Yesterday saw world-plus-dog in the technology sector glued to Apple’s announcement of their new tablet device, which has now been officially dubbed the iPad. Basically, when you boil it down it’s a super-sized iPod Touch with optional 3G support and a few more apps.
Reaction has ranged, as usual, from the ecstatic “I’ve seen the face of God, and his name is Steve”, to “What a useless piece of junk”, stopping at most points in between. In the more negative camp, lots of talk has centred around what it doesn’t have (multitasking, a camera, a USB port, Flash), and that some people seem to find it hard to grasp the usage conditions of a device that neither fits in your pocket, nor does everything a laptop does.
Personally, I’m cautiously optimistic. The device was never supposed to be a phone or a laptop, so I’m curious why people are comparing it to one – the point is that it’s something else. I can actually think of multiple use cases where a device of this form factor and capability would be useful to me. Here are a few examples:
- I’ve thought about buying an eReader before, but have always been completely unsatisfied with the existing solutions: current e-ink devices are fine for reading black and white novels, but don’t handle A4 formatted content at all well, can’t do colour, take far too long to flip through pages, and are basically unusable for keyboard input, making searching impractical – and therefore these devices do not satisfy my need for a reader that replaces my bookshelf (physical and virtual) of reference material at all. The iPad, however, looks like it would be able to do that much better.
- Sometimes I’m in the living room or kitchen and I’d just like to look something up on the web; maybe check some news or look up a recipe maybe – just a 5-10 minute thing. Firing up the laptop just for this is overkill, but the pages are too small to really read properly on a phone. In the end I do one of these things anyway but it’s never ideal. Again a tablet form factor would be perfect for this.
- When we’re showing photos to family and friends, these days we do it on a laptop because we never print anything. It’s not ideal, even the most elegantly built laptop requires everyone to crowd around the screen behind you or similar – it’s awkward. If I had a tablet to do it, one I can easily hold up and pass around, that would work much better.
- When I’m in a social situation when it would be useful to have intermittent access to some documents or other information that’s too big to fit on a phone screen comfortably, currently you need a laptop to do it. Laptops are really, really unsociable to have out on a table with others around (say at a meeting), because of the way they need to be used, with a screen forming a psychological barrier between you and whoever else is on the opposite side of the table. This happens all over the place: I strongly feel that laptops are the scourge of coffee shops today, turning a social space into a cluster of virtual mini-cubicles with individuals hunched behind screens not talking to anyone. I also play pen-and-paper RPGs socially, and over the years I’ve tried to use a laptop with many highly useful applications as an accessory, and it’s never, ever worked. Even the smaller laptops are too obtrusive, but a phone is just too small to be useful. I’d love to try using an iPad with some dedicated apps for tracking things.
I’m sure there are other examples. Basically I think people need to get over the fact that it doesn’t improve on what they currently use their phone or laptop for – that’s really not the point. I see the iPad as a ‘gap filler’ – and I can certainly see some gaps for it to fill in my life.
The price is much better than expected too, mostly because it’s an upgrade of an iPod rather than a downgrade of a laptop. I’d skip the 3G option because it’s pointless for me, I’d only use it on wifi, so that makes it not that much more expensive than a top-end iPod Touch.
But, it’s not all roses. The lack of Flash is an issue for web compatibility, although at least video through HTML5 is starting to happen (YouTube added it recently). The lack of multitasking is a bit disappointing, but might be relaxed in an OS update later. The GPU capabilities are a bit unexplored online so far, it seems that it’s probably as powerful as an iPhone 3G, but falling short of the 3GS (so GLES 1.1). I’ve also heard today that iBooks might not be available in non-US countries at launch, which definitely undermines the offering as an eReader.
So, depending on the practicalities when it’s released over here, I may or may not grab one. I can definitely see places in my life where a not-a-phone-or-laptop device would be useful, and frankly, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of where this kind of device may go in future.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Agree with your 4 case usages. Add on-the-road (or on-the-sofa) typing and sketching.
I’m surprised that there’s been so little “and-this-is-how-its-used” content in the presentation. Just carried-over iPhone content, more or less. What about multi-finger sensitivity (digital keyboard) or the resolution of a wacom-like sketch application?
January 28th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Totally agree.
Also it will allow people that are not currently comfortable with computer technology to gain access to the web. I can imagine that they are going to call it the “internet” instead of “ipad”. :p
January 28th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Steve, I agree on all of your points about the various eReaders. I’ve tried the Kindle and Sony’s eReader and neither of them really worked. I read a lot of digital books and I would happily pay the price for an iPad to carry around my house to read on the couch comfortably etc.
I too get annoyed when going into a meeting and everyone is sitting behind their laptop.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
1. The whole World develops INK-Displays for reading eBooks.
Now Apple commes up and says: Hey you can read eBooks also with common IPS Panels.
äek?
I don’t understand. I thought normal TFT Panels are too bright for reading and damaging the Eyes.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Yep, but e-ink also totally sucks for doing anything except static text. Using current e-Readers feels like operating a calculator from 1985.
I read text on a monitor for 8+ hours a day anyway so I’m relaxed about eye strain. Until e-ink can stop sucking so bad at refresh times and lack of colour, I’m happier with a display that can do more.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
There are rumors all over place … one article claims iPad is using ARM Mali 55 GLES 1.x style GPU.
Kooking at their beta SDK , it cannot be GLES 1.x since the SDK clearly mentions GLES 2.0.
Wikipedia on the other hand claims it is like some version of SGX 54x which would make it at least 2 times as powerful as the 3gs.
I guess we gonna have to wait …
January 28th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
I hope that epaper will get a lot more useful very quick.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/17/bridgestones-13-inch-color-e-paper-display-handles-pen-input-h/
January 28th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Seems to me that this would be much better as an ereader if it had a Pixel Qi display.
Something where the backlight can be turned off to save energy and ease the eyes.
January 28th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
I expect that will come in version 2 or 3 of the device, assuming it catches on. Pixel Qi’s screens are impressive compared to e-Readers, but they’re not good enough in backlit mode for an Apple showcase product yet – in backlit mode (required for video) they lose colour definition faster at angles compared to normal LCDs, so I expect Apple thought they couldn’t settle for that since video and gaming are front and centre.
If Pixel Qi continues to get better it’ll be more likely I think; I’m sure Apple are aware of them. Right now they beat e-ink hands down for reading, but not regular LCDs for everything else.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Only thing I wanna know is when can I start playing Torchlight on it?
January 28th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Just discovered Pixel Qi screens today. Wow! : ) Bet Kindle 3 uses one…
Off topic, Steve, you get this plugin to make images align correctly in your feed: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/align-rss-images/
January 29th, 2010 at 7:56 am
I really want a tablet but I’m not sure the iPad is the one I’ll get. MSI has also a hot contenter in the pipeline with Android and a Tegra chipset. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100128PD214.html
I think its better to wait and see.
January 29th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
@stefan: Maybe it’s just a poor photo, but the MSI screen does not look good.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Hopefully, growing popularity of light-weight color e-reader devices will encourage book publishers to include more color content. (Note: A color multi-touch Kindle is rumored to be in the works: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/technology/04amazon.html)
Perhaps some past popular books might be spruced up with color photos, illustrations, charts, diagrams, etc, and re-released in color e-book form. Sort of like colorizing some old movies, but without botching it up we hope.
I would also love to receive all my magazines on a light-weight color e-reader. Indexing and searching them would be splendid as well. Am I asking too much of the paltry storage? Perhaps.