10 days living with the iPad, and I'm as crazy about it, as it was love at first sight on Thursday, two weeks ago, when the UPS post-woman arrived with the package. In the meantime hundreds of reviews of all sorts to read on the net. Ars Technica published one of the best ever, IMHO, whereas some reporters still attempt to describe the magic gadget, reasoning from their anti-Apple feelings, focusing on irrelevant iPad shortcomings and missing the point altogether.One thing I know for sure is that the experience of doing the things you are supposed to do with the iPad is simply stunning. There are few good reasons for that.
Accessibility. No wait times to start-up (even boot time is less than 12 secs, if you powered down the device) and the steps necessary to reach the stuff you want to reach are within one or two soft touches of the screen, with your finger.
Visual quality. The monitor, under suitable light conditions (not too bright ambient light, that is) is simply superb. The depth of colors, lights and shadows, is beyond words can describe. They are rumoring about possibly bringing OLED to iPads. I don't think it's worth the money. I saw OLED in action and I am sure the current monitor quality of the iPad is as good. And far less expensive. OLED is again a wishful thinking of those morons who always find reasons to delay their purchase. Losers...
Response times. I did a speedtest again yesterday, standing 12 m away, below an Airport extreme wifi station of mine with two building floors in 'concrete' in between. My rated bandwidth is 30 Megabits a sec. The iPad reached 20.5 Megabits. I reach 28 megabits and change on my 27 inch iMac connected to the base station with a Gigabit Ethernet cable. There are times I hardly have the time to select a Youtube clip and the darn thing starts playing it in subsecs. Same thing with surfing on Safari. Googling responds within millisecs. I don't have any desktop or laptop doing these things any faster. Sure thing...
Temperature. And Battery life. Same experience. The iPad NEVER gets any hot! Even warm, for that matter. It's a COLD snake, it is! And battery goes for more than a day of intensive use. Non stop it burns 10% or less per hour. That mostly leads to more than 10 hours of non-stop use. Compared to that, my iPhone boils eggs.
The Apps factor. I don't know how many already realize this, but the iPad/iPhone/iPodT paradigm is rendering the known browsers obso-fokkin-lete! By doing this, they actually achieve three objectives. a) Provide a far more compelling user experience and additional functionality not present on Browsers, b) speed up the experience reach by having dedicated apps buttons to touch-'n-go, and c) most important of all, lock users within the boundaries of their app. In a regular browser, user loyalty to a single provisioner is the best synonym to oxymoron.
Larger real estate (monitor) matters. When the iPad was launched, the cynics called it a larger iPod Touch. And laughed bitterly. Like Monkey Boy when he was told about the iPhone, first time over. Lemme tell you though. The extra size allowed the creativity of app developers to reach levels of GUI experience unseen before. Honestly. From news apps to games and financial apps. Now you're talking. Having spent a few hours with a screen this size, you kinda of thinkin' "how could I have ever been pleased with the stuff the iPhone does!" Of course, kudos also go to the Apple SDK architects who provided so many new enhanced class libraries and APIs, and made it possible to create apps with the best user experience we witnessed, ever...
The Pixar factor... Almost everything in the iPad experience seems to be computer animated. Animation creates a feel of dynamic transition from one frame to another and keeps the user enjoying the feeling like never before. It all looks like an advanced video game. Anything you do, zooms in or out, fades in or out, it just 'lives' with an remarkable dynamism... Computers are finally made like they should have always been. Thanks to El Jobso and his A-Team. I can die happy now.
2 comments:
Vassily,
Check this post from George F. Colony, CEO of Forrester Research (and btw my current boss) in his personal blog addressing CEOs. He sees the iPad as a signal towards a fundamental change in software which will impact how business will be done in the future
http://blogs.forrester.com/george_colony/10-04-02-beyond_ipad_yadda_yadda
Hey Didier, it's your luck to serve under visionary bosses. Envy you!
BTW, I read what he wrote but I am not sure I follow him on the fact that one needs an iPad to leverage both computing models... Local and cloud. Monkey Boy would kill yr boss if he heard that.
I personally believe that the iPad is a content consumption device... whereas a workstation (laptop, desktop, anything with a screen and a keyboard) is for real work, meaning input-ing equivalent amounts of info into the device as getting out of it... Meaning, you need to sit down on a chair and have your back upright with your fingers entering data on a keyboard. The iPad you'll use in bed, in a pool couch or your reading armchair in the living room, in an airplane... To read books, play games or experience other media, films or music...
What your chef is right though is the disintermediation of the browsers. That's why Google should start getting shit scared of Apple's announced iAd scheme and of the likes of Zuckerberg and Co.
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