 game ideas are working great with this form factor.

Troy says

I realize you were saying a netbook makes a good webpad, but I think the difference is in the details, how well the netbook functions. IME, there’s just too many corners cut on the cheap-ass netbooks for me to want to use them. I read the customer reviews on newegg and just shake my head, eg:

Fully functional, highly capable *laptops* are available for $500 that are vastly superior to the ipad. They aren’t going to give you 11 hours of battery life and they don’t weigh a pound and a half, but the difference isn’t big enough to matter to anyone who actually has a life other than sitting on the couch reading digital newspaper. There just aren’t enough situations where the typical 4-5 hour battery life you can get out of the machines that toshiba and asus are offering to matter.

It comes down to weight, heat, battery endurance, and ease of use.

If you've got a $500 laptop and a $500 iPad, which are you going to grab to throw into your pack?

That is the question we're going to understand more this year.

Here's a $500 lenovo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146705

Oops, it's got a GMA 4500M and a commenter says, "not for gaming". 6 pounds! Half the battery life of the iPad (2-3 hrs tops).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834107039

hot, noisy, also 6 pounds.

I'm sure the $600 - $800 Toshibas at newegg are fine laptops for the money. At 10W and 24 ounces, the iPad isn't really competing with them. As I said above, it comes down to why you are carrying the device around.

If it's keyboard-centric, then a netbook or laptop will win, hands down. In other areas, it depends on the app and whether the cut-down feature set of the iPad even supports the activity (eg burning CDs, etc).

Troy says

*that’s* the advantage of the iPad — just like the Mac in 1984, Apple is the only tech company able to innovate from the circuit board to the API (Google is coming close here with their Android platform).

Oh please. Apple is the only company able to innovate? That’s exactly the sort of attitude that caused the company to nearly go bankrupt during the 90s.

Like I said, innovate *from* the circuit board to the API. Windows OEMs are gated by Microsoft's one-size fits all offerings, and Microsoft is hobbled by having to support everything ever made, ever.

Google doesn't have this problem and they've brought in the smart Danger people (lots of General Magic/WebTV/Danger vets at Android).

Previous tablet efforts consisted of either chopping off the keyboard or putting the display on a swivel and calling it a day.

Apple's tablet runs at 10W, has an integrated hw renderer to support the slick UI (and demanding graphics).

Plus they own all the API and have been working on this OS for 25 years.

No other company other than Microsoft is able to create something like the iPad. The support for this statement is the past history of the industry over the last 10-15 years. Nobody came close.

And macs don’t wake in one second. I have a current generation MPB and it still takes a good 5-10 seconds to wake from hibernation (which is *fine*).

~4 seconds on my MBP, 1 second on the OG MacBook.

Troy says

Touch requires new UI.

Yep. That’s why I said they should have put their superior OS on the MPB form factor. In many ways OSX has fallen behind windows (because apple is focused on iphone / ipad), and they’d be better off just sticking with the ipad.

Then Apple would be competing with $200 netbooks and $500 Toshibas. I'm not entirely sure where OS X has "fallen behind" Windows given it's been ahead of it in the areas that matter to me since 2003 or so.

Granted, it could use a CLR and JIT stuff, and OpenGL is something of a hobble compared to Microsoft's control of DirectX.

Of course, they won’t do that because it means rewriting all of the apps that draw power users to macs, like protools and photoshop. Given hardware like the MPB, these would run fine, but a complete rewrite would be a very hard sell.

>

Touch only make sense on a lightweight tablet designed to be held in the hand. Not on the desktop.

Troy says

The Apple way is to reinvent the future, ditching all backwards compatibility hassles that aren’t important, before somebody else does.

Oh *please*. The whole reason that the ipad has 1024×768 resolution is so that iphone apps can be scaled up without breaking things. Ditching backwards compatibility my ass.

I spent a good amount of time in Photoshop last year trying to figure out the tablet's form factor. 16:9 was just too narrow.

