The iPad – Help Me Decide?
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I don’t know what to do.
The iPad came out last week and, well, I want one. But that’s a standard side-effect of a Steve Jobs keynote; you always end up wanting one.
There’s been a lot of talk about shortcomings of the device, and a lot of the points have merit. Enough merit to stop me from getting it though?
In this article, I’ll be working through all of the pros and all of the cons I can see so far. Hopefully by the end, I’ll know what to do.
(PS – Just for the record; I’m a Windows 7 user on a HP desktop. I also have a Toshiba laptop that will be getting Ubuntu 9.10 installed on it as soon as I can get round to it. The only Apple device I own is the iPhone. Should be a fairly unbiased review… I hope)
Why Would a Web Worker Want an iPad?
The one thing Steve Jobs said again and again was that it felt great to have the internet in the palm of your hands. Okay, so he’s definitely biased, but let’s assume for a minute that there’s something more to it than that.
Checking emails, replying to blog comments, reading RSS feeds, researching for new articles, communicating with clients.
Aside from an optional mail client or the odd simple app to help with these things, all I need for these tasks is the internet. And when you think about it, that’s a fair chunk of a web worker’s daily tasks. If the iPad really did make those easier (or even just more pleasant to do), that’s a major positive.
Another reason for liking the iPad is that it makes for a decent eBook reader. I don’t own a Kindle or any other eBook reader (though the E Ink of the Kindle would put this to shame), but I do end up buying or downloading quite a few PDF eBooks to my desktop.
Reading on the desktop, or even a laptop, just isn’t comfortable though. I have the whole of The Unlimited Freelancer printed out on a shelf next to me, simply because I’d never get around to reading it online (And the rainforests will probably never forgive me for that…)
The iPad is a far, far nicer alternative. I’m still a fan of regular, old physical books for fictional reading, but when it comes to factual books, eBooks are cheaper and benefit more from the possibility of web links in the text. It would also be a fairly nice boost to anyone interested in self-publishing, if Apple open up the iBook store to anyone.
The last thing to mention in regards to work is the potential for a graphics tablet. At the minute, it looks like there’s nothing you can do in this area, but I’m sure it won’t take some clever app developer long to fix that.
Even something simple like drag and drop wireframing would be pretty cool to do by touch!
What about when you Aren’t Working?
Laptops and desktops are emphatically one-man shows. You can have two people sitting around a monitor, but only one person is holding the mouse.
That means only one person is in control. Think how many times you’ve said “oh wait, wait. Scroll back up a bit! Yep, just there!”
With an iPad, you just reach out and touch the screen. No-one has to be in control.
And given the light weight and size of it, it will be much more comfortable to hold between two people.
My girlfriend and I are always loading up the laptop and looking at countries we’d love to visit. The iPad just seems a far nicer way to do it.
And what about when it’s just you there? The biggest plus side then is that it’s not your laptop or your PC. As web workers, we live on our computers. We have to, it’s how we do our work.
But what about when you want to switch off the work mode and have a break? It’s hard to do that at your work computer; you always end up reading emails or going on Twitter or doing something else related to your blog. The iPad is so much simpler and so different to your work machine, there’s the small chance you might actually end up taking a break!
And you never know, the limitations in what you can do on it (No Photoshop, no code editors etc.) may actually come in as an advantage at this point.
Of course, if you do end up doing as much work on it as I suggested earlier, that scuppers that plan.
So what are the Downsides?
There is one looming giant of a shadow on this thing at the minute; is it comfortable to hold?
The demo videos really didn’t make this look appealing. You basically need to either lie down with your knees up (I’m not a sloth, I do like to get out of bed during the day!), or have a humongous hand span (I think my fingers will simply fall off I hold them like that all day…).
Whatever accessory solves that problem is going to make a fortune.
Of course, that’s not the only downside. Apple have been extremely limited in what they’ve added to this device (In short, they added screen space). For the most part, that would be okay, except for a few major downsides.
