Okay Steve; you roped us in — again. We were tablet skeptics, still wish it ran a version of Mac OS X, though we can’t deny that this thing is extremely cool, and the availability of an optional iPad Keyboard Dock with a full-size traditional external keyboard eliminates one of our strongest objections to a touchscreen device. Of course the unexpectedly low price of entry at 500 bucks helps too. Helps a lot. Incidentally, it was great to see Steve Jobs on stage again at Apple product introduction, looking thin but otherwise in seemingly fine form, hyping the latest Apple innovation.
Frankly, we were of a mind that this thing was going to bomb big time if the price was, as some speculated, going to be in the $1000 range. The $829 top-of-the-line 64 GB model with 3G support is getting into that ballpark, but we're pretty sure we can content ourselves with one of the lower-priced models. More storage capacity than 16 GB would be welcome, but with the paucity of production applications and likely relatively small file sizes, that may be adequate for someone who won’t be loading it up with music and movie files. But those files do take up space - spring for one of the models with more storage if you plan on using much in the way of video, music, or photos.
It’s not all sweetness and light of course. There is no camera; if you want to connect much of anything using the 30-pin dock connector, such as a USB port dubbed “Camera Connection Kit” (which as the name suggests reportedly only works for importing photos) or an SD card reader, you’re going to have to buy and then keep track of tedious dongle adapters. There’s no HDMI output even optionally, so you’re pretty much stuck with VGA via a dongle or watching video on the iPad’s own screen. The technical specifications are mute on the topic of whether there will be drivers to support external Bluetooth mice. We're inclined to think that the absence of mention means there likely isn’t, at least so far, which means there is no precision pointing device, and even when using an external keyboard with the iPad mounted on its optional dock, there will still be the necessity of navigating and clicking using the touchscreen interface, which is tedious at best and will be really inconvenient for folks who like to sit well back from the screen.
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Dimensions-wise, the iPad is probably close to an ideal compromise, just half an inch thick and weighing 1.5 pounds, which makes it thinner and lighter than any laptop or notebook. It’s also smaller in footprint than any of Apple’s laptop computers. In terms of hardware specifications iPad has a 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display that features IPS technology to deliver crisp, clear images and consistent color with an ultra-wide 178 degree viewing angle. The Multi-Touch screen on the iPad uses the same basic technology as employed in the iPhone, but completely reengineered for the larger display area. There is one built-in speaker, so no stereo support on board, but there are a headphone jack and built-in microphone. Under the hood, iPad is powered by A4, Apple’s first-ever device CPU developed in-house by the P.A. semi chip development subsidiary that Apple acquired in 1998. The A4 is touted as a next-generation system-on-a-chip. wireless 802.11n support is standard, as is Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR. Apple is claiming battery charge life of up to 10 hours under moderate use, and says it’s advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology can deliver up to 1,000 charge cycles without a significant decrease in battery capacity over a typical five year lifespan. iPad comes in two versions — one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G, which are in turn offered in three different data storage capacity configurations. iPad includes the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the 3G versions support speeds up to 7.2 Mbps on HSDPA networks. As for “greenness”, the iPad enclosure is made of recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy-efficient, mercury-free LED-backlit displays made with arsenic-free glass. iPad contains no brominated flame retardants and is completely PVC-free.
Aside from the aforementioned dock and external keyboard support, the iPad also of course has a touchscreen virtual keyboard similar to the iPhone and iPod touch only larger — almost full-size. We're not big fans of virtual keyboards, but if you must depend on one this is one of the better efforts. We only wish Apple had included a numerical keyboard, since having to switch back and forth between letters and numbers is a real pain.
The display itself is bright and clear. Even with the glassy dispay, reflections are minimal. However, the screen is a fingerprint magnet, so one must have clean hands. On the positive side, the fingerprints don't seem to be visible when you're actually using the device - only when it's off.
