alexander thomas neil | photoblog

Two words: Game. Changer.It’s one of those moments again when Apple brings the heat on new innovative products.  Okay, maybe not so innovative in the sense of a new idea or concept but innovative in the way they execute things. Reflecting back to some of their earlier products such as the iPod back in October of ’01, we see how Apple changes the game.  Portable digital media players made their mainstream debut starting with the Rio PMP300from Diamond Multimedia back in 1998.  It featured a whopping 32mb of memory for the retail price of $200.  Thanks to Napster and other popular peer-2-peer networks, mp3′s became very popular to what is sometimes called the ‘upload generation’. Fast forwards to October 2001, Apple introduced iPod, a portable media player capable of holding 1,000 songs thanks to it’s 5gb hard drive. Apple since then and continues to maintain market majority for portable media player. Why you ask?  Well partly due to it’s simple clean interface and partly due to it’s sleek design, something that could not be found with any media player on the market at the time.  January 2007 – Apple unveils the long rumored iPhone. Why was this revolutionary?  Well just about every smartphone on the market contained a resistive touchscreen rather than the capacitive we seen on many devices today. While in theory multitouch is possible on a resistive display, it is no match to what capacitive displays have to offer.  Some argued that the iPhone could not do many of the task that were available on the some of the most basic phones such as Multimedia Messaging or record video.  That did not stop the iPhone from achieving world dominance.  Smartphones had already been around for years from RIM’s Blackberry, Palm’s Treo and various Window Mobile offerings.  What enabled Apple to gain such a huge market share is from the way the executed things.  Just as with the iPod, those minor attention to details in both software and hardware set them apart from the competition even if they do lack some of the most basic features. Today we are greeted with the iPad.  Tablet based computing is definitely not a new concept.  Since 2001, Microsoft has been trying to push for Tablet PC’s, but still continues to struggles to put it into mainstream. Again, as with both the iPod and iPhone, it was the way Apple executed it.

THE NETBOOK IS DEAD. That’s a pretty bold statement to make but here’s why. For one, netbooks are simply too small. Yes there are some 10-12″ offerings, but where is the line drawn between a netbook and a laptop?  The idea behind the netbook was to produce a small, lowcost laptop for doing basic web browsing and such; not what Alienware seems to think.   If you ever used some of ASUS’searlier offerings, you’re met with a cramped keyboard and small track pad, all bundled with a less than stellar processor.  There is no way anyone would want to type a whole novel using most keyboards found on these netbooks. iPad allows you to use any bluetooth keyboard of your choice and from what I gathered on the web, Apple’s Camera Kit for iPad will allow you to hook up any USB keyboard and other peripherals alike.  Browsing the web on the iPad is truly a different experience than what any device has to offer.  I thought Mr. Steve Jobs was talking a bunch of crap back in January, raving about how revolutionary and magical the experience was.  Although something I don’t like to admit quite often, I was wrong.  It is very enjoyable to use anywhere.  Often times I would lay in bed and catch up one some news or read a few blogs. The orientation lock was genius! Often times it would feel frustrated when browsing the web on my iPhone because the screen would constantly changing between landscape and portrait. 

The Apps. I know people are sick and tierd hearing about the iPhone and ‘the apps’, but application on this device is what truely separates it from other devices.  Yes, with netbooks you can install a good handful of standard computer programs but it’s not the same.  Gaming for example is not a very good experience on a netbook (unless you pick up one of the Alienware’s “netbook” offerings I suppose).  Games such as EA’s Need For Speed Shift or Mirror’s Edge will change mobile gaming.  The board game is acutally making a comback, virtually.  Scrabble for iPad from EA’s is very slick. There are many multiplayer options but the one I would like to touch base on is the ‘party mode’.  Players can use their iPhone or iPod Touch as the title rack using the  ”Scrabble Title Rack“  advailbe on iTunes for FREE!  Now let’s look at productivity.  Although you can be very productive on a netbook, how effective is it?  Remember you’re doing this on a cramped keyboard and mouse.  How effective is Microsoft Office on the netbook? Okay i’ll admit pretty decent but it’s no where as nice as what Apple did with iWork.  Developers took the same iWork found on the Mac and completely redesign the interface to be very effective on the iPad. A few other apps I’d like to mention are ABC Player, Pandora, FlightTrack Pro, iTeleport, WeatherHD, and Dropbox.

