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iPad, i Wonder....
Posted by: YunaMonos on Apr 09, 2010
I have never rushed out to buy new technology. Why? Inevitably new computer gadgets have frustrating flaws that are only sorted out in versions 4 and 5; and the first issue is always ten times more expensive than issue three and four. Will this be the case for Apple's much hyped iPad?
The iPad is Apple's smaller, lighter, better, faster answer to the netbook (a smaller, lighter, not so faster answer to the notebook; or as most of us know it, the laptop). Okay, smaller may not be the right way to describe the iPad. According to Apple's specs it is 9.56" tall, 7.47" wide, has a depth of 0.5” and weighs between 1.5 and 1.6 lbs.
Not even Americans can work out how big or how heavy anything is with their complicated measurement system. Geez guys, just go metric and get it over with. Everyone knows it’s easier to count in fives and tens.
So, in normal measurement speak those specs would be 23cm – about the length of a standard plastic ruler; 19cm – about the width of a standard hard pencil case; 1.2cm – just over the diameter of an AA battery; and 726 grams – about the weight of one and a half large boxes of cocoa pops.
That, IS NOT going to fit into any quaint-sized handbag, although it weighs less than the handbags of most women I know.
Most South Africans are still using the trusted (or not so trusted) old PC; I suspect largely because they can't afford Apple Macs. Luckily the iPad works with PCs as well. So far however, I haven’t found any reviews of people who have tried the iPad with a PC.
Feedback has been mixed. Gadget freaks love their iPads, while those who demand practical use out of their hardware are more sceptical. The first major complaints came from users who couldn't get their iPads to connect and stay connected to their wireless networks. This prompted Apple to suggest a quick fix earlier this week.
Another widely reported issue was screen glare. One of the iPad’s most attractive features is its large, sharp LED display, but outdoors the backlighting apparently makes the screen impossible to use. Since the intention of the iPad is to increase user mobility, this seems a curious oversight by the developers. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the screen picks up fingerprints very easily and needs to be cleaned all the time. For one whose screen wipes have dried out from months of disuse, this is not good news.
A more obscure problem, which would further frustrate the daylights out of me, is the iPad's lack of a "save" function. It has a built in auto-save function that kicks in every 30 seconds or so. That should be fine for most, but I have a tendency to obsessively edit everything. Without the ability to save when one wants to, it means one can’t undo back to the point where one wants to either.
Enough with the bad stuff, here is the one iPad feature everyone is raving about, iBooks. It is said to be Apple's book equivalent of iTunes. A great deal of language teachers out there will be delighted to know the book is not dead. In all probability, this will be the start of a book evolution where books will become far cheaper and more accessible than they ever were before.
The iPad hasn’t been officially launched outside of the US, but shipments of imported "grey" iPads should be hitting local shores as I write. Grey usually means no warranty and at an estimated cost of between R5 000-R9 000, depending on the size of the hard-drive (16GB, 32GB or 64GB); I think I will avoid the waiting list.
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