So, it has finally been announced.
Now, what do I think about it? I have to admit that since it was announced, about 36 hours ago now, my opinion of the iPad has swung back and forth like a blade of grass in a stiff breeze. I sit here (on the couch no less) wishing I had an iPad to write this on while at the same time thinking the device is utterly frivolous. I have a Macbook Pro and an iPhone, why would I ever need an iPad?
But, who cares if I actually need one. What do I think about it? Here are the surprises, the bad, and the good.
The surprises
- The price. I have to admit it. Even though I guestimated that a tablet device from Apple would debut at somewhere between $699 and $899 I never thought that it’s base price would be $499.
- The name. I’ve tried to let iPad sink in and I still think it will (it will have to) but I am still surprised.
- The 250Mb per month limited 3G price plan. If you are of the sort that only sends a few emails or downloads an app or book a two a month – I suppose 250mb per month is enough. But I’m willing to bet that most will either go the unlimited 3G plan, for only double the price, or with no 3G at all (for no monthly fee and an even cheaper purchase price).
- The reactions. Overall, I think the reactions I’ve seen across the Web are positive that the iPad is a very cool device. But as far as the device being an easy purchase the sentiment is anything but shared.
There were good surprises too but I’ll just throw most of them into “the good” list.
The bad
- The aspect ratio. It has been stated that they iPad’s screen has a 4:3 aspect ratio and is probably the result of the device being optimized for portrait use. If I were to have an iPad I could see myself watching a lot of video on the device and so I would have liked to see the aspect ratio at 16:9.
- The 3G pricing plans. Thirty dollars per month is a lot of money for me. Two hundred and fifty megabytes per month of bandwidth is no where near “enough” for my usage. That leaves me with no option to get 3G.
- The number of native iPad apps (surprise). This will no doubt increase dramatically prior to launch. Apple obviously spent a considerable amount of time nailing the applications they showed in the announcement. iWork, Mail, and iBooks (and even the iCal redesign) are absolutely incredible UIs such the world has never seen. But I was surprised we didn’t see a point of sale system, educational and healthcare applications, or any other application besides Brushes (which looks great though) and games.
- That Steve Jobs didn’t also announce a way to convince your wife that you need one.
I haven’t had an opportunity to use the iPad yet – which I presume won’t happen for months – but I didn’t see much that was bad about the device. Nearly everything I saw was incredibly well thought out and looked easy and dare I say fun to do.
The good
- The UI. Though some will say that the iPad is simply a big iPhone the user interface is obviously different given its specific size. Being larger means being even more precise and detailed. The UI, from what I’ve seen so far, is second to none. The best user interface for any device in the world.
- iWork. The amount of work Apple put into bringing iWork to the iPad is obvious. Some of the gestures that Phil Schiller was using to create some quick iWork documents were – if I may say so – perfect and natural. To get a gesture to be perfect and feel natural is – for most people and companies – a near impossibility. Somehow most interface gestures miss the mark. The iPhone got more right than it did wrong but it still got a few things wrong (mostly related to the limitations of the device itself). The iPad leaves all of those mistakes at the door.
- Typing. My main wish for the iPad was for much better input. Again, I haven’t used the iPad yet but nearly everyone that has remarked that typing on the iPad was much better than they expected.
- SPEED. Speed is so important. If pressed about what the most important thing in technology was I’d probably say speed. Computers, devices, Web pages, applications, – even cars – are nothing without speed. No matter how good something is, if it is slow, it won’t work. The iPad is remarkably fast.
- iBooks. I’ve wanted a Kindle from the very first day Amazon announced them. I haven’t bought one because I, like Steve Jobs, couldn’t see owning a device that only allowed me to read books. For the price of a Kindle I could buy 1,000 books at yard sales and give them to friends as gifts. But the iPad, with its incredible screen and ability to do just about everything else you want, is well within the right price range to make buying a Kindle look like a dumb idea.
- The battery life. 10 hours on a single charge? My 15″ unibody Macbook Pro gets around 6 to 7 hours of battery life right now – which is absolutely amazing. To have a device that you can actually use for 10 hours is remarkable.