- Sharing files – How do I sync files between my iPad, laptop and desktop? The laptop and desktop are perfectly taken care of by Dropbox. With the iPad I’d need to either sync it via iTunes (Horrible to do, iTunes is a beast on Windows), or email everything.
It looks like I’ll be sticking to webapps for now, no matter how nice the touch screen Keynote app looked (Especially to someone stuck with PowerPoint…).
- No USB – This is heavily related to the above point, but it’s a real shame that we can’t link the iPad to anything but iTunes. Steve never stopped going on about photo viewing on it, so why can’t we hook our cameras up to it directly? (Can’t really picture myself saying “Let me show you these pics! I just need to upload them to my computer, pull them into iTunes and then download them back to the iPad!” It’s not worth the effort.)
- No multitasking – This has been a long running argument in the iPhone, and Apple’s defence there has always been “battery life.” That’s fine. Truth be told, I’d probably rather have my phone last a full day with no problems than have it able to multitask.
The iPad has 10 hours of battery life though! And I’m expecting to do a lot more work on it than I do on a phone. My laptop (only a few months old) averages around 3 – 4 hours of battery life, so even if multitasking cut the iPad battery life in two, it would still beat the laptop.
The most annoying part of the multitasking lack for me is that it really impairs the research capabilities. If you find some great info on a webpage, you clip it into a text editor, or Evernote, or some other application. Shame that won’t be so easy on the iPad.
- No webcam – I’m not the world’s biggest user of a webcam, but they’re handy to have. I suppose the benefits of a webcam on your iPad would be lacking though because you’d need a table to prop it up on anyway so you may as well use the webcam you already have.
- No Flash support – Given the huge iPhone popularity, a lot of major Flash content providers have set up alternative viewing methods for iPhone users (Like Vimeo videos playing in a standard video format). That covers all I need Flash for, but for people who love their Flash games, this is still a major flaw.
To those that it annoys though, you may want to read an article over on Usability Post; Flash Is Never Coming to the iPhone.
So What Should I Do?
Clearly there are a lot of upsides and downsides to this.
A good rule of thumb with Apple products seems to be to wait for version 2, and I definitely want to play around with it in an Apple shop to see what it feels like to use first. But all in all, it still looks pretty damn cool.
What do you think? As bloggers and freelancers, is the iPad a worthwhile investment? Or is it just a new toy?
I suppose the best thing Steve Jobs did for that decision is give me 60 days to get over the post-keynote “I want!”
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There are a ton of “ipad” alternatives coming out in the next months. Some very interesting Android ones.
I’m personally going to wait to see what these offer.
At the moment the iPad is a solution to a problem that’s not been found yet. I’m happier with a more fully functional netbook than having a “pretty” device.
That does sound a little more promising to be honest. There’s nothing extremely impressive about the hardware here, and all the limitations could be fixed easily enough by a company more open to them. I’ll definitely look more into alternatives first, thanks :)
“At the moment the iPad is a solution to a problem that’s not been found yet. I’m happier with a more fully functional netbook than having a “pretty” device”.
This is how most a lot of more ‘techie’ people will feel, but I think the iPad is much more targeted towards casual web browsers who don’t need the added functionality of a netbook.
Wash your hands before use it…lol
Hahaha – And immediately afterwards if you were in the Apple store, never know what snotty kid was in there before you! ;)
As for me it is a toy completely. Which by itself isn’t bad thing to treat yourself to… But trying to justify it with vague value potential is self-misleading.
Anyway why exactly are you brooding over device that is weeks away from being actually sold and getting any kind of real reviews? Wait for it, wait for initial screwups to pass, hold it in your hands. THEN decide.
That’s true, now probably isn’t the best time to make any decisions at all! But it’s new and the keynote was fairly extensive so it gave plenty of food for thought.
Being able to hold one in person really is a necessity for it though (And in the UK, I don’t even know what price it will come out at yet!)
