The new iPad advert......seriously?!

[Theblacksheep]

Technology wise it has groundbreaking chips with the GPU power of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 in a tablet. What’s even more impressive if the next generation of chips. The Ipad 2 was just a refresh; the Ipad3 is using a true new generation and will be massively more powerful.

 

 

ipad2 gpu can do under 10 million triangles per sec.

 

xbox/ps3 can do over 280, and they are old.

 

Nowhere near. I dont know how Apple do it to people...

Edited June 20, 2011 by Theblacksheep

[GrumbleDook]

Sigh... that is not the best of statements to make, it presumes that the sole reason people wont touch it is because it has a logo and not because of justified reasons as well as a dislike for apple. I dont particularly like apple but I still use there stuff so I am not in the *most* bracket there but no one should presume thats the sole reason. I would expect a lot of people would have good reasons too. Maybe its slated because it is not fit for their environment?

I am aware of several haters of MS that struggle to ever want that wares to touch their network but normally they have reasons as well as a dislike for MS, I would never presume they just slate it because its MS, that has little respect for the person.

My apologies for missing out the ... perhaps the emphasis was slightly wrong for some people. After all, I can't sit on the fence all the time.

 

Yeh currently it is leading the way, limitations/problems aside, but then so is pen/paper limitations aside.... funnily if I forget about limitation/problems all things are really good (jk).

Although the problems are minor to your environment it should not be presumed they are not for others, neither should it be presumed people should ignore those points rather then wait a little before changing and seeing the lay of the land as it were. Rushing is NEVER the correct course of action and this device is only a year old...

Also some just say its too limited without elaborating, although its best to give a bit more I would never think its because of apple hating, we are all more professional then that!

 

Oh how I wish people were more professional. If that were the case then we would not have FanBois giving / receiving -rep for being FanBois and Mac-slaters giving / receiving -rep for being mac-slaters.

 

But back to the discussion in question. The Advert points out a number of areas where Apple believe they are doing a 'good thing'. It is marketing spin.

The comments about using it in education, then yes ... a teacher will see it as the future ... but they also know that whilst the device in front of them is pushing what happens for the future that does not mean that the device itself will *be* the future in its entirety. The automatic "I'm not going to look at it" which crops up all too often disappoints me. In days of yore we would have had studies on this done by Govt QANGOs of course ... whereas now we have a number of small groups of people wanting to do stuff with a device which suits their needs and each time you mention using an iPad on this site it gets slapped down by people who should be a tad more open.

 

And yes .. the blind faith some people have in the Apple product market is misplaced, but that doesn't mean the devices and tools you get cannot be well worth it.

 

In situations like these, where people have very polarised viewpoints on certain technologies, solutions, manufacturers or products I often fall back on "If you have nothing positive to contribute then don't" ... but that can be a tad too dismissive of some very constructive criticism you get from outside observers (as well as coming over as very arrogant). Instead how about putting it as "Can you make alternative suggestions about how x or y may be done" and then start wondering about the idea of it being on a single device, about whether touchscreen / tablet / slate style is more appropriate to netbooks, about whether the cost investment and the time / management investment is worth the positive results ...

 

 

On that note ... there will be a TeachShare session tomorrow evening (7-8) from Vital.ac.uk looking at mobile devices in schools. I'll copy the link in here when I can of the recording ... it is aimed at educationalists (mainly teachers) but might open up a few areas to think about what schools are looking at and why.

Edited June 20, 2011 by GrumbleDook
spelling

[synaesthesia]

I think in general it wouldn't harm things if a few more people started thinking about the future rather than the past, and more importantly on behalf of the people that would/could benefit from the technology rather than themselves or their own opinions.

[SYNACK]

I hate this ad beyond measure, and that Apple are playing it twice every sodding ad break makes me want to smash my tv. Apple stuff is popular because Apple is a marketing company, their products too are designed in the same way that ads are. You should do this, this is cool, breath in, breath out etc.

 

Whoever wrote Idiorcacy was a freaking profit and I dearly hope I die before it gets too far along.

Edited June 20, 2011 by SYNACK

[DrCheese]

See? That's the kind of attitude that I mentioned earlier. Some people hate Apple simply because it's Apple. It doesn't matter what they release, they'll hate it. That's almost as stupid as being a full on fanboy who thinks everything they release is pure gold. People decry those who buy it for the name, then hate the product... because of the name. The hypocrisy s outstanding.

