The Future Of Golf Instruction Remains On Hold; Hope For Books?

I've devoted two hours of my life today listening to late 90s style audio feeds and live blogs to soak up the Apple "iPad" announcement and without touching a device, it's still pretty easy to get excited.

The good news? For book lovers, it looks fantastic and they've already lined up relationships with book publishers. I can already envision ways that books will come to life on the device. Golf architecture books could be really neat with loads of interactive touches.

The yet-to-be-determined news? There wasn't much in the way of demos for how magazines would work, though a New York Times demo appeared nice. I'm sensing they haven't ironed out itunes relationships with magazine publishers yet. Apparently the publishers want to hang onto control so they can harvest information about subscribers while Apple wants to use the itunes store to sell either subscriptions or magazine apps. Let's hope the magazine folks don't resist iTunes the way the music business did.

The bad news? No camera, which means golf instructors won't be able to capture a swing and then analyze it on top of the pad. That's something to look forward to in iPad 2.0, and something I suspect will happen if Apple is as serious as they claim in making this a device used by doctors and hospitals.

Did any of you techies watch and have any thoughts?

Comments

[Tighthead]

is AC/DC on itunes yet? That will be progress.

[Bob S.]

Bigger screen for this amp'd up iTouch/iPod, means easier for me to read whats on the screen, and that is a good thing

[Kevin]

Name wasn't original...this sketch is from 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsjU0K8QPhs

[bsoudi]

Geoff,

I bet someone will sell a camera,or cable add-on that attaches to the 30-pin port -- like some of the microphone or GPS products. Then you could use it with an app like iSwing (which I used this weekend and had some fun with).

[RM]

Tighthead- Good one!

[T Money]

no USB port?

[agolfman]

I agree totally about the lack of a camera...that, to me, is a launch mistake. Would have bought one immediately if it had that feature. I'm just getting used to a new Kindle and worried since the rumors cranked up that the iPad would blow it away (which it does...ouch).

The Golden Age of Golf only gets better on this device. Adding some additional video content to the Future of Golf, with the ability to add updates once in a while (re: grooves) would keep the content fresh and let readers "subscribe" to books, which would be great.

We'll see what iPad 2.0 may offer us...I hadn't thought of the golf applications, but you make a very good point on its utility as a teaching device. I've become a big fan of video in a teaching context and could see the smart instructors (and architects for that matter) finding creative ways to use a device like this.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I'd have bought (pre-ordered) one if I could ditch all (or most) of my dead-tree (or recycled-rag) magazines.

But they didn't announce any magazine subscription deals, and my Kindle is still better for BOOKS (text). So I'm completely unenthused by this. It's an iPod Touch Pro or Plus. Zzzzzzz.

[Fo Shiz]

How have I managed to live all this time without one?

By the way, there are still five years left in the hoverboard R&D window before Back to the Future II becomes an outright lie. Also, where we're going, we still need roads.

[Golden Bell]

The second or third version will probably add the camera, USB port, etc. It'll become an iBook without the physical keyboard.

[anonymous]

As a magazine publisher (B2B in the durable goods space), knowing the consumers of my content (which we give away for free) is a must. Knowing the companies, individuals, manufacturing processes of our audience is how we make our money.

Not having a USB port sucks. I was interested in using it to connect to my HD TV's USB port so I could stream internet video to my TV. Then I could probably drop my cable company. Doesn't look like I can do that though.

Golf architecture books would be fantastic with more pictures, videos, and 3D sketches so you could really understand the design without having ever seeing or playing the course. That's the biggest downfall in architecture books imo. It's so hard for me to grasp the features through words.

For books in general, I doubt they will have many of what I read - austrian economics, anaracho-capitalism, etc. Although some of those are free on the web in .pdf format.

[Kevin]

anonymous -- the lack of an HDMI connection (for connection to a TV) is what I was surprised about.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

If you want to hook the thing to your TVs, get a Mac Mini or an AppleTV (there are some great software packages out there that really extend both if you're unhappy with the built-in stuff).