iPad
Apple’s iPad was released yesterday to mixed reviews. A few quotables from the iPad site.
“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”
“The best way to experience the web, email, photos, videos and video. Hands down.”
If I had to rewrite the first Apple quote it would go like this:
“Our most advanced technology in a hot and evolutionary device at a lowish price for Apple products.”
Is the price unbelievable? Not really. Then again, I haven’t used it yet. Put another way, im not running out in 60 days to buy one because I think its ultra cheap not having played with it. The price point doesn’t seem to far off though. If it were $200 I buy one on release day.
iPad is essentially a bigger iPhone. This is actually a big deal because the iPhone was revolutionary but it was too small for certain tasks. Like typing up emails. I don’t really use it for longer emails than “OK” or “LOLZ.” I can tweet from it, but it thinks certain words I mispell on purpose are other words and its not fun changing them 3 times to the right word. Beyond that, its a fine device. The iPad has more screen and because of that I expect it will be easier to type on it.
I received a first generation iPhone from a friend for free. It works fine in every way save it doesn’t turn on or off as the power button is broken. It just goes in and out of standby. Works fine beyond that. I use it as a web/email/twitter/facebook/music/video podcast device. I have a few games on it but i rarely play them. Games on the iPhone are not that much fun. Then again, it might just be me. I LOVE the iPhone so much when I am home I just use that for surfing, twitter and facebook at home. If I want to type up a blog post I turn on a desktop/laptop but for mostly everything else its the iPhone all the way. Though its important to note that its great for consuming, not creating stuff. The iPad might be better for creating as it has a larger screen and can come with iWork. We will see.
When I first read the stream from Engadget on release day I was EXTREMELY underwhelmed. After all the hype and buzz about iTablet/iSlate this device couldn’t have lived up to the hype. And it seems with many people it really didn’t. But the trick is we haven’t used it yet. After the day was over, I woke up and relooked at the pictures I changed my tune a bit. It looks like a really cool device. I still have reservations about it though.
No multitasking. No console. Locked down. No native SD slot. These are pretty much my major complaints about iPhone. I can understand from a UI/UX perspective why you wouldn’t enable multitasking. Having 90% of the CPU for the current application is a very nice thing. The iPhone isn’t a speed demon. Howevever when only one thing is happening what performance you do get you get consistently. So if an app pushes the limits of 3D, RAM and CPU it will consistently work accross thousands of iPad 1.0 devices. If you enable multitasking this goes down. Stuff gets slower. Stuff may crash. The UI/UX suffers. On a such a little device this is a bigger problem than a beefy desktop computer. Plus, enabling a multitask switcher on a device with one button would suck. So I get why they may want to only enable one app at a time. I also understand why they want to lock it down. Similarish reasons, but you do get to make more on an app store with no other competitive channels to install software.
So the problems I have with iPad I have with iPhone yet I love my iPhone. So much so if it broke id get a new iPod touch. Its that cool. Will the iPad be something I get because I love my iPhone? I am not sure but I imagine not the 1.0 version. I like that the iPhone is so small I can put it in my pocket and put it on a window ledge next to the bed. Can’t do that with the iPad. Then again, its not meant to do that.
People thought the iPod and iPhone were a joke but they turned out well for Apple in the end. I believe the iPad is such a device but the market will tell. Not our opinions.