 

It drives me crazy.

Edited June 20, 2011 by DrCheese

[SYNACK]

See? That's the kind of attitude that I mentioned earlier. Some people hate Apple simply because it's Apple. It doesn't matter what they release, they'll hate it. That's almost as stupid as being a full on fanboy who thinks everything they release is pure gold. People decry those who buy it for the name, then hate the product... because of the name. The hypocrisy s outstanding.

 

It drives me crazy.

 

Me, yes I hate Apple. They do do some stuff that is alright but it is too far tainted by their other efforts. Stuff like this Ad and its bobardment of people psycies. I have used an iPad and yes it has a web browser, big freaking deal, it also has apps but it also has an underlying poisonus mindset that it pushes in everything that it does. I hate Apple for reasons, for rebranding existing tech and convincing the world that it has just invented everything. For paying and twisting the media to a degree usually reserved for oppressive governments. For sueing and threatening discenting users, for denying widespread manufacturing issues (mackboot screen cook, timemachine timebomb external hard drives etc.)

 

In summary, yes, I hate Apple but it is not as if I have no reasons to and if they get too embedded they will make MS of the ninties look like generous genies that granted wishes to everyone on the planet.

[mac_shinobi]

@ Synack, mattx and others, Apple is doing a free iPad , see below

 

[GrumbleDook]

@Synack if I took the same view I would hate MS, Dell, HP, Sun, Oracle, Adobe, Macromedia (as was), RM, Capita, Serco, Pearson, Heinemann, Cisco, HP (again), Capita (again), BT (too many times to mention), SuSE, Sun (again), Google ... and yes, Apple .... and the list goes on. More than I care to think about.

 

If people are going to have this sort of attitude to one manufacturer and not to others, then we might as well go back to teacher-bashing, RM-hating, Capita-loathing, anti-Govt control freaks. And it will be a sorry day if we do.

[featured_spectre]

Some people have said that Apple have got the fundamentals right and built on that...lets expand on this shall we?

 

Ipod - The original iteration of the Ipod had a black and white screen in 2001, this was marketed at the time as ground breaking however as with all things Apple, someone did this before them!

 

A company called Yellowstone had an MP3 player with a COLOUR screen and shown an equaliser (something that the original Ipod did not do). This was done in 1997. Yellowstone is now bust btw because it was not marketed well, but just pointing out someone got there first.

 

Apple OS-X. Fine Apple admitted it was not the best OS they ever released, but they marketed it at the time as something that "works". How wrong they were, it did not recognise Midi keyboards, USB camera's, firewire scanners etc, yet Windows ME and Windows 2000 did so perfectly fine (albeit you had to install drivers - something unheard of for Apple back then).

 

Original iPhone - marketed as the first and best smartphone, at the time it was very good there is no denying it, but the first? Sorry I think 3 had that covered many many many years ago, not to mention windows mobile at the time as well.

 

Now what Apple do is good, they build upon their products and make them better (no denying this) but they do so in such a way that alienates a lot of people. Because they added a slightly better CPU they have to rebrand the whole thing and call it the best ever *insert product here* or they add a feature that others have had for years (3G...again 3 had that covered on all of their phones since 2004 I believe).

 

iTunes is probably the only thing they got right as the apps on there for the most part do work across the board (not many others can say that, I cant use an app on the mrs Samung Galaxy S on my HTC Desire HD (rooted or otherwise) and I could not use a windows mobile app on windows 7). Yes they did that well, but they focus on the minutiae that annoys the technologically savvy people.

 

Apples marketing, if it was more sensible, then as a whole they would have a better respect. They need to learn to pull their head out of their backsides and be honest and tell people we took this idea and we believe we improved it, rather than this is OUR idea, its not like the rest that come before because it is an Apple invention. Let the neg rep begin!

