KGS on iPad?

[kirkmc]

Also, kirk, check yourself here. Many people have given reasons for a camera on the iPad (e.g. facetime). If you start adopting the logic that "this Apple product doesn't have X feature because it would be bad for you/the product" (or because "you don't need it"), you start to sound kind of silly. Can you find any reason to criticize Apple or one of its recent appliances?

Sure, where should I start. The latest iPod nano is a huge mistake; the previous iPod shuffle was a bigger mistake (but Apple went back to the concept of the previous version.) Safari has memory leaks, though Flash makes it worse. File transfer to iOS devices via iTunes sucks. Ping is stupid and worthless. I could go on. (If you're really curious, look up some of my articles on Macworld. I've written plenty of articles critical of Apple products or features.)

As for a camera on the iPad, I'm curious about why, all of a sudden, people want to use video chats. I know very few people who use them on their computers, and I'm not sure it's really needed for phones. I've only had a dozen or so video chats in all the years I've been able to do so.

But if you say the iPad needs a camera, you can add a dozen other things that you think it needs: USB ports, SD card ports, serial ports, HDMI ports, and many, many more things. It'd end up being a clunky device designed by committee, and it wouldn't be as useful or as popular as it is now.

[hyperpape]

I have a one year old and two parents. Therefore, I want video chat. (They don't have an iPhone or iPad yet, so the iPad issue is moot, but it's still something I want).

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I was going to speak up for WMS in this discussion, but I've decided to be antagonistic until he makes the KGS client handle copy-paste properly on Macs. That's a nice snapshot of why Apple, and lots of other people, are so suspicious of write once, run anywhere software.

[Tofu]

With the price of netbooks being what they are, I'm still confused about what the point of the ipad is. What does it do thats so special besides looking cool so you can show off at the coffee shop?

On a more constructive note, the next version of openiboot (a program which allows the android os to run on some iphones) may include ipad support. KGS android client runs on openiboot.

[judicata]

Sure, where should I start. The latest iPod nano is a huge mistake; the previous iPod shuffle was a bigger mistake (but Apple went back to the concept of the previous version.) Safari has memory leaks, though Flash makes it worse. File transfer to iOS devices via iTunes sucks. Ping is stupid and worthless. I could go on. (If you're really curious, look up some of my articles on Macworld. I've written plenty of articles critical of Apple products or features.)

Fair enough.

As for a camera on the iPad, I'm curious about why, all of a sudden, people want to use video chats. I know very few people who use them on their computers, and I'm not sure it's really needed for phones. I've only had a dozen or so video chats in all the years I've been able to do so.

I tend to agree. For the same reason, I was confused as to why the iPhone 4 implements two cameras (I own one and have not used the front camera). But people do want it.

First priority for me would be to allow the use of any OS I wanted. If it sucked battery life..well, that's my choice. I don't want to go too fair OT here, though.

[hyperpape]

With the price of netbooks being what they are, I'm still confused about what the point of the ipad is. What does it do thats so special besides looking cool so you can show off at the coffee shop?

Actually, it's a little known fact, but the iPad isn't even a real computer. It just displays semi-random animations in response to user input, solely for the purpose of showing off at the coffee shop. Apple collects $500 profit on a $600 device because the internals are so simple.

Apple collects revenue from coffee trade groups because iPad owners spend so much time sitting in coffee shops admiring the logos on their Apple products.

[jts]

With the price of netbooks being what they are, I'm still confused about what the point of the ipad is. What does it do thats so special besides looking cool so you can show off at the coffee shop?

Actually, it's a little known fact, but the iPad isn't even a real computer. It just displays semi-random animations in response to user input, solely for the purpose of showing off at the coffee shop. Apple collects $500 profit on a $600 device because the internals are so simple.

Apple collects revenue from coffee trade groups because iPad owners spend so much time sitting in coffee shops admiring the logos on their Apple products.

I guess it's feeding time at the troll-zoo. The ipad is the perfect size for travel use, especially en route. And its battery life is awesome. I just brought my ipad on a 9 hour car trip; I used it every second I wasn't driving, and I'm sure my brother was extremely impressed with how cool I looked.

Have you ever brought a newspaper along to the subway/cafe/road trip? Did your newspaper have a camera? Did it have a full-size keyboard? Did it run windows? Could you install KGS on it? Okay, then.

I agree that Apple sucks in general, and they way they intentionally cripple their best products to keep them tethered to the Appleverse sucks even more, but anyone who whines that the ipad is just an expensive tablet netbook has envy issues.