The Future. 2010 will mark the year of a new generation of mobile devices – eReaders (Kindle, Nook), Superphones (Nexus One, 4G iPhone) and most notably Tablets (iPad, WePad  WeTab). It will be intersting to see what the competition has to bring to match or surpass Apple’s offerings.  As for now, the iPad will pave the way to a new type of mobile computing.

Well its been a little over 24hrs since it’s announcement, giving me 24hrs to get my thoughts together on what I think of the overall products. My initial impression as with any new gadget is - I have to have that. Then the more I though about it I thought, meh – I don’t really need it, I’ll just wait for the new iPhone. Much of the internet is flooded with talks of how Apple delivered and underwhelming product with people screaming left and right ‘no flash support’, ‘no camera’, ‘ugly bezel’, saying that netbooks can do a better job than iPad.  This nonsense has been going on since its announcement.  Now I may agree on many aspects people are arguing but there is so much potential in this device.  First of all I want to start off and say that this thing is not even out yet!  Apple has 60 59 days to make changes in both the hardware and software level.  The device had yet to been submitted for  FCC approval in order to avoid leaks common on many products.  A complaint I’ve seen about iPad is the price.  When looking at the Amazon Kindle DX, a device that features a 9.7″ (same size as iPad) eInk display, it retails for $489.  A whole Hamilton cheaper than iPad.  Clearly when someone is asked which they would prefer, I could guarantee iPad would win almost every time.   iPhone OS will soon be due for an upgrade, which iPad runs.  With the competition heating up from Android, we have yet to see what Apple has up their sleeves to maintain their leader position.  There is no doubt there will be plenty of new features that will make people fall in love over again with their iDevice (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad).  I’d like to think the iPad will be just like the first iPhone, introduced in January with a later release.  iPhone OS 1.0 sucked.  Everything found on it has long been around on other smartphones.  I’ll go even further to say that a Windows Mobile devices or Blackberry could do far much more than iPhone could, there were no additional applications. What was the solution? The jailbreak community.  The jailbreak community is single handily responsible for what the iPhone is today.  At the time of iPhone’s release, it was the only way to add additional applications.  iPhone OS 2.0 brought many new features, the key one being the App Store – a game changer.  The success of the App Store has everyone racing, trying to catch up with Apple much as they did when the iPod was introduced.  Now with the new iPhone SDK out with the support of iPad we will soon see potential in this device within the next 59 days.  Here is when we will see iPad specific device, showing off it’s true potential.  Probably the biggest complaint I’ve seen is “…menamenamena-it-has-a-1ghz-processor-but-not-multitasking?”.  Obviously Apple knows this, it will come, if not leave it to the jailbreak community.  I’m sure the key feature we will see in iPhone OS 4.0 is the ability to multitask.  I currently run a jailbreak app called ‘Backgrounder’  on my 3G S to run ‘Slacker Radio’ or any application for that matter, in the background.  If Apple does not enable it, which they will, the jailbreak community will.  It’s only a matter of time until we see new features and applications that will make everyone want iPad just as they did with iPod and iPhone.

So my final impression on iPad is – Yes, I will buy it as soon as it is release.  My next questions is whether or not to get the WiFi only model or WiFi + 3G.  I’m leaning towards WiFi + 3G because I just want to whip it out and jump online with out having to fumble with WiFi.  Although, I would be happy with the WiFi only model since you can pretty much get WiFi at most places now and I can turn my iPhone into a router with MyFi, another jailbreak app.