Others have mentioned that the iPad is relatively heavy at 1.5 pounds, and it's true. You're going to be most comfortable using an iPad propped up in your lap, or perhaps in a dock.
iPad runs almost all of the over 140,000 apps on the App Store, and you can transfer apps already purchased for your iPhone or iPod touch without having to repurchase. iPhone apps will display either in native an iPhone-sized dimensions in the center of the iPad’s screen or can be blown up with some loss of image quality to better fit the display. iPhone app developers are able to update their iPhone apps to iPad optimization using an enhanced version of the iPhone SDK, which was released simultaneously with the iPad product announcement. There is also a new iBooks app for iPad, which supports Apple’s new iBookstore which will feature books from major and independent publishers.
View a short walk-through of the 2010 16GB Wi-Fi iPad:
iPad syncs with iTunes just like the iPhone and iPod touch, using the included Apple 30-pin to USB cable, so you can sync your contacts, photos, music, movies, TV shows, applications and more from your Mac or PC, at least up to the point where you run out of space on the SSD.
Functionally, the iPad doesn’t support multitasking, so you can only do one thing at a time, which will be a major pain for anyone who wants to get real work done (or even several different categories of play simultaneously) on one of these machines. That has to wait until the intro of iOS 4.1 for the iPad. And for a machine that is ostensibly intended for watching movies and videos, there’s no flash support, so forget about streamed video, and while you’re at it discount watching movies in full screen widescreen mode, since the iPad’s display has a 4:3 screen aspect ratio the same as ancient PowerBooks did.
On a more trivial note, the name would be lame, even if it were not for unfortunate connotations being made with certain feminine hygiene products. Steve Jobs description of the machine as “intimate” was no help in that context. A major gaffe I think. Worse than dropping the elegantly magisterial PowerBook label for the generic and mediocre “MacBook” handle. Somebody was asleep at the switch on that one. I wonder if it was Jobs himself. What about iSlate? There was a story floating about the Mac blogosphere a month or two ago that he had originally wanted to call the iMac “MacMan”. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but the die seems to be cast now with iPad so we’ll just have to learn to live with it.
But enough negativity, at least for a bit. On the plus side, Apple has announced a dedicated iWork productivity software suite developed specifically for the iPad, with versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote and user interfaces tweaked for touchscreen input, and to support use in either portrait or landscape orientation. 10 bucks each or the set of three for 30 bucks. Actually, the iPad also comes bundled with 12 Multi-Touch applications, all of which work in both portrait and landscape modes, automatically animating between views as the user rotates iPad in any direction, including a built-in Stickies-esque Notes app., a Calendar app., and a Contacts app for organizing and retrieving names, numbers and other important information. Spotlight Search is supported, allowing you to search the iPad, and all of its built-in apps
iPad ships with a special version of Safari, also optimized for use with this type of device, featuring support for portrait and landscape modes with automatic switching between and four multi-touch gestures.
Mail support on the iPad offers some unique features such as In landscape, you get a split-screen view, showing both an opened email and the messages in your Inbox. To see the opened email by itself, you just turn iPad to portrait, and the email automatically rotates and fills the screen. No matter which orientation you use, you can scroll through your mail, compose a new email using the, on-screen keyboard, or delete messages, with nothing more than a tap and a flick. If someone emails you a photo, you can see it right in the message. iPad will work with all the popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.
iPad’s new Photos app displays your photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Tap or pinch to open the stack, and the whole album opens up. Then you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can also use your iPad as a digital photo frame while it’s docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: you can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the USB Apple Camera Connection Kit.
iPad has an iPod app, so you can browse by album, song, artist, or genre, with a flick. To play a song, just tap it, and the now playing screen will show the album art at full size. You can listen to your music with either the built-in speaker, or with wired or Bluetooth wireless headphones.
Google Maps and Google Earth support lets you see more of the world with high-resolution Satellite and Street View images.
in summary, although it’s early days yet, our initial evaluation is that Apple has delivered another out-of-the-park home run, The iPad is far from perfect, and no doubt will improve with subsequent revisions, but right out of the blocks, at $499 it’s going to be an attractive, almost irresistible confection.
iPad will be available for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models of iPad will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad will be sold in the US through The Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. International pricing and worldwide availability will be announced at a later date. iBookstore will be available in the US at launch.
