iPad 2 with minor Xoom comparison

I just bought the iPad 2 today. It's the first time I've ever stood in line to buy a new release of anything. I'm not quite an Apple fanboy yet, but I can see I'm slowly falling for their products, at least, their consumer electronics, not so much their general computers. I'll first say, this thing is kind-of impossibly thin. It's a little hard to believe they fit everything they did, into a package that thin. I recognize some of it is just an illusion created by rounding the edges (a very smart move IMO) but still, the thing is impressively thin. It really does feel great in the hands. So, right after I bought the thing and played with Best Buy's demo for a couple of minutes, I wandered over to the Motorola Xoom for a quick look/feel. It's pretty thin too, certainly thin enough. However, I also noticed it felt quite heavy, especially after just having handled the iPad 2. It is certainly a sexy device though, and aspects of its interface are gorgeous. I say aspects are gorgeous because there are a few rough(ish) edges still. The widgets and icons on its screen aren't always very neat or orderly. I feel like they could still do a bit better with that. One thing that really bothered me on the Xoom was the placement of the speakers. I think Motorola made a fairly horrible decision to place them on the back of the thing, facing away from the user's ears. It gives the sound a somewhat muffled sound which compelled me to flip the thing over so I could hear the sound coming directly at me. When I did flip, the sound was just fine. That's going to bother a lot of people, I'm sure. What a horrible decision. I get that they probably did it to put two larger speaker on the thing (where else could they've gone at the size they are and still have two), but perhaps two smaller ones on the sides or bottom would've sounded better. One other non-technical problem was the lack of software on the thing. The iPad demo machine had plenty of stuff already loaded on. The Xoom seemed to have next to nothing. That's really stupid. The apps which showcase the thing, should be at the forefront.

Anyway, back to iPad 2. The cameras are next to useless as I expected. Garageband is absolutely AWESOME!!! I hope to see some additional instruments that can be downloaded for it though. I think that app has the real potential to actually revolutionize some aspect of music input. Don't let the mere $5.00 price tag fool you into thinking it's just a toy. It's an incredibly capable little app, considering what it's running on, and sounds nice too. One thing though - after I installed it and ran it, the sound wasn't playing back correctly at all. I fiddled with it for a bit before I decided to try rebooting the iPad (hold down the iPad's only button while also pushing the 'sleep' button on the top right of the device and don't let go of either until you see the apple logo). After the reboot, Garageband was playing great. Fantastic app!!

I can't stress just how diminutive the iPad 2 feels and looks. It's so petite that I truly have reservations about allowing my 7 & 10-year-old-sons touch it outside of my supervision. My boys are as great as boys that age can be, and not too destructive, but the iPad 2 is just so thin, I'm afraid it could be stepped on or sat on so easily because it might go unnoticed. I don't have that same level of fear with the iPad 1.

Final words... I think the iPad will make the Xoom feel fat and dumpy (probably look fat and dumpy too). I say it's an amazing feat of engineering in terms of what they put in it, with battery life, combined with size. Despite the crappy cameras and same resolution screen (which isn't horrible btw), I'm very happy and impressed so far.

Netbeans Beta 7.0 - Introduce Field

Here's another one - this is less functional than Eclipse's version. Let's say I have this code:

GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();

in a method and I decide I want ge to become a field in my class. In eclipse, I'd select ge and choose 'convert local variable to field' under the 'refactor' menu. Eclipse would then replace the left side of that statement: "GraphicsEnvironment ge", with just "ge" and it would create the field up at the top of the class.

In Netbeans, I apparently must select the right-hand-side of the statement, then choose the Introduce Field option under refactor, which will ask me to create a field name, rather than take the field name I already created. This sucks because it won't just use the declaration I already have, 'ge' in this case. That means that if I already have code below that declaration, which is referring to my variable, and I then introduce a new field with a new variable name, I have to go through the hassle of replacing references to the previous variable with the new field name.

As I mentioned in my previous post - please Netbeans devs, just copy the functionality of Eclipse/IntelliJ... VERBATIM. Don't try to be innovative or different. Just blatantly rip-off the other two players. Only after you've shamelessly ripped the other guys off may you then proceed to innovate.