My post from the iPad
This is a small blog post from the iPad. I am playing around with one that I borrowed in the library. Here it goes…
The device itself is classic Apple design. Extremely good looking, inviting you to play with it, beautiful screen. Woke up from sleep in an instant, and for an iPod touch veteran like me, it didn’t take long to notice the new features. I have read a million about this device, and since I am in the US, most of them have been exceedingly favorable. I am trying to be as impartial as possible while I review it. Let’s start at an unlikely place, Pages. For all non-Macs, Pages is Apple’s rival for Microsoft Word. The interface was pretty simple, and didn’t need any learning, although surprisingly enough Apple has a tutorial on how to use it. That’s very unlike Apple, since I have seen or heard of an Apple application which needed tutoring. It was unnecessary but there it was anyways. I tried my hand at typing and… It was hopeless. Apple has tried to do the best it can with a touchscreen keyboard but it is nowhere near good enough for my typing. I am back to an extremely irritating single-double finger typing. That’s why I am going to keep this blog short.
Tried out Safari. I expected this device to shine since it has, arguably, one of the best browsers, if not the best, in the market. Unfortunately it looks like this device seems to have the same wi-fi problem that has been plaguing other iPads. So, the pages painfully slowly, although once they loaded, the scrolling was just amazing. Navigating a page on this device is brilliant. Apple mostly carried over the browser design from the iPhone/touch Safari. This interface was good but far from ideal. For someone like me who is used to keyboard shortcuts and multiple tab views at a time, this seemed to slow things down. I did play a video from nytimes on this (presumably it is html5 since this device doesn’t support flash) and it was pretty smooth, until the wi-fi card screwed up the streaming. I am not judging the quality of the video since that is website and/or app-dependent.
No apps on this one since it’s borrowed, but I did manage to test the quality of photos on it. I tried viewing photos in 1600×1200 resolution. That’s the typical laptop resolution. They look the same or slightly worse.
Overall, this looks like a mediocre product compared to the iPhone or iPod Touch simply because you expect so much more when you pay a premium of 300 dollars over the comparable models. I expected a lot from the device but came out pretty dissatisfied. However, since tablets are just starting to come out now, I can’t judge this against others yet. I will once I have tested other tablets. I do think this is a good benchmark for other tablets but not one as high as the iPhone was for the smartphone market.
As always, thanks for reading. See you next time.
P.S. thanks to auto-correction I managed to finish this blog in one shot
Somehow, iam not convinced that the iPAd is really that necessary… my argument has always been whether u wud prefer carrying a book or an iPAd with all the other gadgets that one already has… Of course, there would be predictable counter arguments from Apple addicts and “environment-conscious” folks… so…
I get your point… I thought the iPad allowed you to watch videos, and so small amount of work on the go. Maybe something that you couldn’t do on your phone. But it didn’t look up to the task. I wouldn’t want to carry it on a vacation to catch up on mails and stuff, because its not well suited for that work. Besides the keyboard, something I didn’t mention was that it is actually pretty tough to keep it on your lap and type. Its an awkward position since you have to balance it on your thighs, and keep it slanted using them. I hope you are getting what I mean.
I had a chance to witness iPad in action when i was in Chicago.. frankly speaking, i found it to be just another iTouch look alike with a bigger screen but not even half as useful as iTouch itself… Looks have never been an issue for Apple, its the functionality, resourcefulness and flexibility of the devices that they need to improve; and on these grounds, Apple failed its customers again.. Yeah I know that ive always criticized Apple, but hey, products like these fuel the flames
I can’t agree with you more. As I tried to point out at the end, the expectations from the iPad were so high. The iPhone and iPod Touch revolutionized the design of phones. They brought in the concept of app stores, and made it work well. The iPad doesn’t show any innovation from the previous two devices. Its good for someone who hasn’t seen an iPhone or iPod Touch. If someone has used them, then there’s nothing compelling in the iPad.