All this and I haven’t put so much as a thumb on the device yet. I can’t wait to get my hands all over this thing though I’m still not sure I’ll buy one.
I’m not sure iBooks are going to be very good, for the sole reason that backlit screens are uncomfortable to use for an extended period of time. If I want to read a book, I’d much rather use a device like the Kindle, where it’s a high resolution, e-ink display, rather than essentially staring into a light for a long time.
I’ll have to see what it’s like when I’ve got one in my hands.
That I can agree with (as I sit here squinting at your comment after a long day starting a this insanely bright screen).
But I still think I’d rather a book than a Kindle and an iPad than a Kindle. A book, because it is cheaper, practical, giftable, and so many other reasons. And an iPad because, well, it doesn’t just let you read text.
I stare at a backlit screen for 10-12 hours a day. It’s not that bad. I haven’t experienced eyestrain in a very long time, since even the CRTs I’ve owned weren’t total crap. But maybe I just have super-human vision.
Anyway, I look at the Kindle the way I look at Kitchen appliances with a single use. I’d never consider owning most of them, and the ones I would consider owning had better do that one thing really well—like so well that it makes any other way of doing it seem really cumbersome or somehow inferior by comparison.
I’d like to own a rice cooker because you get such a better result than on the stove. I do own a waffle iron because the waffles you get are so much better than Eggos, and there’s really no other way to make waffles.
I’d never consider owning an electric can opener, and unless every day was Thanksgiving, I’d probably never want an electric knife. Sure, those things do the job they’re intended to do, but not so much better that I’d consider buying them. That’s how I see the Kindle. Sure, it does its job, but not so well that I’d never consider buying another book again. Unless you’re only reading novels or the dictionary, it actually seems like a pretty poor replacement for a printed book. We loaded a copy of Science onto a Barnes & Noble nook as a PDF the other day and the experience was miserable. Pages are slow to turn and any page with images on it was basically readable. I don’t see that problem happening with the iPad. It’s got a huge color screen, it’s fast and responsive. I think it’s going to make a very good reader. And I don’t think Amazon is feeling too threatened because there’s already a Kindle app for the iPhone, which means there’s a Kindle app for the iPad. Amazon’s business is selling books, and this is going to sell more books. Everybody wins there.
I’m not surprised that they didn’t demo more apps, like a point of sale app. Everybody knows these things are possible and Apple’s goal with these things is to demonstrate the most amazing UI examples they can. Software-wise, I think this is great. I’m going to ignore the Chicken Little types who think Apple somehow owns your life if you buy their stuff. These are the same people who have hated Apple for decades. They’re just looking for new reasons. Most of the DRM on this thing is the result of the content-owners’ demands. DRM is gone for music, and I think Apple would like to see it go away for movies too, but the studios are fighting tooth and nail to keep it. I’m not sure if there’s protection on books, but you’re by no means obligated to buy your books from Apple. Buy from Amazon. Hell, buy a book, build a book scanner, scan them yourself, then load them on as PDFs. Nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything here, and nobody’s stopping people from getting any of this content anywhere else.
Apps are a different story. The App Store can be a real pain at times. It’s not ideal. But look at it this way: As secure as Mac OS X is, Apple is constantly fighting an uphill battle to keep it that way. With the iPhone OS and the App Store, they’ve made a tradeoff. It essentially boils down to, “We’ll keep you safe, but you have to play by our rules.†And guess what? So far, so good. If you’re not willing to make that tradeoff, buy something else.
I’ve got to wrap this up, so here are my biggest disappointments: No USB and no card reader built in. If this thing had those, it would be a real laptop replacement. Until then, it’s a peripheral. A really nice peripheral, sure, but still something that’s married to a “real†computer.
I think it looks great, and I can’t wait to try one out in a super-crowded Apple Store in 58 days. I won’t get one right away. I may not even get a first-generation model. I didn’t even buy an iPod until 2006 because they didn’t meet the criteria I wanted (color screen and 40 gigs, but I compromised and got the 30 since it was close enough). I can definitely see myself getting one of these at some point.
