Okay Geek Farm
Apple iPad Review and Demo
Brandon Davenport
The iPad has been the most exciting gadget of 2010 - and it has every right to be. It has snappy software, sleek, clean hardware and a rapidly growing App store. It seems this is the next hot item for every urban hipster who has some cash to throw around, and the modern yuppie. The real question is, how does this device stack up in the opinion of the average Joe and the tech enthusiast - Review after the break!
iPad video Review and Demo
So what is the iPad?
Most of you, I am sure have used an iPhone or iPod touch, or have seen an iPad in action and you have a pretty good idea of what this thing is, but what about the experience as a whole? Sure, it’s going to be a great success with the public, and be the best current tablet to own, but what is the iPad?
When Steve Jobs walked out on stage and whipped out it out (not literally, y’know what I mean) everyone was taken aback. It was like the iPhone all over again. When you saw Steve up there in his Wal-Mart jeans and turtle neck, he wasn’t selling you a product, nor a physical device. No, he is trying to sell you an experience, an emotion. And that is why we get so excited over new Apple products.
To Apple it’s not just specs, prices, and goodies; to them it’s all about what the iPad makes people feel. It’s interesting how they always have people in their product promo videos and more interesting than that, you see the people more than the product - and the people talk more about the “feeling” and “experience” you will have with their device, rather than sell the actual product. I now understand this because as soon as I started using the iPad I no longer cared if I was holding a piece of aluminium - my eyes were locked onto the screen and my mind was wondering, “what can I do now?”
Using the iPad for the first Time
Info about this video
This was a fun social experiment I did on some members of my family, and I did it to see whether the iPad truly was this magical device when first experienced. None of these people have ever used the iPad and I found it interesting that all of them seem to take to it so naturally, including my sister who has never used such a device.
Software
The Software and OS
If you have used an iPhone, you will be perfectly at home on the iPad, and that is one of the main reasons they did not use Mac OS X. The iPhone OS is a much more user friendly mobile experience, and it also provides an easy learning curve for newbies. The home screen, settings pane, app store, iTunes store, Safari, and other default apps are curiously familiar, and are instantly usable.
And even if you’ve never touched an iPhone before, the iPad is a pretty easy device to latch on to and to start using. Heck, even my sister, who’s never used an iPhone for more than 5 min, was able to start using the iPad almost instantly without any major frustrations, all thanks to the software.
Default apps
The iPod app - is a more compact and minimized version of iTunes for the desktop, which is a plus but the interface can seem a tad cluttered at times, and the lack of zoom functionality while viewing music in Album mode is a little disappointing - it would’ve been nice to see your album art nice and big, especially with the huge realty space you have with the screen. But the overall functionality is really fluent and stays true to the natural feel of the iPhone and iPod Touch, just bigger.
The Photos app - is a real shining point on the iPad because it provides an uncompromising tactile feel, and the ability to wiggle, swipe and pinch photos like never before. The user interface is very clean and minimalistic, and the navigation is just a few buttons up top and a series of gestures that you perform with your fingers. There is the ability to view slideshows, set wallpapers, and also email photos.
Safari browser - is a big deal on the iPad because this is where the iPad fits into everyone’s life, browsing the web away from your computer at a park somewhere with a coffee. It’s quite a snappy experience, and the scrolling, pinching, and navigation is super fast and responsive. Web page loading times are somewhat faster than the iPhone, but the fact that you can only have 9 websites open at once is a drag (the iPhone’s limit is 8). Overall, it’s one of the best mobile browsers you can use, and paired with the iPad’s hardware and gesture features make it almost perfect.
The Calendar - is a very clean and crisp way to manage your appointments and events. It’s really convenient to turn the iPad horizontally and view a list of events, along with a mini calendar, the date and a bottom bar which you can scrub to find any day you need. It provides a day, week, month, and list view to help you find and organize your stuff. It looks great and is probably the most well made and complete app on the iPad.
The Mail app - is a really unique take on email. You can hold it in portrait mode to view just your email, but hold it in landscape mode to get your email plus a sliding list of your other emails and inboxes. It seems like a nice little way to manage your mail, and the implementation of better ways to manage, share, and reply to email is a nice improvement. It’s great if you have one email account, but not so hot when you have multiple email inboxes and need to go back and forth from inbox to inbox.
The Videos app - is really simple and easy to use, and provides a nice interface much similar to the photos app. The navigation is intuitive and the information it provides for each video (like size, format, and time) is a necessity, and can get in the way in most cases, but is implemented well on the iPad. Watching video is a pleasurable experience, and being able to zoom in slightly on the video is cool because it provides a filled screen, with no noticeable loss in quality.
