We’re back! It’s been a long time since our last podcast and we apologize!
This week we talked about why Apple is looking at purchasing ARM, the iPad and some questions we have about Ubuntu’s user experience research.
Apple is undoubtedly an epic company with a history filled with controversy, success, failure and inspiration. Apple has brought us amazing things that have altered the course of history over the years. Brilliant products like the iPod, iPhone, MacBook and iMac are all products that when people buy them, they end up using them every day and you usually enjoy using these products.
I am critiquing the iPad in this post even though I have not used one and I probably will not get the chance just like I’ve never had the chance to use a Newton.
Now Apple has some great ideas and their products push not only technology but also many other industries. I think this may be the only thing that the iPad has any chance of accomplishing.
The hope that I noticed, seemingly being the agenda of Apple in this product release, is the hope of helping, if not solving the plight of the publishing companies in this digital age.
Bringing magazines and newspapers to a device isn’t a new thing(note: Amazon Kindle) but bringing the shiny,glossy look of a high class magazine or other published work doesn’t work so well on an e-ink screen. This fancy GQ, Vogue published material venue is, I believe, what the iPad is trying to shoehorn into.
A noble ambition and one with some potential for profit however it is a very risky one.
Firstly you have to get publishers on-board, and Apple has been working with them to get things started. They have not fully succeeded yet. Amazon and Barns and Noble have quite a lead in this arena.
Secondly, you have to get these published works into the hands of many. I’ve had a subscription to Wired for 3 years…and I only paid $30! The iPad is not cheap($499), but Apple says “oh, but you can use the iPad for so much more! Like work documents and…some websites”. I could, or with the time I’d save using a real keyboard I could go watch a 2 hour movie each week.
Apple’s stock was on a great rebound from all this insane recession business, especially noted during the time leading up to the keynote announcing a new product that Apple was going to show off! However after the keynote…the stock dropped considerably. Now I don’t think that the stock market is some kind of oracle but when you release a product and afterwards people think your company is worth less money than before…there might be a potential problem.
Apple hasn’t had a serious blunder in quite a while but I think this might be one.
Let me preface this by saying I’m not an Apple fan. I own exactly one Apple device — an old iPod Photo — that I rarely use. I tend to skip Apple products altogether mainly because of their DRM and the infamous Apple tax… higher prices for prestige.
However, I was excited when I first heard about their new upcoming event. Many thought Apple would be cutting the iPhone loose from the ailing AT&T network and opening the door for Verizon. Many others speculated the time was right for Apple to release a tablet PC… especially after seeing domains like iSlate.com being bought by shell companies to Apple’s name. And the people who guessed tablet PC were right… but how right were they?
Is it fair to call the iPad a tablet PC? It is certainly a touch screen device, but out of the box it’s a single user, single program machine. Apple boasts that the iPad can get up to 10 hours of battery life, but that should not be difficult to accomplish if only one program can be run at a time.
The iPad should be great for watching video on the go. Does it have an HDMI output? No. Does it have a DVI output? No. It can use an adapter to output VGA/D-SUB so you can connect it to a projector though. You have to use an adapter? What happened to simplicity and ease of use?
Does the iPad screen have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10 so movies will look great? No, the iPad’s screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3… just like owning an old fullscreen TV.
But how much storage does it have? For $499 you can get a 16 GB version and for $699 you can get a version that tops out at 64 GB. Only 64 GB? It’s a portable device, so that’s probably OK. I can hook up an external drive to it when I need more storage. Wrong. The iPad has no USB ports, FireWire ports, or eSATA ports… not even any card readers.
Apple’s video iChat works great to connect people around the globe. At least the iPad will have that. Sorry, the iPad doesn’t have a camera on the front. Or back.
So what’s the up-side to this device? Does it do 3G? It will in fact do 3G, but you’ll have to throw in another $130 for the 3G capability. The capability… not the service. If you want an iPad with a 64 GB SSD with 3G capability, you’re looking at coughing up $829. Indeed a hefty price tag for features that netbooks at half the price can do better.
In all fairness, the iPad could work well as an e-reader, but reading from a bright, glossy screen isn’t likely to be easy on the eyes compared to the competition’s electronic ink.
It seems like the iPad could be good at so many things, but the it makes concessions on every front and does nothing well. Is this all part of Apple’s plan? It’s easier to make a better device when the device can be improved upon easily. Has Apple set it up so the 2nd and 3rd generation iPads will rock our socks? I sure hope so, because the 1st generation iPad is clearly an oversized iPod Touch (or a limited iPhone if you have $130 to burn on data only 3G capability) that suffers from very obvious ailments.
