iPad
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Full disclosure: I am not a Mac. I’m not really a PC either—I’m more of what you would call a ‘poor person’. But the uproar surrounding Apple’s new iPad device got me curious, so for the first time in my life, I visited the good folks at www.Apple.com. Once there, I noticed that there were several videos about the new iPad, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any of them to load, so had to judge Apple’s groundbreaking new product by the content they had up about it on the website.
I’m not sure about Apple’s claims that the iPad will change the way we experience the web, but maybe they meant that in a subtle way—kind of like how crazy straws have changed the way we drink juice. In any event, the iPad has certainly changed the way I look at rectangular things.
I was also ambivalent about Apple’s assertion that “with iPad, navigating the web has never been easier or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger.” Really, Apple? This is your pitch? As ridiculous as it is, this claim neatly summarizes the nature of the exciting and fascinating features of Apple’s newest device.
But wait—there’s more! The iPad also offers a means to…view photos! Finally my wealthier friends will have yet another way to show me their vacation pictures—and they will be bigger and more detailed than ever! Trust Apple to not see the down-side of allowing people to essentially carry entire life-sized photo albums with them at all times. Apple actually brags that: “the Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap the stack, and the whole album opens up.” Great! That’s my worst nightmare! I can see it now. “Oh good, yet another stack of your vacation photos. Let me just use my finger to tap it and I can spend another twenty minutes learning about ancient monuments.” Apple, after touting the benefits of my finger, you’ve just managed to make me hate it.
There’s also a GPS feature, which will make it impossible to be subtle about the fact that you’re using a GPS device to find your way around. No more slyly navigating throughout a city while surreptitiously glancing down at your cellphone or iPhone GPS program. No, the iPad helps make it clear to everyone around you that you’re lost. Still, this could be good– maybe they’ll help you out!
A prime candidate for the least likely feature to be mentioned on a website introducing the iPad would be the Calendar, which does in fact have an introductory paragraph describing its many thrilling aspects. I know what you’re saying—wait! The iPad has a calendar? Does it have ALL the days?! The answer is, probably. And you can point at them, with your finger! Because as we know, it’s the most natural pointing device there is.
Another iPad benefit which Apple hypes on its website is the fact that it has a ‘Home Screen’. As Apple redundantly explains, “The Home screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can customize your Home screen by adding your favorite apps and websites or using your own photos as the background. And you can move apps around to arrange them in any order you want.” I assume that I’ll be moving those apps around with my finger? Because that’s the only way in which this ‘Home Screen’ differs from a little thing called a ‘Desktop’, which I’m pretty sure I’ve come across before, in pretty much every other computer ever. And frankly, if I have to pay an extra $500 in order to touch something with my finger that I ordinarily can’t, I’d rather it be during a lap dance. Touting the advantages of a ‘Home screen’ during a sales pitch for the iPad is also kind of like a real estate agent boasting that the house he’s showing you has floors.
Oh, and you can also watch videos on YouTube using the iPad. The picture on Apple.com which explains the benefits of watching YouTube videos on a 9” screen shows an image of a dog on a surfboard—which is very representational of YouTube, but it doesn’t make me want to run out and buy an iPad in light of all the full-sized surfing dog videos I’ve been missing.
In fact, nothing in Apple’s desperate pitch for the iPad made me want to buy one. Still, looking on the bright side, it did rekindle my excitement at having fingers. Hey Apple, guess which one of my fingers I’m pointing right now? Now that you mention it, I guess that DOES feel pretty natural.
AKIE BERMISS: Its very simple: Apple makes cool stuff. And their latest invention, the iPad, is just that. Its cool. Its super-cool. It so cool I don’t think even Apple knows how cool it is yet. The iPad, for those who haven’t heard about it yet, is basically what you might get if you ripped the screen off of a MacBook and made it touch sensitive.
Or you could think of it as what would happen if you took an iPhone… and made it bigger.
Basically we’re talking about a computer that is just a screen. Its flat, it lights up, it surfs the internet. And while it may not SOUND impressive (if you already have an iPhone or MacBook) it only takes a little bit of digging to realize the potential this device could have for us all.
First of all, we’ve come to the end of the era where a laptop can still be thought of as a portable computer. With smartphones like the Blackberry and the iPhone and the Droid, we’ve already arrived in the future where communication is instantaneous across great distances and computers are small enough to fit in your hand. That’s the brave new world we’ve entered. Smartphones are what the laptop was a decade and a half ago. Portable, powerful, fun, and increasingly useful.
What does that mean for our poor laptops? They’re great for typing and such, but they don’t offer much in the way of portability any more. When the only kind of computers were either towers and monitors that took up a whole desk and corner of the house, laptops were amazing! They could go with you in the car. You could take them on the train to business meetings. You didn’t need to disassemble them and reassemble them every time you moved a couple of feet. That’s still true. But when I’m trying to pack light for a day away from the house and I know i’m going to need to have my computer, it can be pretty frustrating. Light as they are now, they can still be a pain. And very fragile. Its not something you can just pick up in one hand and walk out the door with.
That’s the iPad.
And what’s the use of towers at all anyway? They’re COMPLETELY outdated at this point. No one should be buying a tower computer for ANY reason in this day and age. That’d be like buying a car that you still had to wind-up to start. We don’t need to take up all that space any more. There’s no reason for it. We’ve made storage drives MUCH smaller… and using external harddrives to back up your computer has never been easier (thanks to Apple’s Time Machine application). Do we need the drop-down, slide-out CD-ROM drives? I think not. Now the same slim piece of hardware can burn and read CDs and DVDs! Its time to make a shift in perception! You really want all that the tower puts in your face? The tower, the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse? You can have all that with a couple of USB connectors and a much less intrusive laptop. The laptop is the home-computer now. Its flexible for any kind of living situation, takes up less space, and works well for typing up long items like term-papers, or business, proposals, or books. Its not the fun, young, hip and sexy girl at the prom anymore.
That’s the iPad.
And speaking of books — what about all these eBook readers? Yes, they’re light. And they are flat. And they are for reading ebooks. But they don’t have nearly the amount of computing power that the iPad does. They can be used to read ebooks — but they’re useless for other types of personal media (movies, music, television, etc). Can they connect to iTunes? And simultaneously download tracks, search for a movie to rent, and let you listen to an audiobook? Can you check you calendar on a Nook to see when the next Robert Jordan novel is coming out? And have you calendar send you an email reminder on the morning it does come out so you remember to purchase it from iTunes? I don’t think so. That’s the iPad!
Yes, it does cool and wonderful things. Do I think the Apple is a little cheesy with all the “it so magical” stuff? Yes. Do I think the name needs some… adjusting? Definitely. But I know that this could possibly be the start of something grand. At only $500 for the lowest model, its pretty affordable (especially where Apple products are concerned). All it needs now is for people of vision to write the right apps for it. For example, how can we get something where you can use the touch screen to write? like with a stylus or with a finger? And then either save that as a PDF or email to someone as a handwritten letter? iPaper. Saving trees one email at a time.
The iPad will one day be the standard. And Apple, with its record profits and unending revenue, will laugh at you all as you scramble to get one. Yes… Steve Jobs is just now working on a potion that will allow him to live forever so that Apple can be awesome always.
I have faith — and soon I will have the iPad.
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