The day for Apple to reveal its next biggest and greatest has now come and gone, and in its wake we are left with a new device, labeled an iPad. Resembling (and so named by any other nomenclature) a tablet, the iPad is being heralded by Jobs et al as the solution to that vacuous expanse between smart phone and laptop.
Of course, there is a lot of marketing talk in between the user, the show, and the product, but there are a few things that really stand out in this new non-tablet computer. Presented in no specific order are 10 things that I like about the new iPad.
1. It is designed to NOT be a laptop replacement
The importance of this simple statement cannot be overstated. For the product to succeed both on the marketing front and for personal uses, it has to have a clear sense of identity and purpose. This is where, in my opinion, the Windows slates fell short. One problem is that the technology is not in place yet for a mouse, a stylus, or even finger touches to seriously replace a keyboard. For the mouse and stylus, it is simple to see why – you only have one pointer to move at a time. With a keyboard, your fingers can move to the next key simultaneously. As a laptop replacement it will not suffice.
But as an accessory, it fits. You are not going to write a book on it (at least not without a dock), but you can browse the web, answer short emails, and watch movies. While a Windows tablet (which I do own and love using) was showing us how a stylus could do the job, the iPad is showing us why it does not need to.
2. Great battery life
According to the latest technical data, the iPad is going to run for about 10 hours between charges. You can believe that the mileage will vary depending on how it is used. However, if it gets somewhere close to that in real world applications, you will find people getting cozy with it in a wide variety of uses.
The battery life is apparently due to a custom 1 GHz Apple processor dubbed the A4, among other things. This custom approach might just give the iPad the upper hand among other tablets of a similar size.
3. Open 3G connectivity
The iPad is supposed to give you an optional $130 3G connection without signing a contract. The way it works is this – you sign up for the month directly from the device itself. So, you can potentially only buy data for the times you need it, say vacation or occasional business trips. Monthly rates will not give you sticker shock, with $15 for 250 mb and $30 for unlimited.
4. Included on board hardware
Like the iPhone 3GS, the iPad incorporates a GPS, a Compass, and an accelerometer. This lets you navigate, experience Virtual Reality, and play games on the device without the need for additional hardware. You can use the iPad in a lot of different ways thanks to this hardware.
In fact, it lets developers design new uses for the iPad, so it is a product that will actually do more as time goes by. Tablets of the past were, well, busy trying to be a laptop replacement.
5. Media Centric Design
The iPad is designed around a rich media experience. From audio and video to even ebooks and the web, the device presents varying media to the user in an interactive interface designed to be hands on. The iPad wraps your media, as it were.
6. Great Form Factor
The roughly 10” iPad presents a 9.7 inch LED backlit display in a 1/2 inch thick package. While it does weigh in at about 1.5 pounds, the ability to run for as long as it does at this weight is not a bad tradeoff at all.
I may have mentioned owning Windows Tablets. One of my favorites is the HP TC1100, and it falls roughly into this size. I have to tell you, this is a great fit for reading many different pages of material comfortably (PDFs, ebooks, even comic books) while remaining easily transportable.
7. Compatibility with an existing touch friendly software base
If the iPad was Mac compatible, then yes your favorite mac applications could find a home. However, those applications are not designed for a finger. Instead they are designed for a mouse and keyboard, and you would end up spending all you time tapping out on virtual keys, wishing for a keyboard. The iPad would inadvertently be assigned as a laptop replacement, and it would fail.
Instead it has inherited an expansive catalog of applications designed to be both mobile and finger friendly. The iPad keeps its identity in check, and has fun doing so.
8. The price is right – for now.
The iPad had to be under $1000 to even be considered a potential for the market, and around $500 would bring it in line with a lot of other similar hardware. The iPad reaches this number comfortably by having a tiered pricing model. The iPad starts out at $499 for a 16 GB Wifi Model, and goes up to $699 for a 64 GB version. If you want the optional 3G ability, it will cost you an additional $130 dollars. You can pick and choose what you want to spend, but it does fit into an existing market price.
9. Included and optionally affordable Apple software
The iPad features a lot of included software that gets you up and going moments out of the box. The new version of iPhoto gives you a virtual pile of pictures to interact with. The mail program is full featured for most users, and the new iBooks gives users a virtual bookshelf to keep and read their favorite ebook titles.
On top of that, Apple has created versions of their iWork Titles – Keynote, Pages, and Numbers – to work specifically with the iPad. The finger friendly versions sell for $10 each, making it an affordable alternative to those who have a little more serious use for the device.
10. Developer Support
Although technically it is not a feature of the tablet itself, Apple appears to be going out long to get developers to rally around the product. Outside of having a clear identity of what the product is in the computing biosphere, developer support pushing out new and exciting titles is the most important aspect to determine the longevity and success of the iPad. Apple knows this, and the success of the “There’s an app for that” marketing campaign works because it does define exactly what you can do with a given device.
These are my 10 favorite things about the iPad. While there are several things where the iPad comes up short (no video camera?), I believe that Apple is off on a good start for a new product. The ink is not dry enough yet to see if the many publisher contracts will catapult the device to fame as a book reader, but a clear sense of identity and lots of applications is paramount to the device’s success. So far, it has that.
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