When was the last time you used a desktop PC? Or spoke over a landline phone? Need-less to say we are now transcending to-wards gadgets that are compact, with more-than-ever functionalities packed within smaller-than-ever devices. When IBM introduced the first laptop prototype in 1973, the immense popularity it would garner was barely fore-seen. Now, with laptop sales having surpassed the sales of desktop PCs, the question was “What next? ‟
Enter: Apple iPad!
Apple’s Steve Jobs launched “iPad” on 27th January, 2010 in his usual flamboyant manner. iPad is a tablet PC, which is a hybrid between an iPhone and a notebook. This little dynamite weighs 1.5 pounds and is 0.5 inch thin! Yea, unbelievably sleek! So, what features does iPad boast of?
To begin with, it is powered by a 1 GHz Apple A4 processor, and shares the same Operating System as iPhone, that is, iPhone OS 3.2. It offers a smooth web browsing experience plays videos and handles a variety of games without any hassles. All the models are enabled with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a few of them are provided with 3G connectivity as well. Besides this, all the iPhone applications can be run on iPad directly.
The output is via a 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS display with a remarkably precise Multi-Touch screen. Moving the windows around and scrolling the pages with a swipe of your hand is a novel experience. iPad also serves as a decent e-book reader. However, it cannot be com-pared to the proficiency of Amazon Kindle, which was specially designed for the purpose. Another point favoring the iPad is its price. Experts had estimated the cost of the low-end models to be around US $1000, but the start price of $499 surprised everyone.
iPad has earned more negative reactions from the users than it anticipated. A lot of them feel that it is a redundant product - it neither fits into Smartphone’s category, nor can it be grouped with the laptops. The features provided by iPad are collectively offered by a laptop and a Smartphone, but it cannot be a replacement for both of them. In addition to this, multitasking, Flash support, camera and USB connection are most conspicuously absent.
Within a month of iPad launch, it has a staunch competitor in Notion Ink’s tablet PC, ‘Adam’. “Adam” is loaded with all the features that are missing from iPad like USB port, supporting Flash, 3 megapixel cam-era, along with a larger 10.1-inch touch screen, An-droid OS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA, longer battery life, storage ports for memory card and flash drive combo. At $300, it is even priced lower than iPad! Adam is lined up for a release in June 2010.
All in all, iPad is a good product, but it stands a strong chance of being over-shadowed by Adam and other similar tablets that would soon hit the market. However, considering Apple’s knack of bringing out revolutionary products, it would be little too soon to write off iPad. It would be wiser to wait and watch the fight for market share and customer attention between iPad and Adam (including other tab-lets) before we dismiss iPad with R.I.P.
Minal is a Computer Engineer from Mumbai University. After that, she gave technology one more shot by working at Accenture for a year. However, she gave up the technical side once and for all and decided to do some soul-searching. Meanwhile she started her MBA from IIFT. She currently lives in Kolkata with five room-mates, an over-used laptop and a constantly buzzing cell-phone. And the soul-searching is still under construction.
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