[mac_shinobi]

Some people have said that Apple have got the fundamentals right and built on that...lets expand on this shall we?Ipod - The original iteration of the Ipod had a black and white screen in 2001, this was marketed at the time as ground breaking however as with all things Apple, someone did this before them!A company called Yellowstone had an MP3 player with a COLOUR screen and shown an equaliser (something that the original Ipod did not do). This was done in 1997. Yellowstone is now bust btw because it was not marketed well, but just pointing out someone got there first.Apple OS-X. Fine Apple admitted it was not the best OS they ever released, but they marketed it at the time as something that "works". How wrong they were, it did not recognise Midi keyboards, USB camera's, firewire scanners etc, yet Windows ME and Windows 2000 did so perfectly fine (albeit you had to install drivers - something unheard of for Apple back then).Original iPhone - marketed as the first and best smartphone, at the time it was very good there is no denying it, but the first? Sorry I think 3 had that covered many many many years ago, not to mention windows mobile at the time as well. Now what Apple do is good, they build upon their products and make them better (no denying this) but they do so in such a way that alienates a lot of people. Because they added a slightly better CPU they have to rebrand the whole thing and call it the best ever *insert product here* or they add a feature that others have had for years (3G...again 3 had that covered on all of their phones since 2004 I believe).iTunes is probably the only thing they got right as the apps on there for the most part do work across the board (not many others can say that, I cant use an app on the mrs Samung Galaxy S on my HTC Desire HD (rooted or otherwise) and I could not use a windows mobile app on windows 7). Yes they did that well, but they focus on the minutiae that annoys the technologically savvy people.Apples marketing, if it was more sensible, then as a whole they would have a better respect. They need to learn to pull their head out of their backsides and be honest and tell people we took this idea and we believe we improved it, rather than this is OUR idea, its not like the rest that come before because it is an Apple invention. Let the neg rep begin!

No neg rep from me - I just wish they would make an apple mac between the imac and mac pro and the vital part here, keep the EFI graphics card firmware up to date, they recently brought out a mac version of the ati 5870 for the mac pro for £300 but on ebay you can buy compatable flashed pc card for around the £200 mark or even buy a pc card around £130 and flash it yourself and at this point in time both nvidia and amd / ati have the 500 series ( gtx 580/590 ) and 6000 ( 6950 ) gfx cards out which are already better than the 5870

[pr1vate_piles]

I've always thought it should be 'I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my fault.

shame they never did the same for vista, then we would know who to hunt haha

[GrumbleDook]

shame they never did the same for vista, then we would know who to hunt haha

 

But Vista ran extremely well for me. I even had it running whilst doing a demo at Reading a few years back. Admittedly it was running on a MacBookPro under BootCamp, but hey ... each to their own. When doing a fair chunk of Sharepoint stuff you need to run Windows, but then I was swapping back to OSX for day-to-day work (including audio / video editing)

 

Nothing more fun than turning up and presenting on a Mac, but using Ubuntu or Windows ... for some reason a number of MS folk think of me as seriously Open Source ... and Open Source folk think of me as a MS evangelist ... and yet I get called a FanBoi here.

[Arthur]

A company called Yellowstone had an MP3 player with a COLOUR screen and shown an equaliser (something that the original iPod did not do). This was done in 1997. Yellowstone is now bust btw because it was not marketed well, but just pointing out someone got there first.

Do you have a link? I can't find anything on Google or Wikipedia about this MP3 player. None of the MP3 player history websites list it either.

 

iPod - The original iteration of the iPod had a black and white screen in 2001, this was marketed at the time as ground breaking however as with all things Apple, someone did this before them!

The original iPod was successful because it was small, easy to use, it looked good and transferring music was quick. Before it came along, you had MP3 players which used bulky 2.5" laptop HDDs or low capacity flash memory (32, 64MB or 128MB) and USB 1.1/parallel ports! The Rio Karma was a good MP3 player with several unique features, but this wasn't released until 2003 and you couldn't buy it in the UK. Sony probably had the best chance against Apple, but they blew it on multiple occasions by creating MP3 players where you had to convert your already lossy music into thier proprietry lossy ATRAC3 format and forced you to use thier crappy SonicStage software. By the time they released something decent it was far too late.

 

Original iPhone - marketed as the first and best smartphone, at the time it was very good there is no denying it, but the first?

Where did Apple say the iPhone was the first smartphone ever created? Steve didn't say this in his

and it wasn't mentioned in any of the TV ads or the Apple website?

 

http://i.imgur.com/3XrN5.jpg

 

Sorry I think 3 had that covered many many many years ago, not to mention Windows Mobile at the time as well.

The first 3G phones (like the NEC e606 and Motorola A830) were ****! What is the point of paying for an expensive 3G Internet connection, when you're stuck with sub-200px LCDs and limited to WAP or mobile-specific websites?

