Apple iPad

[7-Eleven]

I know there are some eager gadget guys on this forum like myself. Although the iPad has not been released in the UK yet (due in May) they have been out in the US for a number of weeks now and there are plenty for sale in TukCom etc.

 

Just wondered if anyone had bitten the bullet yet and bought one? If so what are your thoughts? Does the lack of Adobe Flash and multi tasking bother you?

 

Would be interested to hear your thoughts...

 

I would like to get my hands on an iPad and an iPhone 4G this year

[jcs]

I know there are some eager gadget guys on this forum like myself. Although the iPad has not been released in the UK yet (due in May) they have been out in the US for a number of weeks now and there are plenty for sale in TukCom etc.

 

Just wondered if anyone had bitten the bullet yet and bought one? If so what are your thoughts? Does the lack of Adobe Flash and multi tasking bother you?

 

Would be interested to hear your thoughts...

 

I would like to get my hands on an iPad and an iPhone 4G this year

 

 

TT,What is going to be the cost of the Ipad in UK compared to Thailand?

[chuckwow]

 

 

[7-Eleven]

 

 

 

Ah... I see we have a hater amongst us

 

Found any teak yet?

 

I might have a few scraps at the bottom of the garden you can have

 

JCS: not sure mate... I'm on my iPhone at the mo so difficult to check. Saw them in a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi yesterday... The top spec one was 5k AED.

[chuckwow]

Ah... I see we have a hater amongst us

 

Found any teak yet?

I own an iTouch..which I dislike but I can see where an iTouch or Phone fits in to ones life. an iPad is not necessary..there is not a gap that needs to be filled between the iPhone and a Laptop. I guess you could make the case for one if it fulfilled many of the roles a laptop would but it fails at everything. Hardly any storage, no usb's, and you can't multi-task. What's the point?

 

 

 

re-Teak. No. I have not found it yet.

 

Step 1 - ask Addicts

Step 2 - Do research myself.

 

I will move onto step 2 once step 1 gives me all of the info I need

[jojo90]

My opinion is that my iPhone does everything that an iPad does and more (truly portable, voice calls, etc.).

 

Additionally an iPad does nothing extra over my netbook (I have a very nice Acer 1810TZ - 10h battery life and very very fast, and tiny! Not your 'usual' netbook).

 

Sure they look nice and would be interesting to browse the web on... but that's about it.

Edited April 25, 2010 by jojo90

[Chris P Bacon]

I was very excited about this when it was announced sad i know,but the more i read about it the more i dont want one,theres a few reasons,one being flash not supported,also theres no clock,weather,calculator standard apps as there are on the iphone and i know you can download ones off the app store but none that work in the background like the alarm on the iphone which gets me up for work every morning,also people are saying no multi tasking well that will be available in the 4.0 firmware which will be released in June,with the 800€ i was going to spend on one of these i bought myself a brand new Dell laptop a few weeks ago which can do a hell of a lot more thing then the ipad,i know i will buy one eventually because i love gadgets and all things related,but i will wait for maybe the next version..

 

Also something else im very excited about is the the iphone 4G which is rumored to be released on June 22th,i dont know if anybody on here knows this but Apple lost a 4G iphone a few weeks ago and someone found it in a bar disguised as a 3GS and Gizmondo.com bought it for 5000$,ive been following this story the last few weeks and its very interesting well if your into iphones i guess,but the new 4G looks great,anyway have a read of the full story here with many pics of the iphone 4G http://gizmodo.com/5520471/the-tale-of-apples-next-iphone

[Tariq]

I believe that the iPad is supposed to target e-book readers such as the kindle ...etc. I do not think that it is intended to be a replacement for a laptop, just a better e-book reader.

[Voracious]

I was pretty solidly in the "it's just a big iPod Touch" camp... UNTIL I was able to play around on my friend's iPad. He's a hardcore early adopter & always buys the bleeding first generation of pretty near every apple product ever made. I was running neck and neck with him from the Apple ][+ on, but finally quit buying first gen a couple years back. I wait for the 'bump' or two to get better value...but I digress.

