It's damn disappointing. I'm not an Apple fanboy (or fangirl), but I was really looking forward to see that piece of equipment. Especially since some mockup photos were really pretty.
There is one more fake photo I liked very much, unfortunately I can't find it in a decent size. But... After looking at these and knowing that "Apple is all about looks" it really crossed my mind to buy one of their products. I recently thought about buying iPod Touch, so if the price got a little bit lower in a year or two I really could ended up with buying my first iSomething.
However instead of a cute looking tablet we got this:
Some f**kin' oversized iPhone. Which can't even be used as a phone.
I understand the marketing line "let's make products that have the same design and don't change a thing because our clients won't recognize it," but this is ridiculous. I don't like the frame, I don't like the rounded corners of iPhone and now iPad. I'm sure that people who love Apple's products will love this, but... Have anyone in that company heard word "innovation?" Even Renault Megane I is so much different from Megane II, so beats me why Apple keeps up with a design that's 3 years old and probably will develop it for another 3 years (because I doubt that they'll stick just with 1st generation of iPad).
But let's review some pros and cons of the new device.
- It looks like an iPhone XL - negative.
I think they forgot that they're the company which sets new trends when it comes to looks.
- Touch keyboard - unknown.
I frankly don't know what to say. In this picture it looks a little bit lame. However a thumb up from me for actually making the keys big enough for people to touch the right ones. I'm a girl with small fingers but with standard calibration of the touch screen in iPhone I had problems with writing text messages. Other thing with this keyboard is that to write it you actually need to put it into your lap. Also it doesn't support pen or handwriting, so doing notes or quick correction is Word/Excel is pointless.
However if you don't want to poke the screen - you can always buy a regular keyboard.
I wonder if this way, as they're making it a stationary computer, this is going to have iMouse.
- Technical data - negative.
Processor - please. Don't. Make. Me. Laugh. HTC phones have this kind of insides for some time now. Phones.
Battery - I think that my mp3 player lasts longer than those 10h when watching movies.
Accelerometer & Compass & other features - have I said anything about HTC?
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - "because everything is better with bluetooth." Standard. Nothing extraordinary here.
Screen - now this is something awesome. 9.7" touch screen and multi touch. A big heart and message of love from me for that.
OS - iPhone's. This cannot be called anything else but FAIL. Apple - you have a really nice MacOS which would be just perfect for this device. Why do you put old system from iPhone which allows just one application to be opened? Why? Multitasking? Forget it. You want an opened Safari and music - no way. Though something that will make users happy is that applications from Apple Store should work here without any problems.
- Games and everything connected to graphics - positive.
iTunes with those cool sliding covers is also nice, I hope the sound quality remains at the same level as in iPods. If we're talking about media features - iPad should supposedly be able to play HD movies. Rawr~ Though 16GB for music, books and HD movies is not much...
I also put in this section "Brushes," since it's also connected to the graphics. Apparently Apple allows you know to paint or draw with its newest product. I just hope this feature will come with a pen or another type of real brush, because painting with a finger is not very pleasant.
- Books - OMG.
Let's tell the truth - tablet's default task is to show books. Amazon's Kindle (apart from horrible price) just shows black & white letters which are not very appealing. I'm a child of paper books and newspaper and I won't probably part with them quickly. However I am more and more frequently reading books in PDFs and if Apple can fake books like in the picture above with the whole animation of turning pages, pages itself - I'm gonna praise them.
Also a giant plus for making the deal with publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins, hachette and many, many more. A good competition for Amazon.
- Internets - dunno.
Another fail that I would like to mention is probably lack of Flash support. As much as I loathe flash commercials there are still dozens of nice websites written just in this technology. Not being able to access them - not nice.
- Price - fail.
In the end the cheapest version of iPad will cost $499. It's not that much compared to the prices that were suggested, but it is still a lot for a electronics with such weak parameters. For $499 you can get a nice netbook, with 160GB hard drive that can sing, dance and even make coffee. But paying $629 for Wi-Fi + 3G version is a little bit too much in my opinion. Especially if one has to add monthly payments for the service fee. Additionally you cannot use regular SIM card only some micro one. And of course - it's not a phone so forget calling from that SIM card.
International offer should be available in 60 days.
- Summing up - there was supposed to be a revolution and it ended with... boosting size of the iPhone.
Is Apple's logo worth more than $200? I leave the answer to you.
But no matter what will it be - iPad is probably going to be sold out (at least the first batch) within 24h and that Apple lovers will buy it even if they dislike the looks of it.