The Maps app - is a really slick port from the iPhone, but to me feels a bit bland. It consists of a grey menu bar at the top and a map. Yeah, sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it? Even though it’s not the fanciest app, or the best looking, it sure is fast as hell! Scrolling, zooming, and pinching is as snappy as photos, and you can even peel up the corner to toggle some settings like terrain, roads, and dropping pins.
The Youtube app - is better than the site itself. I am sorry Youtube, but Apple did a better job designing your site than you did. This app is near perfect and it seamlessly integrates into websites, making it able to view Youtube videos directly within the Safari browser. The app itself is clean, sleek, and considerably faster than its iPhone counterpart. Watching videos is smooth, and the addition of commenting, sharing, and rating is seamless and easy.
The Settings app - It’s exactly the same as the iPhone, but with the compelling addition of being able to see the settings you are tweaking like normal, but to the left is the main control area where all the different setting categories are. Nice touch.
The OS and UI - are identical to the iPhone and you will instantly attach to it. The home screen has nothing new besides a new glassier dock, and wallpaper, and the search function is just as useful as before. As usual, the user interface elements are perfect and the snappiness of the OS will win you over. There are some downsides though, unfortunately:
There is no folder view, or “Finder” equivalent, and the lack of using two apps at once (side by side) was a hope of mine, but it never came to be true. The upcoming arrival of the iPhone OS 4, which will bring multitasking and folders, will make this OS 100% better.
Hardware
iPad hardware Review
Although this is a new device it is still made up of old ideas, (mostly hardware) and it’s not that exciting, but it doesn’t have to be because it works. It’s a new device that is not “extreme” or “revolutionary” but it is going to work and it is probably going to go down in history as being one of Apples breakthrough devices, recycling old ideas until they became refined to the point of being perfect (well, almost perfect. I’m looking at you missing USB port). It’s not always about making a revolutionary device; it’s about making a device that revolutionizes the market. And I can dig that.
Processor - 1GHz Apple “A4” chip
via | Toms Hardware
Apple didn’t buy P.A. Semiconductor for nothing. First, the A4 runs at a 1GHz frequency, which by mobile CPU standards, is quite high. Considering that Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon powers Google’s Nexus One, the Apple A4 could power the next wave of super-smartphones. In fact, at its current spec and frequency, the Apple A4 can play back HD video for 10 hours before requiring a full battery charge.
Screen - 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen LED
Everyone was speculating that it would be a 10 inch screen, but it was not, it was 9.7 inches, huzzah! Also it features a cool technology which is an “oleophobic coating” meant to protect your beloved iPad from your sticky jelly hands, but I found that fingerprints latch all over the iPad, but they weren’t all that visible when using it. Also it is at a very acceptable resolution of 1024-by-768-pixels and is at a unique 132 pixels per inch, which means easier reading because there is more detail per inch. The standard monitor is about 96ppi, made for a pleasurable viewing experience.
Wireless Connectivity - Bluetooth, Wireless and 3G
It has the standard iStuff like Bluetooth and WiFi (3G models coming soon), but did you know it had Assisted GPS and a Digital compass? This thing is really staying true to Apple’s way of taking a very intricate, complicated device and totally re-inventing it for humans. As for 3G it features an AT&T (boo!) cancel at anytime (yay!) data plan designed specifically for the iPad. The pricing for that will be $14.99 - 250MB plan, $29.99 - Unlimited plan, Free use of At&t WiFi hotspots, which is a reasonable pricing pricing model.
As for Bluetooth and WiFi, there is really nothing new, but the Bluetooth features EDR technology, allowing full backwards comparability with Bluetooth 1.2. Interesting enough, the 3G will support UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) as well as GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz). So there may be future plans to announce more carriers.
Sensors and Gizmos - It’s science!
Of course there is going to be tons of sensors and trinkets for you to not understand what the hell they do, but you’ll love them because it’s oh so high tech and Apple-ish — here’s what you need to know about all the sensors and Gizmos in the iPad.