 

Once I actually got my hands on one, I found that I was having a similar experience that many former skeptics have once they actually touch one.

 

It's one thing to read about it and read criticism from many techies (most who still haven't played around with one)... it's quite a different experience once you get it off paper specs and into your hands.

 

One thing I realized is that it's very good at the purpose it was intended for. Think of it of going way beyond the kindle or typical e-reader, and stopping short of trying to replace a notebook and it lies in there. It's a media machine. Newspaper? Magazine? Interactive live content? All right there. I only had about 20 minutes with it (while sitting at a Thai restaurant ), but I went from "meh, it's not that exciting" to "I might actually get one after the bump". For me it still depends, as I already have an iPhone and a couple laptops so I really can't justify adding more electronic gadgets to the pile, but if they add the front and rear cameras and as apps continue to be developed for it, it becomes more compelling all the time.

 

One last note, it is smaller and also feels sturdier than I expected.

 

edit: iPhone 4 ... now THAT i'm VERY excited about. I want one now

Edited April 25, 2010 by Voracious

[lespaul5000]

 

 

 

great post!

 

 

some people are saying the ipad will make the netbook obsolete........not likely!

[Voracious]

@Tariq

 

I agree with you.

 

The Kindle runs about $260 and the iPad runs $500 and up, so price wise it would seem off, but in terms of what it can do, it destroys the Kindle. For a while I was looking at the NOOK ( http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/ ) but the iPad runs circles around it too.

 

On a pure cost basis, for the guy who is in an <$300 budget then yeah.. they can say it's not a comparison. However for the guy whose budget is more flexible and doesn't want to lug a laptop but wants an excellent reader with a better "reading" tactile experience, and a great deal more features (gaming, internet, surfing, interactive web-content, social networking, etc..) you do get a whole lot of bang for the extra bucks.

 

Yes, a notebook can do more and be cheaper, BUT a notebook is not as good a reader imho and doesn't quite have the "whip out the magazine and read" ease of use of iPad.

[gogo dog]

California Wow are giving away free Ipads if you buy B160,000 worth of personal training.

[Kerb Krawler]

Great new device especially for women, the I-ron

and one for the Chinese the I-opener.

 

Sorry!

[CockBoy]

For me an iPad would be a waste of money, as the only good thing I would be able to use it for that a netbook isn't good at, is to read a book.

But I'd rather have the actual book infront of me instead of some plastic screen.

 

Yes you could store alot of books on it, and have your picking where ever you are with it, but reading a book is all about having the actual thing infront of you.

 

And it wouldn't look good to have a shelf with only an iPad in it (and no books ).

 

 

Yes, I might like it if I ever tried it, but it would just be another gadget to buy only for the sake of having it (look at me, I have an iPad... Ladida )

[7-Eleven]

Interesting reading...

 

Thoughts on Flash

 

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

 

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

 

First, there’s “Open”.

 

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

 

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

 

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

 

Second, there’s the “full web”.

 

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

 

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

 

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

 

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

 

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

 

Fourth, there’s battery life.

 

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

 

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

 

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

 

Fifth, there’s Touch.

 

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

 

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

 

Sixth, the most important reason.

 

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

 

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

 

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

 

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

 

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

 

Conclusions.

 

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

 

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

 

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

 

Steve Jobs

April, 2010

[Chris P Bacon]

Interesting reading...

 

Yeah i read that the other day,he makes some good points that you cant really argue with...

[gogo dog]

I don't think Jeremy Paxman could argue with that.

[jojo90]

My opinion is that my iPhone does everything that an iPad does and more (truly portable, voice calls, etc.).

 

Additionally an iPad does nothing extra over my netbook (I have a very nice Acer 1810TZ - 10h battery life and very very fast, and tiny! Not your 'usual' netbook).

 

Sure they look nice and would be interesting to browse the web on... but that's about it.

 

lol, so I was bored today and just randomly decided to buy something... initially was going to get a Breitling Navitimer but decided £3800 was too much to spend on a watch... so pottered over to the apple store and impulse bought a 16gb iPad.... and they are very cool .