I personally don’t really see any benefits of an iPad, anything that you’d overly want to do on it you can do on an iPhone and Laptop without bringing another device into the equation, and with no Flash support, would a laptop not be much more functional for web browsing? But who knows what the second generation of iPad’s will bring. [:
Hey Paul! :)
I don’t think it would do anything different either (Maybe some creative app devs will think of something, but probably just games to be honest!), but maybe it would do some things better? Or just make them nicer to do?
I really don’t know though. It does look awkward to hold at the minute, which means it would be doing things worse!! xD
Do you want an eBook reader? If so, pick the iPad over the Kindle. It’s much more versatile.
Aside from that: wait. I think that the iPad’s real value is in it’s larger screen, and the apps that will come from that. (And the beefier processor.) Once the device has been out for a couple of months, you’ll start seeing reviews and new iPad-specific applications that will help you decide.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head about the appeal of it there Matt. It wasn’t the iPhone itself that convinced me to buy one, it was the app store (Same way for the iPod touch, it was the jailbreaks that convinced me to get one!)
The current apps look a little annoying on it though. Who wants to have to hit the little expand button every time you load one??
Get this:
http://www.buy.com/prod/asus-eee-pc-t91mt-pu17-bk-8-9-netbook-tablet-intel-atom-z520-1-33ghz/q/loc/101/213899110.html?adid=17654http://www.buy.com/prod/asus-eee-pc-t91mt-pu17-bk-8-9-netbook-tablet-intel-atom-z520-1-33ghz/q/loc/101/213899110.html?adid=17654
It’s cheaper, better and you can actually do graphics work, including drawing with pen-based input.
That’s pretty tempting Sam! I think hunting one of those down and trying it out may be a nice way of avoiding being convinced by the Apple gloss and marketing. Would show if a touch screen is worthwhile at all at the minute or not :)
Buy it !
We know you want to ! ;)
Haha, and you’re right!! But Im not sure if I *should* want to or not! :P
There may be no flash support, but youtube now has an opt-in HTML5 beta. I am willing to bet that many other major content sharing sites will go the same way soon. Vimeo have already joined in, surely others will follow.
I hope you’re right about that. Any sort of push for HTML5 has to be a good thing, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of pushing to bring HTML5 to widespread use!
I’m in Youtube’s feather beta at the minute. Tried out the HTML5 one, but not with too much success so I went back to Flash for now :)
Some of your concerns have actually already been taken care of. There’s a camera dongle, for example that allows you to directly connect your camera or plug in a media card. It’s not as nice as a dedicated slot in the machine itself, but you can still get the job done.
There’s been some preliminary speculation that there will be wifi interconnectivity between the iPad and your other computers. The idea is that it will supposedly show up as a shared drive. The caveats: 1) This hasn’t been 100% verified. 2) It’s entirely possible that it’s going to be an adhoc wifi connection and/or utilize bonjour. That makes it PC-capable, but no where near as easy to setup as it will be between the iPad and a Mac. The simple fact is though that iTunes isn’t setup to sync documents and isn’t suited to that task anyways. Apple knows this.
I’ve been worried about the holding aspect of it too, but I think it won’t be nearly as bad as it looks. Most of the hands on reviews have not even mentioned any difficulty in this area, and you have to keep in mind that it’s only 1.5 pounds. You can hold something that light with just a hand on the side without significant fatigue. Plus, there’s always the case, which can be folded to prop up the iPad. You could sit it in your lap and the slant should be sufficient to not cause neck fatigue from looking down. Or, you can prop it up on more of a vertical on a nearby table while watching a movie or such. The point is that the case gives you some options.
Finally, lack of Flash support may be slightly unfortunate, but it’s not crippling. Between apps you can download and websites that will soon be implementing HTML5, Flash should quickly lose its competitive advantage. YouTube and Vimeo both have now implemented HTML5 video, which means you’ll be able to completely view those sites on the iPad. The iPhone is already the top mobile platform and the iPad will just further cement the importance of sites supporting iPhone OS. That should generate a lot more interest in HTML5, and if it does, Flash will quickly go the way of the dinosaurs. (And good riddance.)
