Apple’s Tablet Computer
Yesterday Apple Inc. introduced its new tablet computer, the iPad. The best summary of the iPad that I have read is, not surprisingly, written by Adam Engst at tidbits.com. I provide here notes about the features that interest me.
The iPad is a computer for content consumers, not content creators. It is ideal for casual web browsing, watching television and movies, reading digital books, and playing games. The touted battery life of 10 hours, although undoubtedly exaggerated, is still long enough for a coast-to-coast flight. (It is not so ideal for listening to music, because I don’t have a pair of pants with pockets wide enough to hold it, unlike an iPod.)
For content creators, Apple has created new versions of its iWork suite for the creation of text-based documents (Pages), spreadsheets (Numbers), and slide presentations (Keynote). I am interested in learning how well this actually works without a keyboard and mouse.
The iPad has several shortcomings. Surprisingly, it has no camera. Other commentators have wondered whether Steve Jobs couldn’t decide where the camera should be located. The iPad really needs two cameras, one facing toward the user, for video conferencing, and one on the back for taking stills and videos.
The iPad operating system, which seems to be a variant of the iPhone OS, doesn’t allow multitasking. This is an annoyance, but I think we can anticipate that a future version of the OS will overcome this limitation.
Like the iPhone and the iPod touch, the iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash. This means there is some material on the web that we won’t be able to view on an iPad. I’m not a big fan of Flash, because I hate how processor-intensive Flash is. If I want to bog down my old PowerBook G4, I just need to open two or three web pages with Flash animations.
I plan to buy one for use at home and to take with me when I travel. I already use my iPod touch as much as or more than my MacBook Pro when I’m at home. Other than listening to music and podcasts, I use it to check the weather, Facebook, Twitter, and email, watch movies, and read books. Movie watching and book reading will be more pleasant on the iPad. One thing I’m eager to test is whether I can read PDFs of scientific papers on an iPad.
January 28 2010 06:24 am | Computing