 

What I should have said is they do everything my iPhone deoes... only better .

 

Don't really need one but now I've got it you'll have to prise it from my cold dead hands!!

[ZGreyFox]

My company gave the iPad out to a few folks in my department and I happened to be one of those lucky ones. I would never have bought one myself, but now that I have one, I like what I can do with it. This has more to do with finding ways to make it useful via apps despite the iPads inherent flaws, rather than it actually being useful out of the box. The form factor is very portable and light, more so than a netbook. Battery life is very good and will last you pretty much the entire day at least 6-8 hours worth. Display, navigation and functionally is pretty much the same as an iPod Touch, only larger. Video, music and ebooks are restricted to what Apple prefers, but there are ways around it via appstore if you know what you're looking for. Webmail integration works great. Skype works fairly well. instant messaging apps work pretty well. I recommend IM+ Lite. Adrive and Dropbox have working apps for it. The usual suspects IMDb, WebMD, Ebay, Kayak, and Pandora all have apps for it. And of course, there are plenty of games.

 

That being said, I hate that you don't have a standard microUSB connection. No memory card slot. Non user replaceable battery. No camera. I despise the closed walled garden approach Apple has taken for the appstore. And of course, I think it is overpriced. It costs $500 for the lowest end model and goes all the way up to $830. You can buy two netbooks for that price and have money left over for accessories.

 

Personally, I think if you really want an iPad. I suggest waiting until beginning of next year. The tech forums I have been reading have indicated that the next iPad version will have a front facing camera to support the Facetime application they've rolled out for the iPhone 4. Also, there should be several competitive Android OS touch tablets on the market by then to either sway your choice or at the least, drive down the price of the iPad.

 

Cheers.

[Tansak KTV]

My company gave the iPad out to a few folks in my department and I happened to be one of those lucky ones. I would never have bought one myself, but now that I have one, I like what I can do with it. This has more to do with finding ways to make it useful via apps despite the iPads inherent flaws, rather than it actually being useful out of the box. The form factor is very portable and light, more so than a netbook. Battery life is very good and will last you pretty much the entire day at least 6-8 hours worth. Display, navigation and functionally is pretty much the same as an iPod Touch, only larger. Video, music and ebooks are restricted to what Apple prefers, but there are ways around it via appstore if you know what you're looking for. Webmail integration works great. Skype works fairly well. instant messaging apps work pretty well. I recommend IM+ Lite. Adrive and Dropbox have working apps for it. The usual suspects IMDb, WebMD, Ebay, Kayak, and Pandora all have apps for it. And of course, there are plenty of games.

 

That being said, I hate that you don't have a standard microUSB connection. No memory card slot. Non user replaceable battery. No camera. I despise the closed walled garden approach Apple has taken for the appstore. And of course, I think it is overpriced. It costs $500 for the lowest end model and goes all the way up to $830. You can buy two netbooks for that price and have money left over for accessories.

 

Personally, I think if you really want an iPad. I suggest waiting until beginning of next year. The tech forums I have been reading have indicated that the next iPad version will have a front facing camera to support the Facetime application they've rolled out for the iPhone 4. Also, there should be several competitive Android OS touch tablets on the market by then to either sway your choice or at the least, drive down the price of the iPad.

 

Cheers.

 

Mate... thank god you got a ticket to Pattaya next week as you are spending way too much time on those techie boards... time for you to hit Soi 6 and WS... But I think you gonna bring your Ipood with you... I guess I gotta do an intervention and lock up everything electronic that you bring...

[ZGreyFox]

Mate... thank god you got a ticket to Pattaya next week as you are spending way too much time on those techie boards... time for you to hit Soi 6 and WS... But I think you gonna bring your Ipood with you... I guess I gotta do an intervention and lock up everything electronic that you bring...

 

Yeah, I can't wait to be wheels up and on my way. Try not to BF all of Soi 6 before I get there okay? Sharing is caring!

[Joseph Kerr]

I have an Ipad 64gb 3g

 

I love it. It is easy to carry around and with the app store, you can do most anything with it.