 

I also know many teachers who bought Windows Mobile phones (HP iPAQs and O2 XDAs etc.) and they all stopped using them out of frustration (either that, or they lost their styluses). If you remember, new Windows Mobile phones usually consisted of the previous model, but with a bit more RAM/ROM memory and a slightly faster processor. Where was the innovation back then?

 

They need to learn to pull their head out of their backsides and be honest and tell people we took this idea and we believe we improved it, rather than this is OUR idea.

Apple has done this in their keynote videos. However, saying your products are slightly better than your competitors in adverts is generally a bad idea and a waste of money.

 

http://i.imgur.com/0uzEL.jpg

 

they focus on the minutiae that annoys the technologically savvy people.

Good design is important and it's a shame manufacturers and software developers don't pay more attention to the minutiae...

 

Google still has major issues with text selection and editing on Android devices. The first striking problem is that there is not a consistent method of selecting text on the device. None. At all. In the browser, you long press on text to bring up your anchors, then drag and tap the center of your selection -- boom, copied text. In text editing fields, however, in order to select a word you must long press on the word, wait for a contextual menu to pop up, and then select "select word" -- a completely counterintuitive process. In the message app you can long press to select only the entire message, and in Google Reader? You can't select any text at all. Even worse, Gmail has a different method for selecting text from an email you're reading, and it's far more obnoxious than any of the others. There, selecting text goes from being mildly annoying to downright silly. Want to grab some text out of an email? Here's your process: hit the menu key, hit "more," hit "select text," and then finally drag your anchors out. Funnily enough, a little cursor appears when you start selecting -- a holdover from Linux? To have this many options and discrepancies over something as simple as copy and paste should be embarrassing to Google. What it mostly is, however, is a pain to the end user.

 

And that's kind of the crux of our problem with Android in its current state. We don't question the power of the OS, but the fit, finish, and ease of use simply is still not there. There is something disconcerting about an operating system that changes its rules from app to app -- for a mobile interface to work well, it has to be approached holistically and organically. There is something cohesive in OSs like webOS and iOS -- a language that you can easily learn to speak and feel confident about using to get what you want -- that just seems to be missing here. (Source)

[SYNACK]

@Synack if I took the same view I would hate MS, Dell, HP, Sun, Oracle, Adobe, Macromedia (as was), RM, Capita, Serco, Pearson, Heinemann, Cisco, HP (again), Capita (again), BT (too many times to mention), SuSE, Sun (again), Google ... and yes, Apple .... and the list goes on. More than I care to think about.

 

If people are going to have this sort of attitude to one manufacturer and not to others, then we might as well go back to teacher-bashing, RM-hating, Capita-loathing, anti-Govt control freaks. And it will be a sorry day if we do.

 

And what is so wrong with actually accepting the way things are. Not everyone preffers to walk around in a bubble of self delusion, this may well be my main irritation with the ads and the whole culture it promotes.

 

A child thinks its magic... what kind of neglectful parents or defective kids result in this, how low are they aiming.

 

What is wrong of a little healthy dislike of various vendors, nowhere did I say that I did not have a chunk of dislike for most of the vendors that you list (the ones I have dealt with/heard of). Why should I just lie back and accept the preditory behaviour of these companies. It is everyone simply accepting this as the status quo that is the reason they can get away with as much as they do.

 

Welcome to reality, if they treat you badly complain and look for better solutions, if you don't you are propogating the problem by rewarding and accepting their behaviour.

[MK-2]

RM-hating

 

i'll gladly get on board that!

[localzuk]

I don't get why people blame Apple for manipulating the population of the world to sell their goods. That's the whole point of marketing, and in fact the whole point of capitalism. We don't live in a meritocracy.

 

There are dozens of products which no-longer exist even though at their launch they were better than their competitors but were poorly marketted. Creative could have had the MP3 market in its pocket right now, if they'd realised what people wanted - but they didn't, so their MP3 players disappeared and Apple took over.

 

Betamax? Mini-disc? HD-DVD? The list goes on.

 

Don't blame the companies for succeeding, blame the companies that failed. Also, blame the population of the world for buying stuff which we as geeks see as 'the same as X'. Not everyone sees that.

