Photo by johncatral, used under CC licence
It seems that one of the fastest selling items that Apple have made is also one that has split everybody firmly into two camps. Those that think it’s the best thing that Apple have ever done, and those that don’t see the point and think it’s little more than a giant iPod Touch.
Well, it is a giant iPod Touch. But once you get on it it really doesn’t feel like it. I would have preferred a better home screen and some other interface elements don’t quite work well, but it feels right. Every built in application has been reworked, and they all work very well with the extra screen space. Third party applications have yet to perfect this, but it’s to be expected with developers being unable to use a real device to test their application.
Let’s get this out of the way: the iPad is not a laptop replacement. Don’t expect to be able to write more than a few sentences on the keyboard, and don’t expect the iWork apps to be any good. In fact, I don’t think iWork should be on the iPad at all: I found all of the apps either hard or impossible to use, and I don’t see the point in them.
The iPad is for using on the couch, something to use quickly to surf the web or check your email. Something you use to look at your photograph collection — or show off your photograph collection. It quickly turns on, doesn’t need any thought, and does exactly what you need it to do before you put it back in its home — on the coffee table, next to your cup of tea and by the remote control.
The screen really is magic. The multitouch responsiveness is exactly what you expect from Apple, and after two years of using iPhones and iPod Touches it still blew me away. It’s incredibly smooth and quick, and is best experienced in Maps. The pinch to zoom really comes into its own here, and you can get a clear (and large) map which just moves along with your fingertips. I would love to use it for real, I genuinely think it would match both the iPhone and paper maps for finding your way around.
iBooks is a fantastic entrance into the eBook reader market. Although I still love the real thing, I like the idea of electronic books. But there just isn’t a reader that cuts it. They’re all slow and cumbersome to use, mainly because they use electronic ink. Well, electronic ink is a dud technology, at least until the next generation starts to appear commercially. At the moment a regular LED backlit display is the best we have. Which isn’t so bad. You swipe across to turn the page, and instantly the page is turned. You can’t get easier to use than that. It’s not perfect, but the iPad is the only device I would truly be happy to use to read eBooks night after night.
Some of the criticisms thrown at the iPad are a little unfair. For a start, its lack of features I don’t care about. I don’t need half a million ports to plug countless devices into it. And I don’t need the ability to read from a USB stick or DVD drive. Nobody ever uses optical discs anymore, and cloud computing is far better than a USB drive. For a start, you can’t lose cloud computing or leave it at home.
And Flash is a rant for another day. I hope iPhone OS never includes it.
But it’s still version 1, and buggy. It didn’t take long for me to confuse the accelerometer and the interfaces aren’t quite there yet. These issues I hope will be fixed in future releases of iPhone OS, and they aren’t enough to stop you from enjoying the device.
The iPad is a first class entrance as both a truly portable computer and ebook reader. It won’t replace your laptop for work, but it might well replace it at home.