Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A PC guy reviews the iPad

ipad-small Though I’m a longtime Tablet PC user who sees the iPad as more of luxury device than a necessity, I bought one for my Mac-loving wife and got some quality time with the device. Here are my first impressions:

  • It’s very slick, with a smooth, snappy interface and nice industrial design.
  • Browsing the Web is enjoyable on the iPad, thanks to a big screen, awesome battery life and instant-on startup.
  • Typing on the iPad’s on-screen keyboard isn’t as fast as using a real keyboard, but faster than I expected.
  • The iPad is lighter than any tablet device I’ve owned (including this Vadem Clio – talk about an early adopter!), but even a 1-pound device gets heavy fast when you’re holding it up in your hand.
  • Not having Flash is not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. Many sites are already working around it, and even YouTube videos embedded on other Web sites know when to switch to a non-Flash version.
  • As noted by famed Web interface guru Jakob Nielsen, app interfaces are wildly inconsistent. A lot of experimentation is taking place, which is good and bad – it will lead to interface innovation but a lot of user confusion until designers begin to coalesce around some common interface conventions. Just like the early days of the Web. 
  • The iPad doesn’t work on Macs running OS 10.4 or earlier. So my wife’s PowerPC-based computer is too old, even though the iPad works fine with older Windows-based PCs. Does Apple hate its most loyal customers, or do its customers meekly take whatever Steve Jobs gives?
  • iTunes is a bloated POS. Truly.

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