Apple iPad — Creative but not Magical
By rockia on Jan 28, 2010 with Comments 0
After a long long long wait, finally Apple iPad was announced, as an Apple fans, I was definitely excited about new product launch. That’s why I have to let myself calm down a bit and come back to my blog to write down how I truly feel about Apple’s new “revolutionary” product — the iPad.
If you are interested, you can view the full technical specification at Apple’s iPad specs page. I don’t want to make any lengthy introduction here; news about iPad is all around internet anyways. Just want to drop down some of my thoughts about iPad here today.
The Pros:
| Price | When Steve Jobs announced the price, I couldn’t really believe what I see and heard. For the WiFi-only version, the price various between US $499 and $699, which is about 50% off what rumors are talking about.
Unlike iPhone, you pay $499, the iPad is yours without signing up any contract with telecommuting carriers even for the iPad with 3G module. For this price, I think lots of people will find it reasonable.
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| Size and Weight |
The iPad comes with a 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology; and it weights only 1.5lbs. The size and weight is very good for users who would like take iPad with them on the go.
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| Speed | iPad uses 1GHz Apple-designed A4 chip as the central processing unit. Comparing to the 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 on iPhone 3GS, the speed definitely enhanced by a lot, based on the fact that iPad and iPhone are basically running the same OS.
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| Battery | Thanks to the low voltage A4 chip used on iPad, the battery life can last up to 10 hours upon fully charged and a month’s standby time.
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The Cons:
| Lack of Flash support |
While talking about iPhone, Adobe Flash is a pain. Before iPad was announced, one of my wish is to have Flash support on the newly announced product. However, Apple disappointed me.
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| Camera |
I don’t know why, and I didn’t realized when iPad was first announced, iPad doesn’t come with built-in iSight like most of the Macs do. Well, I am sure this is not a technological difficulty to Apple since they even managed to add a camera to iPod Nano.
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| Virtual Keyboard |
The virtual keyboard on iPad seems to be very responsive; however, according to the demo video, I am quite sure it’s not the same as what we usually do while we are typing.
However, the good thing is that, it’s better than iPhone and there is a keyboard dock for iPad. |
| Not a real tablet |
Before iPad was out, people were dreaming about a modified OS X on iPad so that we can install our own program there and just enjoy the portability of iPad. Yet, it turns out, iPad is more like an enlarged iPod Touch/iPhone. The good thing is that all iPhone apps are 100% transferable to iPad. In this case, I guess Steve Jobs really should say that iPad is better than Netbooks because they are two different products. I like the idea of iPad but it is just not for me; I need my computer to be portable while I can work on my stuffs on it. |
Note:
iPad is a creative product; unlike eBook, it could do so much more. Upon it’s birth, it comes with so many great applications and books (the whole apps store + iBook store). However, as an Apple fans, I am sorry to say that iPad is not impressive to me. I will definitely give it a try when it’s available in Canada, but it’s pretty clear that I won’t spend money on this “revolutionary” product that is not so magical to me.
Filed Under: IT News • Operating Systems