OK, I’m cutting myself off. You can have your site back now, Colin.
I suppose saying that I was surprised by this may not have been the best way to describe my feelings. Disappointed perhaps. I would have liked to have seen a few more applications that have already been ported over from an iPhone to the iPad. The Facebook application would have made good sense (it is a fantastic application) but since Joe Hewitt no longer develops it perhaps they lost interest. OK, I’ll say this, I would have liked to have seen more third party applications that weren’t just games.
I believe there is a card reader accessory? I don’t have a lot of desire for this since I have a 6-in-one USB card reader. My Macbook Pro has an SD-card reader but I don’t have any cameras (yet) that use that format. I’m still stuck with Compact Flash.
Eliza asked, almost immediately, “can you dump your photos on it?”. So I can assume that a lot of people would like to have the iPad for vacations/travel on-the-go photo dumpers.
I’m with you on more-than-likely not owning the first generation of the iPad. However, come 60 days from now I think the software that we saw at the announcement will be pretty well improved and so it might be already thought of as ‘the next version’. We’ll see. I want my hands on one before I formulate any more of an opinion than I already have.
A few more thoughts:
The SD card adapter is better than nothing, but a shitty solution. It severely kills the simplicity of the whole affair. And—I could be wrong—but I bet we’re going to find out that all it’s good for is moving photos into the Photos app. We’ll see.
If AT&T would ever allow tethering, I wouldn’t even have to consider the Wi-fi model. I never go anywhere without my iPhone; I could just tether to that for the same effect.
I agree that Facebook would have been a nice app to demo. It might not be terribly exciting, but it would grab attention. I think they just had to be really selective about who got their hands on it (I seem to recall that Apple brings devs to Cupertino to work on new apps whenever they do one of these “look at what a friggin’ awesome app you can make in two weeks” demos).
The lack of Flash: Seriously, these people need to get over it. It’s not happening. Apple is actively trying to kill Flash, and now Google/YouTube are helping with the new HTML5 player. Vimeo has their HTML5 player. Hopefully Viddler’s working on the same. Hulu is apparently working on an iPhone app.
That leaves shitty web sites for sci-fi movies, ads, and games as what you’ll need Flash for. The iPhone has games covered, there’s a compiler to build games in Flash for the iPhone.
So bad web sites and ads. That’s what you’ll need Flash for.
OK, now back to me: For a while, I had a real urge to buy a Dell mini and Hackintosh it. I held out because we all knew the iPad was coming. I didn’t want one because I wanted to recreate my desktop experience exactly, because a netbook just can’t cut it, and I don’t necessarily need it to. But it can do some things better than an iPhone. A netbook is definitely a more full-featured travel companion than an iPhone. It’s faster and can do movies much better, and it’s got more full-featured versions of a lot of applications. The iPad fills the same need, but throws in a superior reading and web browsing experience, in addition to everything the app store offers, for not much more money. I don’t think it’s perfect, but when I compare it to a netbook, it does everything I want with what looks like a better experience.
As for the one other thing that hurts about the iPad: No multitasking. I see people dismissing this entirely, which is silly. I don’t want multitasking so I can switch between apps faster. By all accounts, it’s plenty fast. But just the other day, I was listening to the NPR app on the bus, and I decided to check Facebook. Can’t do it! You have to admit that that’s kind of silly.
I think Apple will eventually feel the pressure from Android and WebOS and implement the ability for apps to run in the background, but I don’t think a the upgrade from OS 3.1 to 3.2 is going to make it happen. So I’m disappointed, but not surprised. I think we’ll see it in 4.0, and no sooner. I think Apple is taking their time, to find the absolute best way to make it happen, like they did with Copy and Paste. Right now, we’re all saying, “what’s to figure out, why don’t they just freakin’ do it??”, but this is Apple. They do what they want, when they want, and they do all of it for a reason. They don’t feel the need to justify their apparent whims to the peasantry. When it finally comes, we’ll all agree that it was long overdue, but they got it right. Whatever that means.
Somebody put a filter on me already!