The day that many Apple enthusiasts have been waiting for has come. Steve Jobs announced earlier today the coming debut of the iPad. A lot of Apple fanboys have been waiting for the day for a long, long time. Speculation as to what exactly Jobs and the crew at Apple were going to unveil had been pretty varied – some were anticipating some type of pad or tablet, others were thinking the iPhone 4, and so on. Personally, I’m glad to see a tablet-style device be released. Yeah sure, it’s not the first of it’s kind, but I think it may be the first to offer all of the things it can do, in as slim a package as it’s in.
The full breakdown of the techincal specifications for the iPad can be found here – http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ - for the most part, everything you’d find on the iPhone 3GS minus the camera, but on a much larger screen.
Here’s my personal take on it, good and bad…
- Web surfing, email, watching video/movies, viewing photos, and reading e-books would be a much better user experience for the simple fact of the larger screen and more real estate.
- All the apps for the iPhone/iTouch will run on it.
- Only half an inch thick, weighs just one and half pounds. Screen size almost 8×10 inches and multi-touch.
- Wi-Fi and 3G capable. Built in speakers/mic, GPS, compass, accelerometer.
- Accessories include an SD-card dock and full-sized keyboard dock.
- The touch keyboard would be about netbook sized – pretty much anyone could type on it comfortably.
- Some cons – no camera, no stylus support, some of the features not available unless you get the Wi-Fi + 3G version, no multitasking (that’s a big one), and price.
Yup, the price. They start at $499 and go up. Too expensive for an iPhone replacement, but if you were looking to replace your old laptop or wanted something other than a netbook, this would do quite nicely, minus the no-multitasking bit.
My take on the iPad is this – I wouldn’t rush out to replace my netbook/laptop or iPhone with this. But I think a device like this would excel in the workplace and in a scholastic environment. If the iPad had stylus support, you could use these to transform your office into a completely paperless environment… hell, you could probably get away with it as-is. If schools would start offering all of their required textbooks in an electronic format (and it’s already starting to happen), the only think you’d need to take to school would be your iPad. I’d really love to see stylus support for this; that would definitely be the thing needed to vault this device into a realistic offering for the workplace/school. And then of course the whole no-multitasking thing. Really Apple wtf? How hard can that be? Ah well. We’ll see what happens.
So whatcha think folks? Chime in and voice your opinions about the iPad here… and if one of you actually gets one of these, I wanna see pics of you holding it ;)
sounds like a bigger version of the iphone/itouch to me…
Dunno, sounds like a huge flop since they refuse to support a stylus, but I’m sure all the apple fanbois will buy them up like crazy.
Yeah Sage is right for the most part – just a bigger iPhone. It does have a couple extra things that the iPhone doesnt, like device docking capability. Plus the processor is a lot faster – 1GHz. But seriously, for this thing to really stand out, it needs stylus capability, and you need to be able to multitask on it. A front-facing camera wouldnt be bad either.
Launch of the iPad (gahhh… pls rename it to iTablet or something) is 60 days away. Plus they gotta have room for future versions for upgrades I suppose. We’ll see.
Yeah, that’s all it looks like to me – a big iphone/ipod touch. No multitasking? Great speed for a CPU, but to do what? Surf pages faster? I dunno.. Price is decent though. If it had stylus support I’d be a bit happier, too.
All that hype for nothing. Tis a shame.
I’m sure it wont stop the Apple fanbois.
Don’t forget the lack of flash support, and 3g versions locked into AT&T only. Seriously, all the bitching iPhone fanboi’s are doing now over being stuck on AT&T and Apple just keeps going with it. I don’t, for the life of me, understand it.
You dont keep current do ya?
Apple has eluded that they will drop AT&T exclusivity sometime this year/early next.
Adobe isnt waiting for Apple to allow support for Flash – when CS5 comes out, it’ll allow Flash to play on the iPhone.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 … -says.html
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flas … or_iphone/
They may be "eluding" that they will drop exclusivity, but as of right now, it operates on GSM only, which leaves you with AT&T and T-Mobile if you feel like cracking it. NOW, if I hear about an LTE version in the future, then we can talk and get excited, until then, business as usual.
Here we go… found an article titled ‘Apple’s iPad event: What we didn’t get’ – http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/64364
Odd that the blog author didn’t mention a stylus. Lack of stylus support has been a big sticking point since the iPad was announced.
Seriously. You read NOTHING that I post. From the specs page:
Which means the iPad would be able to operate on all the major cell networks.
EXCEPT Sprint and Verizon.
AT&T – GSM
Sprint/Verizon – CDMA
2 totally non-compatible technologies.
I think it was officially announced that AT&T has the exclusive rights to iPad in the US.
I think CDMA has it limitations to web/phone simultaneous connectivity thus I personally don’t see iPhone in verizon’s future. iPad however could a viable product for all US cell service providers if they are given radio needed for their network. Then again apple is going to allow support for VOIP on iPhone so… who knows.
And who uses Sprint anymore? What… 6-7 people? Shoulda just left it as Verizon, who gives a flip about Sprint? lol
I live in Kansas City, where Sprint is based. There are coverage gaps in their home city even.
-Grant.
I think we had a long conversation about that.
In my previous life, where we were the number 13 reseller on Verizon in the country for Wally world, the only other carrier we had in the store was Sprint. And it was pure hell. Not only did their "dual" billing system manage to fuck up almost every transaction, their customer service was AWFUL. I call and tell you what the problem is, don’t treat me like a hustler. I have the customers account number right in front of me. I’ve given you my fucking ID number and password, the customer has paid the deposit TO ME. They really do fucking exist.
Moreso, I dropped Sprint years ago after their "unlimited data" plan began charging my phone per kB as well. So when I got a $425 phone bill that they couldn’t tell me what it was besides data usage AND verify my UNLIMITED data, I told them I refused to pay it. In the trash they went. And they wonder why they are bleeding customers.
EDIT: keith, I think the quote function is fucked up here.
Hitler didn’t like the iPad
EDIT by K2 – Jay, I just spent the last 5 min editing this trying to figure out why the video embed wasnt working – ‘disable bbcode’ was checked again. Something is messed up with your profile settings man.
I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs said the iPad would be sold unlocked, but since the US is so backwards with their cell technology it will basically only work on AT&T.
Sprint and Verizon need to ditch CDMA.
The iPad is great for what it is, a casual hybrid device that is instant on. I’m not sure why so many people expect it to be cutting edge and have everything including the kitchen sink.
Put it this way, if I had to choose between a netbook or an iPad. Gibbor me the iPad. Simply because I won’t have to wait for it to boot up.