We love Apple products, they always bring many surprises. And yes, I know it’s not a cellphone, but doesn’t it seem like a giant iPhone to you?! And did anything other than the iPad happen Wednesday? Did anything even matter before the iPad? Well, that’s why we’re talking here about this fabulous new device!
My first impressions of the device are mainly positive. Apple has once again built a product that looks good and feels great in the hand, and the familiar user interface, borrowed from the iPhone and iPod touch, is perfectly suited to the bigger screen. The iPad whizzes along, opening applications, re-sizing web pages, and zooming in and out of maps almost instantaneously. It’s a great, fun gaming platform, and it’s lovely to view full-size web pages while browsing the internet. As Steve Jobs said during his keynote, if you’re going to create a third category of device, between the smartphone and the laptop, then it needs to be better than either for certain tasks. In many areas, this is true for the iPad — web browsing is much better on the iPad than the iPhone, just because of the bigger screen, and physically flicking through photos, music and movies is just more enjoyable on the iPad than a laptop.
But in several crucial areas, the iPad falls short of the functionality that would have made this more than just a large iPod touch. The lack of Flash support is a major issue; The iPad’s inability to multi-task could also severely hamper its appeal. It’s being pitched as a portable device that you could kick back and use on the sofa at home, but you can’t run two missions at the same time. It’s one or other, just as it is on the iPhone and iPod touch, but for the extra money you’re paying for the iPad, you expect something more akin to a laptop computing experience.
Still, a very good device that really offers lots of advantages over your smartphone or laptop, but to totally replace both, we might need to set out eyes on the second or third version.
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