Pics mostly stolen from http://live.ubergizmo.com/
"Processor - please. Don't. Make. Me. Laugh. HTC phones have this kind of insides for some time now. Phones."
ReplyDeleteOh, really? Well, the fastest CPU out there in HTC Phones is Qualcomm's Snapdragon. Its architecture, known as Scorpion, is a spin-off of ARM Cortex A8. Some say just a tiny bit faster than original A8. The iPad is believed to have one Cortex A9 core. According to benchmarks ran so far, A9 is 20% faster than A8. That means that HTC's phones would have to be clocked at about 1.25GHz to be as fast as iBreadboard's. Of course, that's kinda useless comparison, as iPhone OS can't do proper multitasking, so it's easy for Apple to make the whole UI very fast.
"Books - OMG"
Well, if OMG means fail - than yes. E-paper beats all LCDs, so Kindle easily wins. It takes almost no energy (1 week on Kindle vs charge-me-after-reading on iBreadboard), it doesn't cause eyestrain (no backlight - just like normal paper) and is perfectly readable in direct sunlight (one of the joys of summer - lay on your balcony, put your shades on and read a good book). Of course, Apple could have made use of Pixel Qi's hybrid LCD + e-papaer technology. But of course, "people don't read anymore" (Steve Jobs, A.D. 2008). Oh the hypocrisy.
Fine - 20% better. And so what? As you already said this comparison is useless because iPad won't use its full potential. And that's the main problem with all Apple product (and argument which almost every Mac fanboy uses) - "it has potential, you just have to jailbreak it and download one of the many application that surely will come up within the next 10 months." But I'm not buying such gadgets because of what they "might" do. I want a fully equipted and working thing.
ReplyDeleteLCD is a fail, I would prefer much more a LED screen. Kindle might have longer lasting batteries, but its screen (font, images, etc.) are still repulsing (for me). In this case application Apple provides, stolen or not, looks much, much better. Not to mention Kindle has dozens of other disadvantages. If you find a perfect product let me know, because I haven't found such.
I don't really see the point in your response about the processor... first you complain that even phones have comparable CPUs, and then you write it's not going to be fully used anyway. I'm confused :)
ReplyDeleteAs for the screen... LED screen? Did you mean OLED/AMOLED screen? They are an utter failure when it comes to dealing with sunlight. Worse even than LCD. And Apple put an IPS panel in the iPad. A far better choice than AMOLED, but imo still not particularly usable for reading books.
And if you don't like kindle - there's plenty of alternatives. Nook and Sony Reader are probably worth mentioning. And, well... as for me, a book isn't meant for "looking good", so it can even be printed on something resembling toilet paper (which is quite frequent anyway) - as long as it's readable in most conditions and doesn't need recharging every few hours.
Apparently my response was abstruse for you, my apologies :) I don't know if the new architecture is indeed 20% better. But I trust you and let's assume that it is. Will iPad use it efficiently? I doubt it. Because of already written reasons. Therefore even 1.2GHz of iPad is still comparable with 1GHz of HTC in my opinion. I hope that's clear enough :)
ReplyDeleteNow that's interesting. I have netbook with LED screen and I haven't had any problem with reading in the sunlight. Apparently I have to tell my eyes that they should have problems with it ^^"
Ah, you see. Here you're, not even in opposition, but even a negation of a typical Apple fanboy. For them only thing that matters is the look. You don't give a s*** about it. Reading book either in digital or analogue form should be enjoyable. The question is what one would like to compromise and not play 0-1 method ("pure usage" or "pure looks").
"Now that's interesting. I have netbook with LED screen and I haven't had any problem with reading in the sunlight."
ReplyDeleteOh god, now I undersand what you meant... It's actually an LCD screen with LED backlight :) I haven't seen their performance in sunglight, so, well, you got me.
"Ah, you see. Here you're, not even in opposition, but even a negation of a typical Apple fanboy. For them only thing that matters is the look. You don't give a s*** about it."
Nah, it's not that bad ;) But if I had a choice between a novel printed on standard toilet-quality paper or the more expensive one, printed on glossy paper - i choose the toilet one. Nevertheless - I have a weak spot for hardback editions... And as for Apple fanboys - well, I know one, and... he's not the type of guy that cares about his own looks and whenever he's defending Apple products, he's using arguments concerning actual functionality. But some undeniable facts about him is that he owns a Macbook, an iPhone and drives a Mini (the new one, not the classic one).