@Chris,
Agree on HTML5. Think the iPad/iPhone could be the tipping point for that tech as the Flash-light finally goes out…
I hadn’t heard about the camera dongle Chris, that sounds perfect! Would definitely sort out that issue! :)
And I’ll be interested in hearing how the file sync progress goes. I wouldn’t mind a complicated setup so long as it was fairly reliable after then. Might be 2 of the worries knocked off my list! :)
As for Flash, I agree with you there completely. Flash support isn’t an issue for me, and I’ve accepted that it’s just not likely to happen (at least not any time soon!). Youtube and Vimeo are enough to keep me covered :)
Thanks for the comment, that was a great read and shared a lot of new info!
Good point about reading PDFs. I often plan to, but never do on a laptop as the keyboard makes it necessary to sit with it (at least for me). I am not sure about the “two can work on it simultaneously” argument though. Having someone trying to point on the decive at the same time sounds pretty irritating! :=)
lmao – Well that’s true, the 2-people argument definitely depends on who your other person is! :D
I’m glad someone else agrees about the PDF reading. That would be a pretty major selling point for me I think.
I think I’ll end up getting one, if nothing other than I haven’t been able to stop debating in my head since it was announced. I doubt I could do much hard-core web work on it, but like you said, that might be a good thing.
Also, it would be a great little gadget to show clients your portfolio on.
That’s a great point Tommy, would show off portfolio work very nicely! And I suppose for the near-future, you get the added bonus of being seen as ultra-modern with the shiny new toy! :)
I agree with Tommy, I see the iPad as the perfect item to take into meetings and showing work and using iWork to take notes. Much better than having a clunky MacBook covering the clients view of you.
Emails on the run (I dislike reading emails on the iPhone, the screen is too small) Thus the iPad solves this.
Also there IS a iPad connector from Apple to allow you to plug your camera in via USB or SD. You just plug it in via the universal plug.
I’ll definitely be an early adopter.
The iPad definitely seems nicer for emails. I used to read emails on my iPhone all the time, but I rarely do now just because they normally not the easiest to reply to there. It’s great for quick messages or checking if an important email has arrived, but that’s about all. I suppose; that’s all it was really intended for though.
Chris Pratt mentioned the camera connector in another comment too; yous have knocked that issue out of the way now, thanks! :D
“We wanted to make something better than a notebook” …. äääh.. I don’t see anything thats better than a macbook! I think the iPad is the most stupid thing ever invented by apple. A total waste of money. Except for iwork this thing can do nothing except some crappy apps which need to be upscaled x2 because otherwise you cant see anything. Whohoo.
On your caveat list you might want to take the screen into consideration. Reading for any period of time in a fixed location with a back lit screen will cause significant eye strain.
Try full screening a PDF on your notebook and read for an hour (must be full screen for the same effect), this will give you an idea if the iPad is suitable for you as a reader.
If it’s an e-reader you’re looking for, any device with a true e-ink screen (i’m getting so sick of these i-/e-words) would be a better choice over the iPad’s back-lit screen. The pad is just as suitable as an e-reader as your current laptop; good for short reads, but you won’t read entire books.
The touchscreen-thingy isn’t a selling point for me. I don’t want smudge on the screen i’m looking at.. I get really annoyed whenever someone touches my laptopscreen to ‘point out something’ :)
As for the iPad’s other purposes. I think i’d go for a device with better specs, capable of running a true OS and applications. Better connectivity.
The iPad looks alright, but it’s basically a blown up iPod. If it’s looks & style you’re going for; get the iPad, but there’s better value for money out there.
This sums it up pretty good actually: http://ow.ly/1nUR6Q
Regarding sharing files. There’s a DropBox app for the iPhone and, given that all iPhone apps run on the iPad, that ought to solve your file sharing issue.
I would just wait and watch others launching the same product type with more features.
I would personally wait for now. Let new versions come out, let the competition get some devices out.
