Nightwish & Tech Addict!
27 Jan
Today, Apple announced the Apple iPad. This is their version of a tablet PC. It’s meant to be small, portable and be a mixture of an iPhone and a Mac. Some of the features announced make it seem like it. Let’s take a look.
Steve Jobs described in great detail about the Apple iPad’s media functionalities. First of all, iTunes is built into it. This allows you to listen to music and watch videos, just like on an iPhone. It may not be the best purchase if you’re JUST interested into listening to music, because obviously the iPad is much larger than the iPhone. However, the iPad’s huge touch screen makes it much better for watching videos on. Also, one of Apple’s aims is to make people purchase digital books. They have deals set up with most major book publishers to try and get users to purchase books from them and then read it on the iPad. This is the same with newspapers. They want users to read it digitally – Which is a great idea.
Like with the iPhone, the iPad also has YouTube built in, as well as Maps. Both of these look much better on the iPad – You can now even watch YouTube in HD! One of the downsides is that the internet browser STILL doesn’t have flash installed. For a “portable computer”, flash definitely should be included.
Now let’s look at some of the hardware aspects of the iPad. It’s very thin – 0.5 inches in thickness. It weighs 5 pounds and has a large 9.7 inch display. Amazingly, Apple has made their own processor chip just for this iPad – And it runs at 1GHz. Again, considering the iPhone has a 667MHz processor, this should have been much better in order to provide a quick user experience. The disk space options on offer vary from 16GB to 64GB, depending on how many files you’ll need to be storing.
The iPad also has WiFi built in. This is something you would expect – But what most users want is 3G networking, which allows you to browse the web wherever you are. They do offer this, but you have to purchase a separate model for this – Which costs more! This feature should be provided in all models for free.
What some news channels have been reporting is that this iPad may be competitive in the gaming market. Portable games consoles such as the DSi and the PSP may be good consoles, but the iPad has the advantage of having a much larger screen, better touch screen capabilites and a huge user base which can produce games for much lower prices. If the iPad is capable of handling higher-quality games, then this certainly could be a key player to watch out for.
One of the final things we’ll look at with the Apple iPad is the battery life. The average battery life is 10 hours whilst the battery life on standby mode is approximately a month. I believe that they’ve cut some important features out to save battery life – For example, lack of flash support as well as only being able to run one application at a time. You cannot open, eg, mail and the internet browser up at once.
And now it comes down to the price. If you don’t want 3G networking, then the price of the Apple iPad is $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. If you want 3G networking, it costs $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. The pricing is quite reasonable considering most tech websites were claiming it would be priced at $999.
In conclusion, the Apple iPad is very, very similar to an iPhone. However, it’s obviously much bigger and can be used to provide much better experiences with watching videos and reading books – As well as playing games. If these are the tasks you’ll be wanting to do, then this may be a good purchase for you.
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8 Responses for "Apple iPad"
I’ve just watched the Apple presentation and I’m not entirely convinced that this will be a massive hit. I think it’s a device that not many of us really need and that’s one of the reasons that such devices have never really taken off in the past. Despite this, I’m sure that if anyone can turn it into a success then Apple can. The price didn’t seen too bad though, but I think this is probably down to the lack of a proper MacBook type OS on the machine rather than what appears to be a cut down version.
Not having the proper desktop OS, no-multitasking and no USB is a bit of a dissappointment for me. For my business – photography – I could see it as being perfect for presenting portfolios and galleries. I guess I was hoping for something more akin to the macbook I suppose that is still a year or so down the line.
I think the iPad is overpriced for what it is. The basic model at $500 is way too much – I can get a full featured laptop for that price. The “cool factor” is not enough to justify a lack of features for that price. I’ll be waiting for the iPad version 2 for sure.
@Sam: I’ll agree with you there, the ipad is way over-priced. It’s a new gadget and i’m sure a lot of people will buy it anyway, just because of the Apple brand.
Hopefully the second-gen ipad will be more affordable. ..and have a camera built-in.
More apple ipad information is always welcome super
I think Sam is right that the iPad is overpriced. It will sell as its from Apple but the value concious consumer would not buy it – why would they when a higher-specification standard laptop is a cheaper option. The lack of a ‘real’ keyboard will put a lot of people off.
I agree with Chris and Sam. The iPad is overprice and under-featured. Although it is remarkable, the iPad is worth waiting for a 2nd or a 4th generation model. We all know that they’ll be out within the next month or so… Additionally, I hadn’t thought of the benefits it may provide for someone in John’s profession. It is a neat gadget, but it isn’t necessary. Really except for the “cool factor” there isn’t any must have characteristic to it.
the ipad has a price and it might be over priced but with under 2 million units sold so far i cant see the price being a problem with folk