Visual Lizard
Julian Moffatt
Julian is one of the founders of Visual Lizard Inc and a web/tech-junkie if there ever was one. He has a small collection of iPods (3 and counting) and a Blackberry 7250 for those times he is actually away from his computer.
Having been first introduced to computers at the tender age of 6, Julian has had at one point or another: an IBM PC XT, an Apple 2e, a Fujikama 286 (with a 256 colour monitor!!) through to the first computer he personally purchased, a glorious 486 PC with 40MBs of hard drive space and a 16-bit graphics card for $4200 in 1990. Coincidentally, that was his first loan as well. However, it was the 486 that led to the discovery of newsgroups (remember alt.rocknroll before Usenet?) and Pine, the worlds worst application for email ever. In-fact, some would say that his addiction to X-com and Pine caused him to take a break from University to pursue "something to do with computers dad". The rest is history as they say.
He works with a MacBook Pro in the office and is equally at home in front of Linux, Windows or OS X operating systems. He is project manager, design shepherd (he speaks designer fluently and has been known to run in certain design circles under an alias) and CSS guru. He also brow beats the guys in the office about accessibility, Search Engine Optimization and the importance of music to the soul.
When Julian is not actually working, he can be found enjoying time at the hockey rink with the guys, beating small synthetic dimpled balls across acres of manicured land or just hanging out with family and friends at home or the cottage.
In spite of all of the above, Julian has an awesome wife, two crazy-cute daughters (5 and 3), 2 cats and a dog that has moved out citing breach of contract under the "no-child-and-dog-cohabiting" clause. She visits from time to time, but can be found relaxing on a pile of sheep-skins at the grandparents house most days.
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For Julian’s contact information, please add my vCard to your address book.
Thoughts on Apple's iPad
In case you have been living in a cave, here is the quick recap. Apple has announced their latest device, the iPad.
If you follow our blog here at Visual Lizard at all, you know that we are a little on the geeky side of things. We have been waiting to see what Apple would roll out for months. We all had different hopes of what the device might be.
It would be safe to say that since the announcement, we have had a few discussions about the iPad and what it means. Rather than keep all of these conversation to ourselves, we are going to make this post into a public discussion. We are going to post our thoughts in the comments. We encourage you to add your thoughts as well.
▾ Read the comments for our thoughts ▾
Comments
Comment by
Julian Moffatt
on
Jan 29, 2010
Oh ... and one other thought. The Touch OS (iPhone/iPad OS) is refreshing, in my opinion, because you can NOT multitask. Apps do not run in the background, so you have to choose to do one thing at time. On my MacBook Pro I usually have no fewer than 5 apps running and sometimes it can get up to 12 or more apps when I'm scheduling meetings, checking email, plugging stuff into the project management system, writing replies in Textmate before I post them over, and so on.
The ability to multitask is both the greatest and worst thing about current computers in my opinion. Single focus is so much more efficient when it comes to completing a task. Oh.. wait... IM just went off. Back in a sec.
Comment by
Wil Alambre
on
Jan 29, 2010
When trying to explain how I see this product being used, I always focus on how Steve Jobs presented it on stage. He didn't stand and use it, he wasn't at a desk or table... he sat down in an armchair. This, in my mind, perfectly sums up how Apple is marketing this tablet.
This is NOT a computer accessing the internet, this is how you WISH you could access the internet. How many times have you had to browse a forum, flip through dozen of emails, read a newspaper website, read a PDF ebook, skim a readme file, watch an instructional video? How many of those times, either squinting at your iPhone screen or sitting at your desk, did you wish that you could relax on your couch? And I don't mean with a laptop, but like you do with a book or newspaper... when you RELAX to read?
This is not a machine meant to do serious work, such as we do in the office; I won't be Photoshop-ing, FTPing, writing PHP code, testing on a localhost Apache setup, or any of my regular tasks. It's not a portable machine, like a camera, phone, or PDA, so it doesn't NEED a camera. It's something that you would expect to find on a coffee table, not the desk.
Comment by
Mark Nicholson - reactorr
on
Jan 29, 2010
It's a color super kindle! I'll stick with my macbook.
I think this guy said it best...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4
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Ok. I'll get things started.
My hopes were for a mobile laptop that had a touch screen and some sort of keyboard (bluetooth would have been good enough) that was running a hybrid OS between MAC OS X and iPhone OS. This would have bridged the cap for me in terms of:
* mobile computing power
* my desire to modify my system as I see fit
* the ability to leave my main computer behind when I don't need it, but still need something to knock out some work or show off something
What Apple has launched is a big iPod Touch. My first thought was, this sucks, FU Apple. My next thought was man, I really want to hold that and see how it feels.
Then it started to dawn on me, Apple hasn't made this device for me. It is not targeted at technophiles and hardcore computer users. This is aimed at my kids and my parents.
In watching my girls use their iPod touches, they love them. The touch OS is simple, easy, reliable, seldom crashes, and can be extended in the form of apps to modify the device in any way you see fit.
The iPad is more than just a movie player, or big iPod, a web browser or a digital picture frame for your living room. What the iPad really is, is Apple's reinvention of computers yet again. They are saying to everyone that people want simple. They don't want to modify their machines to the point that they don't work. They just want it to work.
I think the iPad, and more so the iPhone OS, is the dawn of a new age in computing. One that doesn't necessarily include the likes of me, and I'm ok with that.