The last entry was written with an iPad at an Apple store (actually at a "Mac store"), it was my first hands-on experience with an iPad. This entry is being written from an iPad as well, but this one isn't borrowed! The iPad has lived up to all I said it would in my Feb 4, 2010 entry, and so much more! The detractors are conspicuously absent nowadays with so many Android-toting iPad knockoffs.
But that is all they are: knockoffs.
They're trying to do what 'the competition' did with the iPod and the iMac before it; they're making a copy, and adding functions Apple left out. I think it'd be safe to bet that ol' Jobsy didn't just 'forget' to implement those features. The iMac shipped without a floppy drive, so the knockoffs decided that they would one-up Apple and add one. Shortly thereafter the floppy died a quick death. With the iPod the competition decided that what the iPod was missing was buttons, a lot of them, and an am/fm radio, a voice recorder and more at the expense of the user experience. Lo' and behold, the only real competition to the iPod classic, to this day, is the iPod touch; neither of which have more buttons than the original iPod had in 2001. I don't care who you are, if you can design something that is so useful and simple that ten years later it doesn't feel dated or clunky, you're doing something amazing. If you can do that in the tech industry, you're way ahead of the guy who's ahead of the curve; you're designing the curve and deciding where it goes.
Back to my point; the many 'improvements' of the current generation of Android tablets. They've taken a look at a few of the areas lacking in the iPad 1.0; cameras, SD card reader (built in), and so called true multitasking, to name a few.
The lack of cameras may be a good point, but before the addition of Facetime on the iPhone, iPod touch and Mac OS, video chat was relegated to purely a desktop experience. Not to say that there were no mobile video chat options, but nothing on the scale the current iPhone enjoys. Having a tablet with the ability to do video chat is great, but if the only people you can talk to are on that device, and it hasn't sold a few million units, your use of the feature is going to be limited. There are more and more Android devices with front-facing cameras, but there is so much division among the Android OS versions, their compatibility with each other may become a concern.
I know, all of the devices can now run Skype and do video conferencing, so that pretty much makes all of my arguments null and void. Skype is great, and you can use it on Cell signal as well as WiFi, but what can I say, I just really like the way Facetime just works.
I know for a fact that I can use my iPod touch to call an iPhone with Facetime as easily as doing the same with a friend on his Mac or another iPod touch. It just works. When the iPad 2 comes out with it's front-facing camera, I know that there's a really good chance that out of the box I'll be able to use Facetime with it and all the aforementioned iOS and OSX devices.
The lack of an SD card reader has really never been an issue with my current iPad, and if it was, shelling out $29 for the adapter kit is no skin off my nose. The fact is, the only reason I'd use an SD card with my iPad is to edit and/or upload the occasional photo to Picasa or Flickr; I'm not going to archive all the photos on my iPad since I'm using 4-16GB per SD card and I don't see a reason to arbitrarily fill my iPad. And the occasional upload is not reason enough to sully the look of the device or build-in a reason to make the it that much more expensive.
Now, the issue of multitasking has all but been resolved on the iPad with the iOS 4.0 update: background apps can send push-notifications, complete tasks in the background or, in the case of Pandora and Safari, play audio while not active. With fast app switching the need for applications to continue to use resources is just asinine. The only real advantage to multitasking is to be able to have an application continue to crunch data while you do other things. That kind of work has no place on a tablet device. If I need to go back and forth between a few apps, say Safari (for an occasional Wikipedia fact-check), Pages to edit my blog entry and iTunes to change the current track, there is really no reason to have all three applications running constantly. The above scenario isn't just conjecture or a hypothetical situation, it's what's happening right now as I'm editing this entry on my iPad. I have suffered no inconvenience for the sake of "fake" multitasking, and I pose that almost all work done on a tablet can be done with little to no consideration for multitasking.
As far as the Android tablet is concerned, they're really not competing on a fair playing field as Apple has had decades of research into the iPad. I have no proof or real data to confirm my thoughts, but when you tear into an iPad (or let ifixit.com do it for you) you'll see technological refinement on the level of a 3rd or 4th generation piece of electronic hardware. I can only assume that Apple had been working on the iPad's hardware for many years and that only with the introduction and success of the iOS and it's interface could they release a device that lives up to Steve J's stringent level of perfection.
The best thing that can be said about the Android tablets is that they're almost close to comparable to what Apple did this time last year. Which is what they're competing with: Apple's old news.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
As seen on my old blog, Feb 4, 2010
When it comes to the iPad, most negative reviewers are retarded.
