The Apple iPad - Anand's Analysis
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 27, 2010 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Will it Work...Literally
Today my issue with the iPhone (and netbooks for that matter) is that they are very limited when it comes to productivity. I don’t have a good solution if I need the performance, usability and capabilities of my notebook, but want something lighter to carry around with me. You could always get a CULV notebook or from Apple something like the MacBook Air, but that’s still a notebook. There is no perfect blend of notebook functionality with smartphone portability. If the iPad can achieve that, at least in the same manner that the iPhone did for smartphones, then I will consider it worth the hype.
Achieving that goal requires a delicate balance of the right UI, the right hardware (including ergonomics) and the right functionality.
The UI looks clean and snappy. Apple’s biggest omission here appears to be multitasking support. One of the most frustrating things about using an iPhone is its inability to do two serious tasks at once. Email + Web browsing, Pandora + anything. You get the point. This is perhaps a temporary issue. The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2 as of today. The next major release of the iPhone OS, version 4.0, is expected to add multitasking support. This could presumably make its way onto the iPad later this year (or early 2011?).
Yeah that looks super comfortable...
The hardware looks good. It remains to be seen whether or not it’s actually comfortable to hold a 1.5 lbs tablet while you type on it. Although Apple has a couple of accessories that look to address that issue:
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The software keyboard looks like it could work well, if it’s combined with the same sort of predictive trickery that the iPhone uses. I’ve been asking for the sort of tablet the Enterprise crew (Star Trek, not the server market) carried around. The iPad’s interface, at least what I’ve seen of it, has the most potential to deliver that sort of experience. The iPad UI could be something that feels like it was made in 2010, not 2002.
The functionality is also a big unknown. When the iPhone first launched its killer apps were the ones that Apple made for it. While the App Store is far more mature now, the iPad will need some key functionality for it to be a productivity device.
Porting iWork ($9.99 per app) to the iPad was necessary. The fact that Apple did this right off the bat indicates that at least someone over there knows that the market for a $500 - $900 toy is slim. But we need more. We need things like Photoshop for the iPad. Dare I say that we even need a port of Microsoft Office?
At CES everyone talked about tablets and eReaders being huge at the show. I saw a lot of neat devices, but nothing I’d want to go out and buy. The iPad is the first one I’ve seen with potential. And much like the iPhone before it, whether you like it or not is irrelevant - it will at least pave the way for other companies to emulate and improve upon the design.
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- Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
My gut is telling me that there are too many open questions about this iPad, I'm feeling like this is a rushed or incomplete presentation of a tablet. Are there problems relative to realistic expectations concerning Apple’s SOC/chip? Did ARM intervene in the final hour with their A9? And why those prices? The product isn’t due to ship for another month; do they have a rabbit up their sleeve? Stay tunedasH
RobberBaron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
MADtv: Apple iPad, 2006http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/47049/detail/">http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/47049/detail/
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I can definately visualize how tablets can completely replace netbooks. But if you cant even play an avi video what the heck else wont you be able to do on this thing? Its a dead end. I've never accepted apple's limitations, and never will. Just like the iphone, the only people who will buy this are the dumb yuppies who like to waste money. Unfortunately for Apple, they are going extinct at a record rate.I am far more hopeful about windows 7 based tablets for when cpus get small and powerful enough to actually run one.
But what I'm really looking for is a form factor that includes a scree that can flawlessly and seamlessly fold in half. Then I can have a phone and reasonable web surfing in one package.
charles Monneron - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Handbrake is a free software that will enable you to encode all your video library in mp4 format (or m4v if you really like itunes). This is what the creator say about avi :"AVI is a rough beast. It is obsolete. It does not support modern container features like chapters, muxed-in subtitles, variable framerate video, or out of order frame display."
Plus, translating into mp4 using the last versions of x264 is quite likely to shrink the size of your files.
Tikvaw - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
Hmm you can play avi Files on the Iphone with the right App, so you will be able to do the same on the Ipad.The disc might not be very large but at least at home you can stream almost any video file from your PC/NAS directly to the Iphone/Ipad with encoding on the go, for example with the "Air Video" App.
If you go somewhere and wan't to take a few Video files with you,
you can take a sd-card and the adapter Apple provides, I'm sure there will be an App that can read and copy those files from the card.
With the Free App "TouchMouse" from Logitech you can control your Computer Mouse so you could connect your Computer with the TV and start a Video with the Ipad from your seat/sofa and use the Ipad as Remote.
There are many free Apps that Read PDF,TXT, etc Files (which you can transfer from your Computer to the Iphone/Ipad with Wifi, no need to use Itunes) so you aren't restricted to IBooks, you can even install Kindle Store and buy their E-Books.
etc etc
So to summarize, even if Apple doesn't really provide open standards, the are many free App's which add this functionalities, probably the Ipad will be "jailbreakable" too, so you are even more free with the choices and not dependable on the AppStore.
ps. I really hope Apple will provide Multitasking in the near future!
taltamir - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
the iphone was never popular... early iterations were a failure, later fixed versions are selling better, but still have less than 1% of the phone market share.the iPad cannot be compared to a eReader, because it does not use ePaper. you touted that as a "bonus", as if it being "color" was great. the eReader has the benefit of being a passive display (no light emission) like a book, and unbeleiveable battery. the iPad is nothing like an eReader and if it is trying to be it will be a huge failure... and kindle isn't the only competition in that market.
QueBert - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - link
you're kidding right? From day 1 they were sold out everywhere and going for over $1,000 on Ebay. Hell, even today 1st fucking gen iPhones are selling for more money used than a lot of brand new smart phones. The iPhone is the phone to have, period! I never NEVER hear people talking about any other phone. When I could put my 2st gen iPhone on CL tomorrow for $200 and have it sold before Monday. I'm not too sure how you consider the phone "never popular" there has never been a phone more popular.A5 - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
1% of the overall phone market including dumbphones.In the relevant market (smartphones), the iPhone is doing very well - they've already passed the market share of all WinMo phones combined and they're coming up on RIM, who has been in the market a lot longer than Apple.
gwolfman - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I just saw this post with regards to the CPU:http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-A4-SOC-ARM-...">http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-A4-SOC-ARM-...
Steve Jobs incorrectly addressed Apple A4 as a CPU. We're not sure was this to keep the mainstream press enthused, but A4 is not a CPU. Or we should say, it's not just a CPU. Nor did PA Semi/Apple had anything to do with the creation of the CPU component. A4 is a System-on-a-Chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor [ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore i.e. Multi-Processing Core, identical to ones used in nVidia Tegra and Qualcomm Snapdragon] with graphics silicon [ARM Mali 50-Series GPU], and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon.
vshin - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - link
I don't understand why anyone would want 1080p on a 9.7" screen.