[Tofu]

With the price of netbooks being what they are, I'm still confused about what the point of the ipad is. What does it do thats so special besides looking cool so you can show off at the coffee shop?

Actually, it's a little known fact, but the iPad isn't even a real computer. It just displays semi-random animations in response to user input, solely for the purpose of showing off at the coffee shop. Apple collects $500 profit on a $600 device because the internals are so simple.

Apple collects revenue from coffee trade groups because iPad owners spend so much time sitting in coffee shops admiring the logos on their Apple products.

I guess it's feeding time at the troll-zoo. The ipad is the perfect size for travel use, especially en route. And its battery life is awesome. I just brought my ipad on a 9 hour car trip; I used it every second I wasn't driving, and I'm sure my brother was extremely impressed with how cool I looked.

Have you ever brought a newspaper along to the subway/cafe/road trip? Did your newspaper have a camera? Did it have a full-size keyboard? Did it run windows? Could you install KGS on it? Okay, then.

I agree that Apple sucks in general, and they way they intentionally cripple their best products to keep them tethered to the Appleverse sucks even more, but anyone who whines that the ipad is just an expensive tablet netbook has envy issues.

Thanks for enlightening us. You've told us what you didn't do with your ipad, but forgot to include what you actually did do...except look cool.

Yours truly,

Tofu - Located in the exotic food cage at the "troll zoo".

[kirkmc]

I think the iPad is actually an impressive device, for certain tasks. Reading texts (books, articles, magazines), playing certain games, and writing. But it doesn't replace a computer, and I think we don't really know what it's going to do yet. I think it will take more time for people to adapt to a device like that and find uses.

This said, I think it needs to be much cheaper to reach that point, and I'd like to see it lighter.

As for go, though, with SmartGo Kifu and the new Tetsuki, it's quite an amazing tool.

[jts]

You've told us what you didn't do with your ipad, but forgot to include what you actually did do...except look cool.

I'd guess 60% Safari, 20% email, 10% gmaps, 10% NYTimes. The sarcasm apparently didn't come through; I was not using the iPad in the car so that my brother would think I was cool, and if that had been my intention I would have failed miserably.

[wms]

If you want to have your own walled garden, that's your right. But your saying - at other times - that other clients would crash the server makes me wonder why you think that. After all, there are no other clients. You've never said why this would happen, and from my knowledge of network protocols, I don't see what would be so special about the KGS protocol that would lead to problems.

Just saying, as a KGS Plus member, it's something I'd like to see.

I'm pretty sure thaht I've never said that other clients would crash the server, because that isn't a worry of mine. It might happen, but then I just fix the server, so in a way the other clients would be doing me a favor by pointing out my bugs if they crash it. I've seen other people speculate that this is one of my concerns. If I ever did say that...well, then it was a dumb idea of mine. I do have those sometimes.

And I do want to say, I'm not on some anti-Apple vendetta. I just have a strong opinion on how I want to run KGS (which is to say, as a whole product, not just as a server that people plug in their custom clients to), and I also have very limited time available that makes it impossible to do all the clients and features that I'd like.

[kirkmc]

I'm pretty sure you have said that in other discussions (perhaps not here, but on GD).

So why don't you let someone make a native Mac OS X client? If anything, it could help you find better features for CGoban that you haven't thought of, and it would be a good thing for those of us using Macs. (I'm pretty sure I know someone who'd be able to write one too...)

[imabuddha]

And I do want to say, I'm not on some anti-Apple vendetta. I just have a strong opinion on how I want to run KGS (which is to say, as a whole product, not just as a server that people plug in their custom clients to), and I also have very limited time available that makes it impossible to do all the clients and features that I'd like.

So why don't you let someone make a native Mac OS X client?

While I'd love to see native client apps for both Mac OS & iOS, Kirk you must admit that WMS wants to run KGS exactly like Apple wants to run iTunes, and to a lesser degree iOS. They both want to make the "whole product" & not cede control of any significant part to 3rd parties.

Fortunately for consumers there are other choices, both for digital consumer products & go servers.

[amnal]

I'm pretty sure you have said that in other discussions (perhaps not here, but on GD).

So why don't you let someone make a native Mac OS X client? If anything, it could help you find better features for CGoban that you haven't thought of, and it would be a good thing for those of us using Macs. (I'm pretty sure I know someone who'd be able to write one too...)

I suspect this would throw up problems like maintenance. Does the writer of the new client want to commit to being there to update it whenever the server changes? To fixing things which may show up some way in the future? Does wms want to be responsible for making sure there is always a maintainer for this new code, and if not who does he cede responsibility to? And if it ever doesn't work, is the 'KGS is rubbish cos my mac client doesn't work' criticism preferable to or worse than the 'KGS is bad because there is only one client (that does work)' criticism that it currently gets?