[GrumbleDook]

And what is so wrong with actually accepting the way things are. Not everyone preffers to walk around in a bubble of self delusion, this may well be my main irritation with the ads and the whole culture it promotes.

 

Ah ... and there we have it yet again ... the implied assumption that because someone does not hate Apple they are in "a bubble of self-delusion". I would say that the attitude of some members and the hatred they show is a similar bubble.

 

A child thinks its magic... what kind of neglectful parents or defective kids result in this, how low are they aiming.

 

And we have already had the points about what else a child might think is magic. And to allow a child to be excited by something is neglectful? Wow ... I must remember that in future.

 

What is wrong of a little healthy dislike of various vendors, nowhere did I say that I did not have a chunk of dislike for most of the vendors that you list (the ones I have dealt with/heard of). Why should I just lie back and accept the preditory behaviour of these companies. It is everyone simply accepting this as the status quo that is the reason they can get away with as much as they do.

 

Welcome to reality, if they treat you badly complain and look for better solutions, if you don't you are propogating the problem by rewarding and accepting their behaviour.

 

Welcome to reality. Your refusal to accept what you term as "predatory behaviour", at the moment, is coming close to refusal to accept any positive facts about the kit and how it can be used. The list of vendors were those that I should have a similar amount of vitriol should I take a similar stance to you ... but reality says that most of us have to work with these companies anyway. That doesn't mean you don't challenge them. Some you win and some you lose ... sometimes it depends on how badly you feel about whether your integrity needs to be kept intact or whether your are doing it out of blind hatred.

 

There are plenty of other places to go Mac-bashing if you want ... as far as I am concerned EG has always been about trying to be constructive and helpful. As far as Apple goes, or people trying to run Apple kit in schools ... this is now a joke as there is a core group of members which will use the site to attack Apple. Would you want to come here to talk about it with the amount of animosity against Macs and Apple kit?

[aerospacemango]

For most people (in this forum) they are a device manufactured and sold by a company they don't like ... so it gets slated.

 

At the moment they are the best device in their bracket. Excluding the flash-based stuff on the web they have a pretty good range of tools to be used, and it is nice to have something challenging the naff flash stuff which is out there, which so many people have slated in the past. In a number of schools it is not just engaging the children, but it is making staff think very differently about how they do things with technology, from blogging to the use of images, from IWBs to the use of personal devices.

 

If schools are any good (and if we are too) then we can learn a heck of a lot of lessons from this stage so that when other devices are of the same standard then we should be able to use them in similar ways.

 

Of course there will be downsides to them (implementation / storage / etc) but I would rather improvise and adapt than just slag them off for no reason other than the excuse of "They are more expensive than I like so they are bad" or "They are advertised and marketed very well by a company with a track history of pushy marketing" or "I don't trust them because they are not as open as they claim to be".

 

I agree with pretty much everything the ad says ... but also appreciate that it has a healthy dose of marketing spin, the same way that I understand that Lynx is not the answer to getting all sad, lonely nerds laid!

 

OMG!

 

NOOOoooooooo!!!

 

That'll mean I've just wasted £150 on boxes of Lynx!

 

To go off-topic for a sec.....does anyone want to buy 2 years supply of a well known deodorant?

 

[penfold]

Wasn't the start of this thread in relation to the advert NOT the product. There are a number of adverts I hate but it doesn't mean I wont buy/use their products if it the best solution for my problem. I really dont like the Apple advert as it doesn't tell me anything about the product, it just tells me I should have one. The Lynx advert at least tries to put an amusing slant on things and it's obvious it's in jest. The apple advert doesn't do that but links in to peoples need to have things other people have, not because they need it but because it's a status thing. And buying their products for a status point of view is very expensive...and how much influence does marketing have on people when you read about them selling kindeys so they can buy the latest product? (This is another topic completely and I'm not solely blaming apple on this)

 

BUT I do have an iPod touch because it was the only thing at the time which did everything I wanted.

[aerospacemango]

Anyhoo....back ON topic....

 

Having spent a week playing with the iPad2, for "evaluation purposes", I thoroughly respect the build quality, the OS and pretty much everything else about it. However, I just cannot see how Apple can market this as "All things to ALL men".

 

The point about Doctors being able to use them bedside? How long do we think that will last? A junior Doctor, into his 92nd hour of the week, is quite likely to leave it behind....with all the attendant problems that that will cause......No more leaving laptops on trains, it'll be confidential info on an iPad that's left.