16:9 is NOT a good aspect ratio for designing full-screen apps, square-ish is much better. Also, their are physical issues involved with chassis flex and handling stability. For a small screen this isn't present, but holding a 10" HD display horizontally in your left hand and touching on the right side of the display results in the touch having a relatively high lever-arm, making it problematic for the size.

The iPhone's HVGA doesn't scale cleanly into XGA so that's neither here nor there AFAICT.

Troy says

Not after about 60 minutes . . . While I don’t think the PowerVR renderer will be as performant as 9400M, it is no slouch. The purpose of the iPad is mobile computing w/o a power cord, and 9400M isn’t exactly the right solution for that.

It's not even in the same league as those GPUs...though with the cop out 1024x768 resolution I suppose they'll be able to get away with weak graphics power anyway.

The "purpose" of the ipad isn't mobile computing at all....it's computing for the type of people who type "facebook login" into google every day.

Troy says

Granted, if one doesn’t have a need to watch mobile media the iPad’s value proposition drops substantially.

I think it'll still do well with the previously mentioned group. People who actually know the difference between a search engine and an operating system would probably look at it this way though.

Troy says

If you’ve got a $500 laptop and a $500 iPad, which are you going to grab to throw into your pack?

The laptop, without a doubt.

I'd definitely never throw a 10" slab of unprotected glass in my pack, and if I was going somewhere that I actually felt compelled to bring something more versatile than my phone I'd rather have a complete solution.

Troy says

Like I said, innovate *from* the circuit board to the API. Windows OEMs are gated by Microsoft’s one-size fits all offerings, and Microsoft is hobbled by having to support everything ever made, ever.

Sorry, but you're wrong:

Every video game console (including Microsoft's)
RIM (still, far and away, the leading smartphone maker)
Nokia

Yes, the market for windows PCs is full of horrible crap, but that is hardly the only thing to look at for comparison.

Troy says

Plus they own all the API and have been working on this OS for 25 years.

That's a stretch. Aside from the obvious issue of major parts of the system not really being fully under apple's control (like darwin and webkit), "working" on an OS for 25 years is not an asset. Of course, the iphone / ipad OS isn't really the same thing as what's shipping in OSX. It has some things in common with it (so that developer tools work seamlessly), but it's got about as much in common with OSX as android has with ubuntu.

Troy says

No other company other than Microsoft is able to create something like the iPad. The support for this statement is the past history of the industry over the last 10-15 years. Nobody came close.

Nobody was really trying. Apple has refined an idea that other companies were contributing ideas to for years, and wrapped it up in a nice package. This is basically what they did with the original Macintosh, and what they did with the iphone. Apple has never launched a truly risky idea -- they've just figured out how to make really really good versions of things that other people are trying (and by "they", I mean "Steve Jobs", since Apple utterly failed to do anything interesting when he wasn't running the company).

Plenty of companies can and will do what apple has done with the ipad -- assuming it's successful. If people are willing to buy tablets, in a few years there will be $100 devices that are doing everything in an uglier package (see the typical HP / dell laptop vs. Macbook) and $500 devices that are basically the same (see high end Vaios vs MBP).

Troy says

Then Apple would be competing with $200 netbooks and $500 Toshibas.

They wouldn't be competing with those devices any more than they already are. The draw of the ipad is the simplified approach to computing, not the form factor. Taking out 99% of the OS is exactly what is needed in computing today, which is why it's the approach being taken by all new operating systems.

I’m not entirely sure where OS X has “fallen behind” Windows given it’s been ahead of it in the areas that matter to me since 2003 or so.
Granted, it could use a CLR and JIT stuff, and OpenGL is something of a hobble compared to Microsoft’s control of DirectX.

It's fallen behind because nobody is bothering to develop anything for it anymore. The era of the "traditional" desktop OS is coming to a close and only Microsoft is still investing in it. Windows has seen numerous improvements over the last 5 years that apple has been focusing elsewhere, and I would make the honest argument that my wife's Windows 7 laptop is a better overall experience than my MBP (except for the hardware, of course. Apple still makes the best laptop hardware by far).

