iPad, Excitement for its Applications

Gadgets | March 15th, 2010 by Staggs

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I have been weary about mentioning the iPad, for various reasons, until now. My perception on the matter is that the iPad is a hyped up, unimaginative device that only hardcore Apple followers will be willing to throw down money for. I still feel this way and believe that the product will be left unappreciated, and rejected by many consumers. Apple should have put more thinking caps on when developing this device. However, one aspect of the iPad that does deserve applause is its application abilities. Without applications, the iPad would just be a sitting duck. With the success of iPhone apps, there is now a great market for new and better apps to come along with the iPad.

If you are not aware, the iPad will natively run every iPhone application that is currently in the iTunes App Store. You will not have to wait for the publishers of your favorite application to churn out a special iPad version, it will just work. Nothing could be more simple. And to that, your favorite application developers are probably already working on new, more exciting applications that will use everything the iPad has to offer to its users.

Apps at Faster Speed

The iPad has a brand new, Apple-made processor (the A4, to be exact) that is capable of 1Ghz of speed. This is about 160% faster than the iPhone 3GS. Fast enough to have great high-definition video streaming, run more intense video games, and have more complex applications. One of the coolest things about the iPhone is its ability to run neat apps, and the iPad should not fall short at all in comparison. Already there are several, big-time applications that are gaining hype for the iPad.

Game-Changing Applications

NYTimes Reader: Like its little sister on the iPhone, the New York Times has an all-new application that will make reading up-to-date content as natural as holding a physical newspaper. Jennifer Brook, a NYTimes executive, says the application “captured the essence of reading a newspaper.” Similarly, we’d expect that other publications would follow a similar suit and develop their own applications for digital consumption. Already, the Wall Street Journal is on this path. Whats better to carry around, a stack of newspapers, or an iPad?
iBooks: Looks like a bookshelf, acts like a bookshelf. When we buy a new book, it reads like a book – page flipping and everything. This application/built-in add-on to the Apple Apps store will allow anyone to purchase a book to be read wirelessly on the iPad. With its big screen, the iPad will be able to display as much text as any book and have the options to change the font face and size to our preference. Great! Read more on Apple.com: iBooks.
iWork: For those of you looking for more portable, on-the-go document editing, Apple has recreated its iWork suite of productivity applications for the iPad. It is a more bite-sized, more robust version of the regular program, but exactly what we’d expect to see to be used for a portable device. More about this feature on Apple.com: Keynote, Pages, Numbers.

iBooks: The headache for Amazon Kindle?

The only problem is that iBooks will put the iPad in competition with the Amazon Kindle ($259 from Amazon.com), which, for about half the price we get half the features and a smaller screen, and the Kindle DX ($489 on Amazon.com), which for almost the same price, we get a similar-sized screen and a black & white display, still with about half the features. Which is a better alternative? I’d say the iPad is immensely more capable of pleasing even the toughest digerati.

Not to put down the Kindle device, the service is still good on its own, which Amazon has been growing slowly. Amazon now offers Kindle service through desktop applications, on your Blackberry device, and they are working on an iPhone/iPad application as well.

Never before have we seen such accurate and advanced multi-touching surface hardware, and there is a wonder to be learned about how we will use such a piece of gadgetry. Yes, there have been many touch-screen devices, but none like this. The iPad is the first to have the graphic-power and touch sensitivity to improve our perception of how a tablet computer is supposed to be used. In the past, tablets were limited to linear, unsophisticated programs. The only time I had ever seen one was when I was waiting on a line and someone asked me to fill out a survey — it was on a tablet that simply stored responses. Surely there are more useful things that a tablet can do.

While the iPad natively has basic functions, the real value comes from the applications that will use the hardware to its fullest. It is the extra zings, bangs, and clanks that will really separate it from being a mediocre device and instead turn it into a fantastic piece of human productivity enhancement. The developers, rather than Apple, are in the spotlight to create those innovative pieces of software that are not linear, and will “wow” people.

The first of such usage might be the iPad as a presentation “remote”, an idea proposed by Seth Godin, called TalkingPad. His idea is to use the iPad as a device to choose which slides are presented and when, and even suggest certain slides that might be useful. It may also keep track of statistics such as how long a slide was up and which slide was shown after, each metric helping the user perform better presentations. Check out the TalkingPad wiki if you are interested in helping this project.

Since there is no such thing as a shortage of ideas, the iPad might succeed on this idea alone. Apple has to make sure that developers are taken care of if they want the iPad to reach as many consumers as they are hoping for. The device, without these frills, will wreak of demise, just like others have done before it.