 

As for it being more expensive, well it's bound to be....it IS Apple after all!!!

[Gibbo]

I don't get why people blame Apple for manipulating the population of the world to sell their goods. That's the whole point of marketing, and in fact the whole point of capitalism. We don't live in a meritocracy.

 

For me its more the attitude of the fanboys than Apple themselves. Its like the PS3 and XBOX, why does a product need "soldiers" to do the battle with the company's rivals?

[featured_spectre]

Arthur you histories sites only date back to 1998. I know it was in 1997 as I started high school then, and I remember the IT teacher showing it to us and telling us it cost him nearly £600. At the time it had a whopping 128mb on there and to be blunt it was rubbish!

 

Also Apple in the grand scheme of things may not have marketed the iPhone as the first and the best during their adverts etc, but the shops did (apple stores as well as O2, and then when other operators got the phone they did as well.)

 

Nobody said good design isnt important, but look where "good design" got them. A phone that doesnt work unless you have a cover round the edge because the human will earth the phone! Then when it was noted, what did they do, they said something to the tune of "oh its a design feature so you have one of our splended covers for the phone"

 

As for 3G and 3GS, yes it was rubbish in the past before Apple, no denying this, but they said they were the first to incorporate it into the phone and that they essentially invented mobile internet as we know it today (not in those words but again, apple stores saying this).

 

As for the windows phones, yes they were frustrating, they still are, and the innovation was that they took touch interface to a new level, which apple then ripped and rebranded. Fine apple may well have made it the first touch phone to use the finger rather than stylus (I am not too sure on this one), but to say its a whole new technology, designed by them, well sorry to burst their bubble, but tablet laptops were there long before which allowed people to use the finger, all they did was condense the technology.

[GrumbleDook]

For me its more the attitude of the fanboys than Apple themselves. Its like the PS3 and XBOX, why does a product need "soldiers" to do the battle with the company's rivals?

 

And those 'soldiers' also exist (in their equivalence) in Google and Microsoft. Apple just do it better, and other companies are often accused of copying them ... but the reality (as pointed out by many others) is that Apple have picked up how to do it well from many others. MS do have evangelists for many areas ... but rather than doing a big song and dance (who now has pictures of the Ballmer dance in their heads?) many do small but productive work to build things up. Live@Edu would not be as popular as it is without this.

 

Those members who have helped out at BETT (other tradeshows are available) may have seen the almost evangelical build up some exhibitors generate before the show doors open ... and that does include the chanting, high 5s, group hugs.

 

All companies look for an edge.

 

And not all Apple users / admins are the religiously fervent devotees that some believe them to be (in fact, few are IME) and anyone who has come across the Mac-Supporters list on the JISC mailing list can vouch for the amount of time people will spend picking apart the problems and issues ... but usually to try and put back together what is practical and usable.

[Pottsey]

Theblacksheep said “ipad2 gpu can do under 10 million triangles per sec.

xbox/ps3 can do over 280, and they are old.

The Ipad2 GPU is a tile based Renderer with deferred rendering which works in a very different way to the Xbox or PS3. Basically it only renders what you can see, that means when you are in a scene with high overdraw like a city scene the xbox/ps3 GPU has to render about x2 to x6 or more more then what the Ipad 2 GPU needs to do for the same scene. The Ipad2 has less raw power but it’s vastly more efficient. Or another way to look at it, the more complicated the screen the less work the Ipad 2GPU needs to do in comparison to the Xbox or PS3.

 

The Ipad 2 GPU can also do FSAA for free with pretty much a zero performance hit unlike the xbox/ps3 GPU. In short we are starting to get console level graphics on the Ipad 2.

Edited June 21, 2011 by Pottsey

[localzuk]

The point about Doctors being able to use them bedside? How long do we think that will last? A junior Doctor, into his 92nd hour of the week, is quite likely to leave it behind....with all the attendant problems that that will cause......No more leaving laptops on trains, it'll be confidential info on an iPad that's left.

 

So because people might not use them right, they shouldn't be used at all? That's a poor argument to say the least. Easily solved with one tool - a shoulder harness for the iPad. I have one here for one of the old Fujitsu-Siemens tablets.

 

Not to mention, security shouldn't be an issue, so long as it is implemented correctly - PIN codes etc...