The OS itself is not what matters, it's the apps that run on that OS. That is how it has fallen behind. Apple knows this, and I won't be at all surprised if OSX simply doesn't ship anymore in another 5 years.

Troy says

>

Touch only make sense on a lightweight tablet designed to be held in the hand. Not on the desktop.

That's absurd. I'd much rather touch my display than deal with stupid little track pads. Touch can and should replace mice entirely.

And, of course, that's missing the point. The "desktop" is dead. In a few years every "general purpose" computer that's sold is going to look like either the iphone / android model, or something like chrome OS. Mice just don't make sense in that world.

Troy says

16:9 is NOT a good aspect ratio for designing full-screen apps, square-ish is much better.

It makes little to no difference for "apps". 4:3 sure as hell isn't a square as is, and nearly 10 years of widescreen monitors have shown that the form factor is fine (although in all honesty most apps are better off in portrait display, because they're far taller than they are long -- further arguing for 16:9).

4:3 is all about backwards compatibility, not good design. A 16:9 ipad could be made with the exact same dimensions of the ipad -- the bezel would just be narrower on the short edges (if you have a MPB, imagine just holding the screen).

Also, their are physical issues involved with chassis flex and handling stability. For a small screen this isn’t present, but holding a 10″ HD display horizontally in your left hand and touching on the right side of the display results in the touch having a relatively high lever-arm, making it problematic for the size.

Again, the overall form factor wouldn't be much different. Handling stability is largely a function of the total size, not the dimensions. It's no mere coincidence that the ipad's total dimensions are very similar to that of a hardcover book or a standard sheet of paper. Centuries of print experience has pretty much ironed out the best dimensions for something you hold in your hands.

And, of course, you're not going to be holding it horizontally anyway. Horizontal is for watching movies, and maybe occasionally for maps. For reading text, for browsing the web, for using most apps, you're going to use it in the vertical orientation.

Horizontal is for watching movies, and maybe occasionally for maps. For reading text, for browsing the web, for using most apps, you’re going to use it in the vertical orientation.
Kevin, I've been enjoying your commentary. While I agree tablets are our best bet to finally go 'portrait', I'm not sure it's going to happen at current resolutions (iPad). I've got an old laptop (800x600 screen) and tablet (800x480) I use for web browsing and 800 pixels across is barely adequate. Most web pages seem happier at 1024. Once you go to 1080p, it becomes a bit more compelling to reorient from landscape to portrait. Then again, landscape (@1080p) allows two pages side-by-side, just like a book.

EBGuy says

Horizontal is for watching movies, and maybe occasionally for maps. For reading text, for browsing the web, for using most apps, you’re going to use it in the vertical orientation.

Kevin, I’ve been enjoying your commentary. While I agree tablets are our best bet to finally go ‘portrait‘, I’m not sure it’s going to happen at current resolutions (iPad). I’ve got an old laptop (800×600 screen) and tablet (800×480) I use for web browsing and 800 pixels across is barely adequate. Most web pages seem happier at 1024. Once you go to 1080p, it becomes a bit more compelling to reorient from landscape to portrait. Then again, landscape (@1080p) allows two pages side-by-side, just like a book.

Web pages are too information dense to work side by side, and I find it unlikely that future operating systems will retain the current windowing concepts that you see now. All of the major upcoming operating systems are moving in the direction of "one thing at a time" (with background updates) for simplicity's sake and battery life.

Actual resolution isn't that important for web pages anyway. Even the iphone's horribly low resolution browser does a good job of scaling things to make them usable, and 768px wide isn't too far off the mark for what you get in something like the droid.

Web pages are too information dense to work side by side
I don't disagree; I was thinking more about document editing or ebooks could still favor landscape (at 1080p). Then again check out TheJooJoo (see slide 4) for a (side-by-side) browser based paradigm.
I would bet against scaling (hence my bias to 800x480 screens on smart phones). But I would have also bet against tinny music and people voluntarily carrying a device that could track their every movement. :-)