Will You Be Buying An iPad?

No, I don't have an iPad yet. Like many out there, I was a skeptic even though I own an iPhone. Was that really something you need when you already have a good mobile phone, a twin screen desktop and a notebook? Last week was in HK again and my tech chief had an iPad, after 30 minutes, I think everybody who has a mobile phone, notebook and desktop... will still find the iPad exhilarating and useful. Yes, its a toy but its a lot of fun.

Photos & Video - I have always hated how the distance to the screen when using your notebook or desktop is always a somewhat fixed distance, you have to lean forward or adjust your chair to get a good view sometimes. No issues here, the iPad is in your hands. The video watching is all that more awesome. You can prop it with a cushion, watch it at a park bench, heck, even bring it to the loo when doing a doo-doo. Place it on your bed, etc... As for photos, almost everyone now has a photo image saver and display mechanism. There’s no adequate way to describe how well the iPad display works for photos. The screen isn’t really 3D, but it feels like there’s an extra layer of depth in high-resolution pics and flicks. Because of the touch screen, you also get to interact with photos – zooming in and out, moving pictures around. It’s nothing you can’t do on an iPhone or iPod touch, but the screen size improves the experience exponentially. Throw out your electronic photo frames ...



Kindle Buster - It wipes Kindle off the map, and you add the Apple apps, and you have a winner. Again the iPad's killer app has to be the book and magazine reader technology. The iPhone makes it tough to read e-magazines and papers, all that is solved with iPad. In fact this makes it most enjoyable for me, reading the e-papers. Makes you feel like you are in the command center in the Avatar movies, you can touch through links, expand articles, resize, minimise 10 articles, etc... n the images are brilliant.

The touch screen keyboard woks for some but may turn some off I guess. The big deciding factor for someone choosing an iPhone or Blackberry. If you love your iPhone, you will love your iPad even more.



The iPad apps are mainly from iPhone apps, but many of the apps providers have not yet adapted to take advantage of the higher image resolution or screen sizing. I think this is a work in progress, 6 months down the road, all the apps will take advantage of the advantages of being on iPad and adapt accordingly. Battery life of 10 hours is more than excellent.

My complaint, Apple needs to invent a cloth that will wipe finger prints clear, or come up with a touch screen that won't leave any finger print marks - now that would a killer app.

But with iPad, you can dump your Kindle, your iPod (unless you go jogging), you electronic photo frame library, and if you are not a heavy professional user, you can dump your notebook as well. $500 is cheap when it replaces all of that.