Canadians who have been dying to get an iPad are getting them today, right now as I write this — maybe I’ll head down and do some interviews? (Photo via Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
The iPad has finally arrived in Canadian stores after 8 weeks of insane waiting. A recent article by Mark Saltzman nearly gives it a 10 out of 10. What makes the iPad so attractive is that its light, it’s powerful and it already comes with 200,000 applications to use right at the start. What other tablet has that kind of advantage?
So, was iPad worth the iWait? – thestar.com: “Think of the iPad as a giant iPhone, ideal for reading downloaded electronic books (e-books) and digital newspapers, surfing the web, reading email, flicking through photos, watching videos and playing games — all via your fingertips instead of with a keyboard and mouse. More accurately, perhaps, the iPad is like an oversized iPod touch, as it doesn’t have a camera or the ability to make phone calls.”
(Via Toronto Star.)
Of course having a 10-12 hour battery life is a major selling point for road warriors and travellers. The iPad’s iWork application is the kicker for business oriented users — the word processor Pages, spreadsheet program Numbers and presentation program Keynote stand up to the test. In fact, Chris Brogan did a great, fast, hands on review of his use of the iPad (and he doesn’t really consider himself a first to the post techie so that’s great).
LOTS OF GAMES TO START
Apple has really leverage a kind of open sourcing in terms of developing all of those iPhone and iPad applications and games. No other company I can think of off the top of my head has managed to pull that off. A strategic high point for Apple that’s for sure — who the hell can beat 200,000 applications now?
Casual gaming is one of the hottest trends around! Most people don’t want to play complex games like Halo or Half Life — they love classics like Bejeweled, Tetris, Solitaire and more. Of course the iPad and iPhone also offer more involved games like racing and strategy too.
In fact the top 10 paid applications in the AppStore are casual games.
THE CATCH 22
Do you need Flash in the Safari?
The iPad’s Safari web surfing program doesn’t do Flash except that’s okay because Flash really isn’t all that great in my opinion. In fact every site that I visit doesn’t use Flash at all — so am I going to miss that? Are you? Good question — maybe because I’m such a business oriented power user?
In fact I’d be more worried if Javascript wasn’t supported. (Or am I missing something?)
Some people are saying that iPhone and iPad may actually have killed Adobe’s Flash.
Got a 16 GB Wi-fi only iPad and desperately crave space?
The iPad doesn’t have a memory card slot so you can’t add extra memory to it. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing really especially if you use “cloud” web hard drives or file storage systems like Dropbox (easy to use, install it on every computer I own). If you get the professional upgrade of Dropbox you can have 50 GB of storage space right then and there and the iPad application for it is free.
Do you want 3G Internet with your “Wifi only” iPad?
Find yourself a smart phone — probably the iPhone. Turn on Bluetooth on the iPhone. Get your iPhone jail broken if you’re daring enough, get the MyWi application and find your iPhone on BlueTooth.
Do you want the step by step guides? Go here and here.
Can’t take a picture or video?
If you use your iPhone 3G or 3GS and link it to your iPad you can take pictures and videos. In fact you may be able to make your iPhone 3G video capable.
Multi-tasking to come
Alas, the iPad OS doesn’t have the ability to multi-task yet. No doubt Apple is waiting to time the multi-task ability with the release of the iPhone 4G. When the ability comes out you can bet that lots of people especially business styled power users will be very happy.
THE FUTURE COMPETITION
There are indications that Google’s Android OS powered smart phones and tablets could be the major competition for the iPhone and iPad. Perhaps another reason why Apple and Google had a parting of ways? Elance says there’s a growing demand for skilled Android developers though the sample seems a bit small from a quick view.
In fact is the Google Tablet going to be the next big rival? Or will it fail to take hold like the Nexus One phone? Another interesting clash to watch.
Who knows maybe I’ll try the Google Tablet out to see how well it stacks up for nonprofit or business communications work?
FINALE
In the next few days the iPad 16gb WIFI will arrive in the mail and you will have the chance to hear about that experience. Should be fun — the iPad offers something that’s definitely not like a laptop and definitely not a smartphone as Mark Saltzman would say. What it offers is simplicity of touch, ample screen size space for reading training ebooks and a lightness of being that makes it perfect for “grab and go” travel.
The future of computing may well be a combination of tablet and cloud computing. In fact, it may have environmental benefits (more later)…
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