This morning Steve Jobs unleashed on the world his newest Apple product the IPad. It's almost exactly what people where expecting. It's not quite a laptop and it's not quite a smart phone.
Right off the bat it looks ugly to me.
The Icons are spaced to far apart and the casing looks like a ridiculously large iPhone. This is going to take some getting used to.
Pricing structure seems a little steep although a Kindle DX runs for $489 and has a lot less features. I'm interested to see if this thing will take off as an at home device or will its success be on the road. The latter seems less likely since it's gonna cost you to go 3g. It's great that it's portable, but why not carry an iPhone or a Mac Book.
From the apple.com:
Safari:
The large Multi-Touch screen on iPad lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen — one whole page at a time. With vibrant color and sharp text. So whether you’re looking at a page in portrait or landscape, you can see everything at a size that’s actually readable. And with iPad, navigating through the web has never been easier, or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. You can scroll through a page just by flicking your finger up or down on the screen. Or pinch to zoom in or out on a photo. There’s also a thumbnail view that shows all your open pages in a grid, to let you quickly move from one page to the next.
Mail:
See and touch your email in ways you never could before. In landscape, you get a split-screen view, showing both an opened email and the messages in your Inbox. To see the opened email by itself, you just turn iPad to portrait, and the email automatically rotates and fills the screen. No matter which orientation you use, you can scroll through your mail, compose a new email using the large, on-screen keyboard, or delete messages, with nothing more than a tap and a flick. If someone emails you a photo, you can see it right in the message. You can also save the photos in an email directly to the built-in Photos app. And iPad will work with all the popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.
Photos:
With its crisp, vibrant display, and its unique software features, iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share your photos. For example, the new Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap or pinch to open the stack, and the whole album opens up. Then you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while your iPad is docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: you can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the Apple Camera Connection Kit.
With its crisp, vibrant display, and its unique software features, iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share your photos. For example, the new Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap or pinch to open the stack, and the whole album opens up. Then you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while your iPad is docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: you can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the Apple Camera Connection Kit.
Video:
The large, high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching any kind of video: from HD movies and TV shows, to podcasts and music videos. You can also easily move between wide-screen and full-screen with a double-tap. And because it’s essentially one big screen, with no buttons or anything to distract you, the picture fills your line of sight. So you feel completely immersed in what you’re watching.
iBooks:
The iBooks app is a great, new way to read and buy books.1Just download the app for free from the App Store, and you’ll be able to buy everything from classics to bestsellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf. To read it, all you have to do is tap on it and it opens up. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich, color, so it’s very easy to read, even in low light.
It'll be interesting to see how this thing takes off. At the moment it doesn't seem too enticing of a product. It's missing a few key features like a built in camera and Flash plugin. Sorry Skype users.
What I'm waiting to see is what developers can do with it. The sdk is out already. If some really cool innovative apps come out that really capitalize on the touch screen or fast OS it might be worth the buy. Think about a the possibility for games or even design programs.
But maybe the real power of this device is in its e-reading potential. It really filled a void in that niche. So perhaps the possibilities of its full color magazines and beautifully rendered page animations will be enough to drive sales. It is officially the best e-reader on the market. What has yet to be seen is whether or not its other functionality will make the grade.
Addicted to Media 2008,2009,2010