This way the end result will be something more useful and pleasant. So if you feel you can live without an iPad for now I say wait a bit more.
If not go ahead and buy it :)
I hate to jump in early, I have never bought anything untill after a month or two and the real reviews become apperant.
Man im tempted with the ipad though – could be one of the few impluse buys.
Nice post,
Paul.
I just don’t get the iPad, can’t the iPhone do pretty much all the same things plus you can actually talk on it?
Why would you need this?
I do not think that ipad is a good it is to delicate and i would break it easily.
it is breakable, but i would enjoy having one if it was cheaper than an iphone and with a camera, usb slot, flash player enable etc.
when will the ipad be coming out in england
i still prefer my laptop!!!!!
i think it isnt good as i first thought it was. there are alot of downsides too it and in some ways seems in-efficient
THIS IPAD ISN’T GOOD AT ALL MOST OF THE WORKERS SAVE WORK ON A USB THIS COMPUTER DOSEN’T ACCEPT USB I PERFER DELL COMPUTER
i THiNK THAT THE iPAD iS NOT A VERY SPECiAL iDEA. THE PROS LOOKS VERY GOOD BUT ALSO THE CONS ARE BAD AS WELL.
i think its good for buisness people thats why most people dont like it
I think that the iPad is a very good idea but can have its downsides.
Such as noy having a camera or no usb
The battrery life is low aswell. 10 hours is not enough
However the iPad has good featurtes such as good screen quality and wireless connection
what my opinion on this product is that it is soo exspensive foe what?…why would anyone want to pay for sumfing which has disadvantages..e.g..no camera or no axcess for calling…!!!
Check out my recently published article on web design for the iPad.
waste of money, do not buy it. Wait till a few competitors enter the market. The price will drop and features will get better.
This is a cool gadget to have. With this new gadget laptop will be replaced by Ipad. This is the hottest gadget ever had for this 2010.
I do agree that price will drop when competitors sneaks on its features and what it could do. That is what I’m waiting for.
Congrats, you’ve done a good review. I wish I can as good as you someday.
Hi,
I am really into Apple gadgets….I have almost all of them…but I am really unsure of the Ipad…. I think i will wait a couple of months to see the first real reviews.
thx
Would you want to try and do some serious work on there, didn’t think so :-)
If it was up to me I would never own this product. It does nothing that a regular laptop can do. In fact it does much less…My biggest issue is the lack of usb ports combined with a small hard drive.
Looks far to big for me, and not big enough for a sit down laptop really seems a waste of time and money, sorry apple.
I think it’s good for business purposes that’s exactly why most people will like it
ipad is the best gadget
i want buy it too but i dont have money :(
Don’t do it! At least wait till the hp and dell tablet comes out. The iPad has an amazing design, but just doent fit any of my needs all i need is an iPhone and my laptop.
what my opinion on this product is that it is soo exspensive foe what?…why would anyone want to pay for sumfing which has disadvantages..e.g..no camera or no axcess for calling…!!!
I don’t like Apple, overpriced and outdated pricing methods. Add $60 to go from a 32gb itouch to 64gb? Price difference in hardware is probably $2. Apple may have led some innovation (iphone) but companies more willing to cater to consumers’ needs will follow shortly (motorola, google with android). Wait for the hp slate or something better. It will come with better hardware and a better price, and there won’t be a sleeve for it called the iMaxi.
Emails on the run (I dislike reading emails on the iPhone, the screen is too small) Thus the iPad solves this.
I am an Apple fan but I keep my options for other brands as well since the tough competition is launching perfect gadgets from various brands. I like everything about the iPad, just that I have butter fingers.
I usually do not leave a lot of responses, but i did a few searching and wound up here The iPad – Help Me Decide? | Pro Blog Design.
And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind.
Could it be simply me or does it give the impression like some of the responses appear
as if they are written by brain dead individuals?
:-P And, if you are writing on other social sites,
I’d like to keep up with everything new you have to post. Could you list of the complete urls of all your public pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?
sem9.com is spam.大骗子