Thursday, January 28, 2010

ipad versus ipod touch/iphone .. a bigger display.. thats it!


Apple's Ipad looks very cool but personally I m very disappointed with the ipad and here why:

Yes, it runs on apple's own A4 1 GHz processor probably based on ARM (they probably wanted to maintain more secrecy with their devices this way) but the device is nothing but an itouch/iphone with a bigger display. It only runs the same OS as the iphone/ipod touch.

No webcam (cant do video chats), No flash support and No multitasking (cant have two apps open/running at the same time. Almost every smartphone that has come after the iphone supports multitasking. Say for example you want browse or read books but keep skype or IM open in the background, can do that without multitasking?). Netbooks have webcam, have flash support and can do multitasking. And I don't agree with apple's statements that netbooks are slow (netbooks have the same old boring user interface - yes I agree with that).

I like the one touch power feature of the ipad similar to the iphone (which netbooks lack).

Most of the stuff they demoed yesterday on the ipad were just software (everything could have been a app on the iphone/itouch). The app store for books (ibooks) .. cmon is that a breakthrough? Why is it better than the kindle? Maybe people would still buy this ipad just because its got the apple logo.. As one of my friends pointed out yesterday, maybe apple can sell ice to the eskimos.

Overall, the ipad did not keep up to the hype. Apple spent more than an year working on the ipad and all they could do was just a bigger screen (ofcourse they are trailblazing their own A4 processor for the first time on their ipad.. Probably soon, the iphones would follow this trend). In all honesty, they could have powered their ipad with Intel's ATOM, this way its X86 and could have easily run their regular mac OX or a lighter version of mac OS.

To the many folks who know me as someone who iconizes Steve Jobs, that has not changed a bit with the release of the ipad. If the news of the tablet was not floating around, probably what apple delivered yesterday would have be mind blowing.. The media kind of played a big part in screwing up that image. Apple competitors - you have got a second chance to beat apple.. Now don't don't screw up again.

I was following this live blog by endgadget yesterday from the apple's ipad event: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-tablet-latest-creation-event/

Here is another Apple iPad launch day roundup: everything you need to know http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/28/apple-ipad-launch-day-roundup-everything-you-need-to-know/

Here is another good collection of ipad related news on the web: http://bagtheweb.com/b/Ld5LDj9zBkQs

My friend Patrick wanted me to post this really cool video with Hitler and ipad on my blog :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4


In the end, there was so much hype going on and people like me expected a bit more from Steve Jobs.

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