Every negative review I’ve seen has the reviewer looking at the device with nothing but preconceived notions of what a tablet computer should be, but those notions are based on decades of failed devices.
Every one of them thinks they know what the iPad “should” have been. Every one of them saying that the lack of an SD reader (built-in), the lack of USB, a camera, a desktop computer’s operating system and capacity for multitasking will be what dooms the device. Apparently all these things would save the iPad from iminent abject failure. They talk as if they’ve had the secret recipe for the perfect tablet computer this whole time and they’ve just been sitting back watching every tablet created fail.
Where were you guys BEFORE the iPad came out? Why don’t you work for Apple and show Steve how a real iPad is made? They see the device Apple will release and have nothing to say but “it sucks because…” I’m personally glad these people aren’t going to get it because I wouldn’t want to be associated with people who think like that.
They never fail to mention how much the device sucks because it can’t do multitasking, “I can’t listen to pandora as I answer email,” “I can’t do this while I do that…” does your iPod or iPhone suddenly swell to a size incapable of fitting into your pocket because your holding a tablet? How many things are you really going to be doing at once anyway? Though this has been the case for the iPod touch and iPhone for the past 3 years, they show no sign of dying.
Having no camera? That’s gonna kill it too? What, being able to video chat on a buss or while sitting in a hotel lobby is that important? If you’re really in need of a video conference, you’ll probably be using at or using desktop or laptop computer anyway! This thing isn’t designed to replace your full computers, or your phones. These detractors just don’t get that.
I’m going to get it, not just for what it can do right now, but for what it’s capable of. When I got my first iPod Touch, all it could do was surf the Internet, play music and movies, and organize my contacts. But there was potential there, and since then there have been thousands of applications made available. I can literally pull my iPod out of my pocket and level photo on the wall, convert currency and distances, play hundreds of games from solitaire to driving sims, and even write/edit/post blog entries (thank you Tumble, which I’m using for this very post!)
If you think that all the iPad will ever be able to do is what it can do on day one, you have no insight, no imagination, no hindsight, and no right to claim you know what this device should be capable of.
When they do get their hands on the device, every last one of them will be forced to not only eat crow, but their words as well. And “lack of multitasking” is going to be a tough one to chew on.
Every negative review I’ve seen has the reviewer looking at the device with nothing but preconceived notions of what a tablet computer should be, but those notions are based on decades of failed devices.
Every one of them thinks they know what the iPad “should” have been. Every one of them saying that the lack of an SD reader (built-in), the lack of USB, a camera, a desktop computer’s operating system and capacity for multitasking will be what dooms the device. Apparently all these things would save the iPad from iminent abject failure. They talk as if they’ve had the secret recipe for the perfect tablet computer this whole time and they’ve just been sitting back watching every tablet created fail.
Where were you guys BEFORE the iPad came out? Why don’t you work for Apple and show Steve how a real iPad is made? They see the device Apple will release and have nothing to say but “it sucks because…” I’m personally glad these people aren’t going to get it because I wouldn’t want to be associated with people who think like that.
They never fail to mention how much the device sucks because it can’t do multitasking, “I can’t listen to pandora as I answer email,” “I can’t do this while I do that…” does your iPod or iPhone suddenly swell to a size incapable of fitting into your pocket because your holding a tablet? How many things are you really going to be doing at once anyway? Though this has been the case for the iPod touch and iPhone for the past 3 years, they show no sign of dying.
Having no camera? That’s gonna kill it too? What, being able to video chat on a buss or while sitting in a hotel lobby is that important? If you’re really in need of a video conference, you’ll probably be using at or using desktop or laptop computer anyway! This thing isn’t designed to replace your full computers, or your phones. These detractors just don’t get that.
I’m going to get it, not just for what it can do right now, but for what it’s capable of. When I got my first iPod Touch, all it could do was surf the Internet, play music and movies, and organize my contacts. But there was potential there, and since then there have been thousands of applications made available. I can literally pull my iPod out of my pocket and level photo on the wall, convert currency and distances, play hundreds of games from solitaire to driving sims, and even write/edit/post blog entries (thank you Tumble, which I’m using for this very post!)
If you think that all the iPad will ever be able to do is what it can do on day one, you have no insight, no imagination, no hindsight, and no right to claim you know what this device should be capable of.
When they do get their hands on the device, every last one of them will be forced to not only eat crow, but their words as well. And “lack of multitasking” is going to be a tough one to chew on.
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