I'm not saying any of these things are real problems, but it isn't obvious to me that they aren't. And as imabuddha points out, these are essentially the same reasons that Apple so jealously protect their brand.

[Bantari]

Let me first answer the On-Topic part, and then I will go on a rant which you might want to ignore.

Anyway, my point was about more than just the iPad; I'd very much like to have a native client for Mac OS X that doesn't use Java with its many quirks. And I know there are a couple of people who would like to make them.

Sure. There are always people who are willing to make stuff. Native OSX, native Windows (we have had this discussion before) and so on. But this is WMS's decision to allow or not. And it seems he is pretty adamant, and I am not really sure what we can accomplish by rehashing the old arguments with a dash of new flavor.

Just consider: IGS opened its protocol to allow exactly what you are suggesting KGS should do. And even though IGS is much older, it still does not have a decent client, and when it does - it gets broken and not-supported within a year, and the server is still bound to the ancient telnet protocol, and the whole thing seems to be just going downhill. What makes you think KGS will fare any better if it opens its protocol?

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And now for some iPad ranting.
Don't read if you are an iPad fan and have high blood pressure.

Well, you've got a couple of things wrong. The iPad does multitasking,

Like what?
I played with it enough to know I cannot browse the web and read my email at the same time. Or read L19 and download some app from the AppStore at the same time. Or - pick almost any other two activities you would usually do on a computer in separate windows and chances are iPad does not do it. Yeah, i know, iPad is not a computer, its a glorified oversized iPhone, but as such it is useless... it is too big to be used as a phone and it has not enough functionality to serve as a netbook. It cannot even replace a decent ereader since it will ruin your eyes.

and I don't see the use for a camera on a device that size.

Skype? For example....
It has uses on smaller devices (iPhones), and on larger ones (laptops). What makes iPad's size so unique that it does not need camera?

But its not only the camera... a lack of USB is simply criminal, imho.

Flash and Java are both resource hogs, and tests of Android tablets that run Flash show that their battery life is terrible; when Flash works, that is, because apparently it doesn't work very well on all of them.

It seems to work ok on pretty much every computer I have ever used, from PC to Unix, to OSX. True, resources on iPhone-size devices are more limited, but iPad is not iPhone-sized, and there are full-fledged laptops (of any flavors) smaller than this which support both Flash and Java without any particular problems I have heard about. I have used Java on my ancient laptop running winXP with 512MB Ram, and there was no issues. iPad simple cannot be much crappier than that!! Or, at least - it should not be that much crappier. And if it is, it is up to us, the users, to bash on Apple until it straightens up and decides to produce a tablet worthy of its name.

As for Java, Apple has decided that there are too few Java apps for them to really support it.

Its more like both Java and Flash are hard for Apple to control via the AppStore. There are enough Java applications out there to warrant Java being supported on most other devices, Apple computers included.

In the future, it'll be up to Sun to provide it, but they won't put it on iOS devices for reasons similar to those they chose for Flash: battery life, reliability, and security. (Apparently, given that there is fragmentation in Java itself, CGoban doesn't work correctly with all flavors of Java. This seems to be another reason to look toward other solutions in the future.)

In any case, blaming hardware for not supporting old software seems to me to be the wrong way around.

I am not doing that.
I am blaming hardware for not providing functionality that is widely used and expected from such devices, and which, at least partially, it boasts it has (the whole 'best way to browse the web' slogan.) Anyhow... the Apple's claim (and yours too) is not that Java and Flash are 'old'. It is that they are resource-intensive, crash a lot, and lack security, among other things. If not for the fact that the rest of the world seemed to have somehow solved most of these issues, I fail to acknowledge the validity of Apple's (and your) claim.

[kirkmc]

Well, without going into too many details... People said Apple was stupid when they got rid of the floppy drive. They're starting to say that getting rid of the optical drive is stupid. Personally, the _only_ java app I have _ever_ used in 20 years of using Macs is CGoban. The only one. I have never even seen any java apps that have in any way tempted me to use them. (The only one was some OpenOffice thing.)

To be fair, I know there are some java apps that are used for network deployment and management. But that's a very small subset of users.

As for Flash, it's days are numbered. So what if Apple ditches them first? The others will follow; HTML 5 offers fare better solutions. It's only because Adobe has so much invested in Flash that people are raising a stink. Flash is used for basically two things: annoying ads and videos. The latter can be done, better, with HTML 5.