Tech

So I finally got my hands on the iPad so here are some of my thoughts.

Some people say, “it’s just a large iPhone”. People that say that as a negative have never used the device. The bigger screen resolution enables UI and design that simply were not possible on the iPhone. It’s like saying that a 27″ iMac is just a large netbook or that a 55″ tv with a PS3 is just a large Sony PSP. It’s a completely different experience is all I’m trying to say.

Keyboard is surprisingly useable but not that comfortable. I’m writing this post on it right now but I’d rather do it on a real keyboard or on the iPhone (which I actually find quite nice). The iPad keyboard is just too large to thumb fast like the iPhone and the fact you can’t rest your fingers on it make it somewhat uncomfortable to “home row” type.

The screen is really beautiful and so are the iPad native apps that are made for the new resolution. From the developer standpoint, the new controls they added are really cool.

iPhone apps that are pixel-doubled are a mixed bag. If they are very text heavy, they look like shit. Games and apps that have less text and more pictures/web views look decent enough, though the controls are always gonna look comically big.

Video is gonna be BIG. The YouTube, Netflix, and ABC apps all work great (at least over wifi) and with sites like vimeo.com starting to add support for html5 video, video looks and plays great on the newer, better looking screen.

I’m not much of a comic book fan but the Marvel app is pretty fucking slick.

The “killer app” is Safari. Browsing the web is something we all do but the iPad manages to do it in a way that is more intuitive and natural than any other device, including the iPhone.

I WANT A TABLET. I WANT ONE NOW.

I think this will be the year the tablet computer really takes off, one reason being the hardware is now mature enough to create a great device. Tegra2 looks very promising http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/08/ces-2010-nvidia-tegra-2-to-power-tablets-in-2010/.

The other reason being that Apple will release theirs this year, be crazy successful, and the clones will follow. But I will predict that what nobody but Apple (and maybe Google with Android) will understand is that OS UI needs to be redesigned to be, not just ‘finger-friendly’, but designed for touch-input from the start. This is why the iPhone OS feels so natural and has been a success and Windows Mobile as fallen into obscurity. In a touch interface, people do not want to manipulate windows that were designed to be clicked on with pixel-precision.
The JooJoo tablet also looked very interesting to me but I predict it will fail to have the polish that Apple tablet will surely have.

I’ll start off by saying that I am no reading enthusiast. During grade school, I dreaded the unavoidable book readings. I do of course read; mostly staring at a computer screen though. I have a book shelf that is filled with books; however, nearly all of them are of a technical nature or related to school. There was a period a few years ago when I got the urge to expand my horizons and attempt to read some of the classics and therefore a small portion of that book shelf is dedicated to books that I have read and now keep as some sort of trophy. I read many good books during that time, but I think I got too used to reading on a computer screen and the conveniences that come with it and so my reading slowly waned over time, perhaps as school started to take increasingly more time in my life. But I don’t think that urge to read ever really disappeared, more like a fire where the flames have shrunk but embers remain waiting for a breeze to come along a re-ignite the fire.

Well, I think the Kindle 2 might of been that cool breeze to spark the flame. So enough with the history, lets talk hardware.

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If you haven’t checked it out before, Microsoft Seadragon project is pretty cool. It’s basically a way to dynamically scale the quality of a photo or more commonly, a group of photos.

You can see a few pictures I threw up just to test it out, if you have Silverlight2 installed.

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