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Creating a new experience
from reading the news to playing games, the iPad has been a wonderful
and great device to have, from the edge-to-edge glass capacitive touch
screen on the front, to the nice quality of the aluminum cover on the
back. In this article I’m going to give you some pro’s and con’s on the
journey of having an iPad in the long run.
1.
Design
& Build Quality- does it hold up to wear and tear?
The iPad has one of the most
magnificent and toughest build qualities of any other tablet that is
currently on the market. From the edge-to-edge glass LCD screen on the
front, to the tough aluminum cover on the back, the iPad’s build quality
is surely going to last you a great deal of time, especially from the 10
hour battery inside the device. So far I have dropped this twice during
the span of 6 months, and so far no signs of wear or damage have been
seen. Also throughout the span of 6 months, there have been no scratches
on the front or back of the device.
I tend to be careful when it
comes to carrying an expensive electronic, and you should, too! I always
make sure I have a firm grip when holding it in one hand, and also
always use a case to put the device into, also. I use Apple’s official
case, which if you may remember got a poor rating from TeknoLogic, but
the Incase Convertible Book Jacket for the iPad is just too bulky to be
traveling light or to cram in a small laptop case with a laptop. Not to
mention, with Incase’s book jacket it is impossible to completely fold
over the front flap without having to force it to do so when holding it
in your hands, a minor loss, but I’m always holding the device in
portrait mode, while the Incase book jacket was designed solely for
landscape use.
2.
Software- No Multitasking?!? (Just kidding, it’s coming
in an iOS 4.2 Update this Month!)
The software on the iPad runs
iPhone OS 3.2, a major setback for those who intend for heavy
multitasking. You can only be in one application at a time, and when
having 8 different screens full of apps and games, it can get
frustrating and time consuming. Just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, you
must press the Home button at the bottom to exit out of an application.
One thing Apple did get right was to enable an actual background-
missing on the iPhone 3GS and the iPod Touch 3rd generation.
A big setback for me was the
lack of widgets, currently available on every other tablet out there,
such as the Android 2.2 running Samsung Galaxy Tab, or the Blackberry
Playbook. There is so much wasted space on your home screens that aren’t
completely full, and even suggest that in this update Apple puts a
dedicated widgets page to the left of the main home screen, where
currently is the search engine that searches the entire hard drive of
your iPad. This would be a great thing to put in it, along with even
putting the widgets on the lock screen, but then I won’t get to see a
picture of my dog looking at me when I power up the device. Either way,
widgets should’ve been on the iPad in the first place, and is a big
disappointment to me.
Fortunately to all of this
bad news, Apple will be releasing an iOS 4.2 update for the iPad, which
allows finally for multitasking capabilities and a simplified inbox,
combining all of your separate email inboxes into one, large inbox,
eliminating the need to go in and out of inboxes, just to see an email.
The multitasking will be just like on the iPod Touch 4, and the iPhone
4, where you must quickly press the home screen button twice to pull up
a small menu at the bottom, which has a shortcut to start a playlist of
your choice, change the screen brightness, lock the screen orientation,
close open applications running in the background, and finally, switch
in and out of applications with ease.
3.
Apps, Apps, Apps!
There are plenty of apps in the App Store, with 150,000 and counting for
the iPad, and over 200,000 for the iPhone software. Now there are plenty
of iPad apps to choose from, but many iPhone apps can be used on the
iPad, and scaled (almost) to full screen. This however, will make the
app look quite pixilated, but the enlarged iPhone keyboard makes it
quite good for thumb typing on the iPad in Portrait mode, but just makes
everything complicated in Landscape mode. Also, if you don’t mind the
pixilation, you can save quite a bit of money simply by buying iPhone
apps, but I’m particularly not a fan of pixilation in apps, and like to
get the most out of my iPad content for the money.
Now
there are plenty of apps to recommend for the iOS and for the Android
operating systems and you can expect plenty more to come from
TeknoLogic.
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