One month ago I bought an Apple iPad with 3G wireless and 16GB of memory. I am pleased with it but also hope that Apple addresses some of its shortcomings in future software updates.
The iPad offers a mixture of portability, simplicity and versatility that makes it my new trusty companion for informing me, organizing me, preserving what my frail memory cannot, and entertaining me. In this way laptop computers have served me well for many, many years.
New tablet computers like the iPad offer an alternative to the laptop that affords more availability, convenience and plain fun. These devices have no keyboards, no moving parts and truly place its operating system in the background, where it belongs. In this regard, I can turn my iPad on and off faster than any laptop or even any cell phone I have used.
The iPad device presents a sleek, solid feel. The multi-touch display responded well to my fingers and provides very high quality graphics with vibrant color rendering. I like using the on-screen keyboard and can type almost as fast as I can on my laptop.
The only shortcoming of the iPad device is in its lacking a camera. One can be sure that Apple's competitors will not miss this opportunity to one-up the iPad by including a camera.
Surfing the Web on the iPad is as easy as pushing the "on" button, which as I mentioned before instantly puts the iPad into service. It establishes Wi-Fi and 3G wireless connections with ease.
The iPad comes preloaded with a stripped-down version of Safari, Apple's web browser. The browser lacks so much capability as to make it barely acceptable. Topping its list of shortcomings is the lack of support for Adobe's Flash plug-in.
This makes a visiting many animated web sites a frustrating experience of "sorry." Safari also does not allow the user to search for text within a page. While one can open multiple pages at once, navigating amongst them is clumsy without the availability of tabs. Safari's controls for navigating forwards and backwards through recently visited pages is also very limited.
I have not yet tried any of the other web browsers available through the App Store. I give the iPad's version of Safari a "D."
The other productivity apps that come preloaded with the iPad are unexceptional. None of them support rich text formatting which makes composing email messages particularly dull.
The iWork apps, Apple's office productivity suite, are where the iPad demonstrates its mo-jo. The word processor (Pages), spreadsheet (Numbers) and presentation (Keynote) apps offer plenty of power and function at the bargain price of $9.99 apiece.
The iWork apps can store and share files through Apple's iWork.com and MobileMe cloud services. I wish they'd add Google Docs to that list.
To be sure, the iPad has a ways to go before one could consider it an outright replacement of laptop and desktop computers. You still cannot print from it. It has little capacity for managing files or running multiple programs at once.
Apple promises to address these shortcomings in an update to the iPad's operating system (iOS 4.2) due out any day now. It will remain to be seen how well they do with it.
Excepting the lack of a camera, all of the shortcomings I have cited can be remedied by Apple with new software. Apple clearly has demonstrated once again its desire to exceed its customers' expectations, but their desires may get upended by their troubling tendency to fight with the Adobes and the Googles of the world.
I am more comfortable buying my technology from companies that play nice with others in the belief that customer choices guide future market innovations better than when a technology giant like Apple plays hardball with its perceived competitors.
For those interested in buying a tablet computer, I think you should wait to see what new products hit the market in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Toshiba and Microsoft/HP have already introduced their respective "iPad killers" and stumbled, but they won't be the last to try.
With the iPad in its current state, Apple has certainly left the door open. I am most interested to see what Google might have in store for us.
- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!
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