 

On my next tour coming up, I will be taking that and the camera kit and leaving the lap top at home.

 

I am looking forward to giving live reports from it when I am there. So that will be a good test.

 

9 days and I am there, woohoo

[Tansak KTV]

Yeah, I can't wait to be wheels up and on my way. Try not to BF all of Soi 6 before I get there okay? Sharing is caring!

 

Not worry... I know deep down inside you love my sloppy seconds... Bring your Ipood.. you can play with it using the wifi while I'm screwing...

[zanny]

I am seriously considering getting an iPad even though I still think it's just a big iPod touch

 

I have a 3GS phone and the 4 does not seem like enough of an upgrade, whereas with the iPad it allows me to easily read a lot of digital content I avoid due to the difficulty with my current device. I have a bunch of travel guides for example, lonely planet, frommers, Eyewitness all in PDF format plus other PDF ebooks and PDF monthly magazines I get for free, but it is really hard to navigate a PDF file on a small netbook without true touch and zoom, you are constantly panning around. I tried out my brother's iPad with GoodReader app installed and it was a really great experience.

 

Even though I know there are new ones coming out in 6 months, when I leave for Asia in a month I can get the GST back due to Australia's tourist refund scheme, so the 16GB iPad wifi will not be too expensive.

 

Another great thing is that they have just announced a jailbreak for life, it is a hardware issue with Apple chips so they cannot fix all the ones already manufactured, the specifics I am not clear on yet be it shatter or limera1n or greenpo1son I am not sure, but if you buy an iPad now, you will have no problems jailbreaking the new iOS v4.2 for the iPad which is due to drop in November and will support true multitasking.

 

Also I don't mind admitting that I get all my apps for free, thanks to Appulous and Installuous and the website Apptrackr. In the 12+ months I have had my iPhone, I have not even got around to loading the $20 iTunes card I carry in my wallet because I just get all the apps and games I want for free anyway.

 

I will still have to travel with my current tablet PC, it is a "netbook" processor the Atom and it has a 7" screen and runs full blown Windows 7. It is not the fastest machine by a long shot but it allows me to sync iTunes with my iPhone (and my soon to be iPad), plus I carry 1TB of movies, music, TV, ebooks, audiobooks, etc on two 500GB hard drives, plus it has a webcam, I can download my camera photos and edit them and upload them online, I can use chrome and firefox with all my plugins, so it does a lot of the things the iPad is still lacking.

 

They weigh about the same 700 vs 800 grams but the iPad has some strong things going for it namely the battery life, the app store and the bigger screen with true touch capability blows Windows 7 out of the water. This is from someone who has had quite a few tablet PCs plus my iPhone everyday for a year.

 

My major issue is not having an elegant internet access solution. I can keep my iPhone 3GS and use that with a SIM card and create a private wifi using PDANet or MyWi (by jailbreaking) and burn through the battery, or I can get a MiFi device to do the same thing, but I cannot make phone calls, and the mifi only has a 4 hour battery and there are two models so only some 3G networks work not all.

 

Last solution is I can get a 3G iPad but it is too difficult to travel to different countries hunting down mini-SIMs. Looks like I have to keep the iPhone I have.

Edited October 10, 2010 by zanny

[ZGreyFox]

I am seriously considering getting an iPad even though I still think it's just a big iPod touch ...

 

If you can, I would recommend waiting a few more months for the next iteration of the iPad. It's supposed to have a front camera built in. The added functionality would be nice.

 

For eBook browsing, I personally use Stanza. I like being able to load eBooks via Dropbox and do not need to be connected to a laptop to get content.

 

I sympathize with your pain regarding internet access. Have you thought of getting a microSIM cutter so that you can use a regular SIM for Internet?

 

http://www.dealextre...ls.dx/sku.41275

 

Personally, I get along fine with just wifi. If I'm in a hotel or office that only has a wired connection, I plug in my Asus portable wireless access point. It's inexpensive, small and USB powered. Great alternative to Apple's Airport Express $100 USD ripoff.

 

Cheers,

 

ZGF