 Launch Day Special Edition • Before you go out to buy your iPad 

iPad.

"Wait. What's an iPad," one might ask.  Although, I am not even sure if there is that one person.  Some might say that there are always people who don't follow the tech world, and blatantly just don't care.  Apple has made sure that everyone should know what the iPad is, and why you should have one.  Apple even got a quick little advertisement skit during the 52nd Grammy Awards when Stephen Colbert pulled out an iPad.

Now, if you still don't know what an iPad is, you may want to read iPad for Dummies.  You also could just check your YouTube subscription box, which is most likely filled with anything and everything iPad, from unboxings (yes, I know- the 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB models look very different inside the box), to tutorials and how-to's, app overviews, reviews, and much more!

Now, I have an iPhone and/or an iPod Touch, so why would I want to spend [at least] $499 on a device that is just a bigger version of what I already own, running the same apps and such?  The big difference between the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad is that the iPad has much better apps.  This is almost a given because of the increased screen size.  Although, what you though would be a simple update to some of your previous iPhone apps has been proven wrong.  Some people thought that the developers might just go in and make the interface (text, images, and videos, etc.) bigger for the bigger screen featured on the iPad.  Doing this removes the need to double pixelate the app view.

Many apps have undergone a complete redesign.  With this, a common design trend with the special iPad apps is a multi-column view (especially in landscape mode). In the multi-column view, you choose what you want to view, usually on the left side of the iPad's screen and you are then displayed with what you chose on the rest of the screen.  This kind of design is only possible with the iPad because of the large screen real estate available compared to the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Twitterific for iPad - Shows the great landscape view with the display options on the left, and tweets on the right

AIM for iPad - "Features three different panels: on the left-hand side, you will find a list of the currently open chats—akin to the “Active IMs” screen found on the iPhone and the tabbed interface of the desktop version. In the middle sits your current chat—which supports both text and pictures. Finally, the right-hand side of the screen shows a list of your buddies" (Macworld.com)

Be aware though that while many developers did manage to get huge updates and complete app re-writes out in time [for Apple to approve their app] for today's iPad Launch, your favorite app may not have been even updated at all for the iPad.  Remember, this does not mean that you can't use the app.  Instead,  Apple has given you the choice of using the app at normal size (size of the iPhone's screen) or the doubling the size and the pixels (making the app pixelated) while filling the iPad's screen.  One of my personal favorite apps, and favorite Twitter app has not yet been updated for the iPad.  For right now, if you are going for a iPad-friendly Twitter app, I recommend Twitterific (see screenshot above) which looks to be beautiful and offers a fully-featured ad-supported version. Also available for the iPad are Twitterlator and TweetDeck.

Two of the big disappointments of the iPad were the lack of Flash support and a camera.  Firstly, the iPad will be better without Flash as all it does it causes problems.  Mac users have experienced this for years with the ongoing troubles with Flash.  The iPad instead supports HTML5 which has been shown to do almost the same thing as Flash did before, but without all the pain.  Apple has created a list of popular sites which have created special web pages formatted for the iPad and many of these sites have switched their video format from Flash to HTML5.  Truly, Flash is only so popular and wanted because it is used by so many sites.

To continue, the other disappointment in this the 1st Generation iPad is the lack of a camera.  I think that there is no reason that Apple did not put in a camera.  I think that it is really needed in a device like this, and iChat would be much better in the iPad kind of environment.  This environment is the couch or really wherever, which is the freedom provided by this device.  TheTechTroop will most likely come back and focus more on these missing features later.

 

The last thing I wanted to say is that I am really happy that Apple decided to allow us to use dock the iPad and use the iPad Keyboard Dock.  But I think it is even better that Apple is allowing us to use a bluetooth keyboard.  In addition, I think that the case that Apple created for the iPad was really designed great, offering multiple uses for it, instead of just to carry it.  Although, other than this, 3rd party companies will probably be the dominant seller for cases and other accessories.  But it will be interesting to see the different docks and keyboards that come out, as the iPad will still be used a lot in the "desk-like" environment.

I will not be buying the iPad today, or in the near future as I am patiently waiting for the i5/i7 MacBook Pro to come out as I need a new Mac for my regular, intensive use, that may not be able to be handled by the iPad.  I also will most likely be buying the new iPhone this summer, that is, assuming that a new one comes out.

Scott Wasserman
Twitter: @applehockey
YourAppleWorld.com • Your Site for Anything and Everything Apple

Posted via web from The Tech Troop