After looking at the demo and specs of the new Apple iPad. This is my take on it.
It's basically a big iPod Touch. But it's an iPod Touch with productivity apps like iWork designed specifically for the Apple iPad.
It runs all your standard iPhone and iPod Touch apps from the app store. Games will be a big thing on this as it's like a huge kick-ass Nintendo DS. Except for the controls.
The accelerometer will have you control it as you would on the iPhone. I used an iPod Touch and use the Calendar, Mail and Address Book a lot. It's certainly nice that the iPad has those as well.
The iBook Store is certainly a good feature to have. The strength of the Apple mobile devices doesn't come from the device itself, but from the App Store. If you think about it, a lot of other devices has more features and are cheaper than the iPod or iPhone. But how come Apple devices outsells the competition? It's because of the App Store.
Sandisk makes a better MP3 player and it includes radio and whatever else most geeks want. But the problem is, there's no dedicated site for buying music. That's the genius of Apple. They built the iPod and built an iTunes store around it. Seeing how people responded to having one simple site to use for buying music, they expanded it to the App Store when they introduced the iPod touch and iPhone.
Now there's over 140,000 apps in the App Store plus the music in the iTune store. Now they have the iBook Store to buy your books. Brilliant!
Reading some of the forums on Apple, you can see a lot of people complaining the new iPad as a glorified iPhone with no phone capability. They are also complaining that there is no camera so it's useless. Another complaint is the large bezel around it. It sounds just like the complaint when the iPhone first came out.
What people seem to forget is that Apple is really good at building products that will either change the game or is highly adaptive to future technologies. Sure, they don't get it right all the time, but people are pretty smart at figuring out how they can adapt Apple products to their daily lives.
Remember when the iPhone first came out, people didn't really know what to do with it. No physical keypad, $599 in price, 2G network, 2 megapixel camera, etc. Now look how it's doing. It's the best selling smartphone out there. Ever since Apple came out with the iPhone, every other manufacturer is trying to be the new iPhone.
I have an iPod Touch and I love my iPod Touch because of the apps I can get on it. I used to have a Windows Mobile device and let me tell you, it was a pain to find the apps for it. Not only that, every single device has a different version so some will work, some won't.
I didn't want to get it when it first came out but I needed to replace my PDA (HP PDA running Windows Mobile). I was really worried that I couldn't run the things I needed on my PDA like calendar sync, address book, etc. The first time I got the iPod Touch, it really couldn't do much. But as new iPhone OS came out, it became more and more capable. Now I can do IMAP e-mail sync, CalDav sync and address book sync. Not to mention it's a way better web browser than any of the Windows Mobile browsers I've used.
I've also installed a ton of games on my iPod Touch that I don't see the need to buy a Nintendo DS. That's one thing that Apple didn't even thought of when they first came out with the iPhone. Now the iPhone games are giving Nintendo DS a run for their money.
I believe the new Apple iPad would do really well as an e-book reader, specially now that it has a dedicated iBook store. The iBook store features books from five different publishers like Pengiun, MacMillan, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins and Hachett. If you noticed, McGraw-Hill wasn't mentioned on the presentation. This might be punishment for the
leak by McGraw-Hill CEO yesterday on CNBC.
Apple didn't go with e-ink screen or OLED probably because they wanted the iPad to run like a regular computer when you view the screen. e-ink doesn't do color very well and OLED is quite expensive and not tested for devices this big.
The productivity apps like iWork is going to make this a netbook since that is part of the reason why people buy a netbook anyway. To have a lighter notebook computer. Of course, you can't install just any regular apps on this thing so there are a lot of people complaining that it's a netbook with limited capabilities. Not to mention Adobe Flash doesn't run on it just like it doesn't on the iPhone.
Those complaint may be true, but a lot of the other complaints I hear from owning a netbook is that it is underpowered. I have a friend who works in a computer store and from what I hear, the underpowered complaints comes mainly from buying a netbook expecting it to run like a regular laptop. You know, those with dual-core and 4Gb of RAM and high end graphics. They install Photoshop on it and all other kinds of software then complain why their netbooks runs so slow.
I think Apple is smart for limiting the apps you can install on the iPad to those apps you can run on the iPhone. Those apps are built for mobile devices so they are not as memory hogs like full blown applications.
Doing this will keep the user experience high and won't disappoint users. There is probably also no multi-tasking on it so it won't slow down the system as well. Apple tends to make sure that their devices runs as advertised so as not to take away from the user experience. Sure, it may cripple the device, but you can't complain that it's slow or unresponsive.
So here is where I see how the Apple iPad will be used by most people. It will be used like an iPod Touch for music, calendar, address book, e-mail and web browsing. It will be used as an alternative to the Amazon Kindle.
It will be used as an alternative to your desktop or notebook computer since it will be a "pure" netbook as what a netbook was supposed to be for in the first place (web, mail, photo, video, etc.). It will also be a replacement laptop for people who go on vacation or need to take simple notes and check their e-mail when you install iWork on it.
The iPhone SDK 3.2 will bring new apps that most people haven't even thought of that will probably revolutionize how people use a netbook. Students may use this to take notes or even do presentations without lugging around an expensive notebook.
Here's how I view how I may use this product if I ever get one. I can use it as a netbook to browse, chat and check e-mail. Take notes when I'm on a seminar, use it for presentation and an e-book reader. I may even use it as a photo frame when it's not in use. And when I'm watching TV, I can use it on the couch to browse the web or check e-mail. I can do that with a netbook, but the iPad seems to be an easier device to carry and use.
Another thing would be how the medical community would be using this device. There are already medical apps available on the iPhone and they are revolutionizing the way doctors deal with their patients. Let's see what new apps developers make for this iPad.
Who knows, maybe I'll wait for the 2nd generation iPad to see the new developments and better features. As I rule, I don't recommend buying first generation devices.
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