The good ‘ol accelerometer that has been in the iPhone since day one is now in the iPad, and if you don’t quite know what it does, it’s the thingy that lets the iPad know when to rotate the screen when you flip it between landscape and portrait modes — Read more
The iPad also features an ambient light sensor (also present in the iPhone) for the main reason of controlling the brightness and contrast of your screen according to the amount of ambient light in your location. It could also be used for other things, but we don’t know what that is. — Read More
The Digital Compass is back and it’s “better then ever”, and it should be considering it’s on a screen the size of your dinner plate. The compass has another technical name, the “Magnetometer” (badass) and it is also used in the iPhone — Read More
Size and weight - Small, Solid and light
When the iPad wasn’t even out we were guessing all this stuff, and we guessed pretty well on what the physical size of the tablet was going to be. It’s just the right size to tote around the urban jungle, rest it on your thigh to read a book, but its still too big to fit in your pocket, unless you are a dragon who wares pants. I did find it hard to find a way to hold it in a comfortable sitting position, but the most awkward part was typing. The keyboard was nice, and it felt sort of weird, but after a while, I got quite used to it and became a pro.
Height — 9.56 inches (242.8 mm) Width — 7.47 inches (189.7 mm) Depth — 0.5 inch (13.4 mm) Weight — 1.5 pounds (.68 kg) Wi-Fi model - 1.6 pounds (.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model
Keyboard
Ahhh, the second most important part of the iPad, and Apple did the best job they could, quite simply. It’s about as natural as seeing Mr. Jobs playing with a kitten. It is probably the most awkward typing experience of my life, and not being able to find a good position to hold the iPad does not help at all. I really hope it has some sort of learning curve because it does not feel natural at all, but maybe it does not need to be.
The moment I extended my nerdy fingers onto the iPad keyboard, I decided to not worry about mis-types or hiccups - I wanted to see what this Keyboard was made of - so I went to bang off a one paragraph pointless rant, consisting of “testing the iPad keyboard, seems good, but it’s a little (blah blah blah)” and you know what? I’ll tell you what. To my disbelief, and as unnatural as it felt, I got almost every word spot on and I managed to make a readable paragraph.
So is the iPad keyboard good? If you are talking about being ergonomic, and user friendly, not at all. It has misplaced keys and no tactile feedback, but if you are talking about being accurate, which seems completely impossible, it is a good keyboard - not one I would write a blog post on, but maybe a lengthy email to grandma on how to get the phones to stop making that “buzz” noise. All in all, an unpleasant, but accurate, and efficient keyboard.
Final verdict
This is one of the most personal devices on the market today, and having it is one of the biggest, most affordable (for what you get) luxury’s on the market. This is the ultimate consumption, exploration and social networking device, along with it being an iPod, App fiend, and book reader extraordinaire. It is the most user friendly mobile platform on the market, more so than the iPhone, and it is the epitome of what a tablet should be, but it ends there. Although this is one of the best “devices” I have ever used, it is never going to be a device, even remotely necessary, in any household.
This is a pure, un-needed blessing that has brought the tablet market to life. What sets the iPad apart from other slates, or tablets is the walled garden of Apple. It has a closed platform, and its own native OS - everything is self contained into one unified experience. Some find this repulsing, but they do so because of the fact that they want a tablet. A tablet is a laptop, without the keyboard, simple as that. The iPad is much less, but that is what makes it so unique and easy to use. It does a fair bit, admitedly less than comparable tablets, but what it does, it does almost perfectly.
The Good
Unbelievably easy to use interface, and seamless consistency throughout all apps, create a welcoming and unified experience. The simplicity of hardware is a blessing in disguise because it provides a sense of relaxation, and the limited amount of ports, dongles, and gizmos provides a sense of “simple”. The screen is drop dead gorgeous, and the aspect ratio is perfect for both landscape and portrait use. The online stores are amazing and the connectivity via WiFi.
The Bad
It is initially pretty difficult to get comfortable with in terms of knowing how to hold it. It has a good weight to it, and along with being a tad slippery makes it a tad prone to dropping. The screen is a fingerprint magnet, but I saw no visible fingerprints when I was using the device (looking at photos, and the web). Multitasking is coming, but not until the fall, so that is a big downside (at the moment). Also, the lack of multi user support (multiple logins).
Should you purchase one?
I am going to say yes, but on two conditions - if it’s going to be mainly one person using it, and if you already have a laptop or at least a PC. The thing is, though, that people who want a tablet, running a full OS and with all the gizmos and do-dads of a laptop, will be disappointed in what the iPad offers. So in that respect, it’s not for everyone. In the end, if you need a device for doing the things you do on your iPhone (and more) with a much bigger screen, snappier gestures, and a more intuitive interface, and an Apple logo on it, this is the toy for you.
More Info on the iPad
Read more - In-Depth hardware
Read more - What sucks about the iPad
Read more - HP Slate vs iPad
Read more - iPad, Will it Blend?
