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15 April 2010
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Thanks to ToshNewZealand.com, I got to spend a weekend in the company of an iPad. This is the second and final part of a hands on look at the new iPad. In it, I look at Safari, Flash, advertising, games and some impressive iPad only apps. I then sum up some aspects of the iPad that impressed me. A final article to be published later, will look at some of the flaws.
The Safari web app was great to use. The NZMac.com site loaded on it with no problems and looked nice. I liked how you brought up new sites. Instead of the the site you were looking at being taken off-screen (like on the iPhone) you could see them all displayed before selecting a new blank page or going back to an existing site...
And the NZiPhone.com website looked great too...
But get to a Flash driven site...in this case my personal site that has been Flash based since virtually its inception, and it's no joy...
My site uses interactive Flash, so to make it iPad friendly would require more than just some HTML5 effects. But I'm not the only one with problems. The Stuff website looks fine...
But try to watch a video clip from the site and you get...
And keep in mnd...this simply isn't about Flash. There are a lot of cross-platform technologies that will not run on the iPad. So, as an example, the University I work for invested a great deal of money on a lecture capture system and wanted to make sure that lectures could be viewed on both a Mac, PC and Linux, it's a bit frustrating to see a device so clearly suitable for surfing the web, unable to play the simplest of recordings...
Other major websites aren't as ready as you might hope also (although pretty close). Here's what Google Apps For Your Domain is showing...
iPad specific apps
Some of the apps that have been released for the iPad are quite impressive. The New York Times Editor's Choice is free and gives you a sample of their news site...
However, the NYT website itself is a mix of free and paid for content, so it wasn't surprising to find a full-screen (complete full screen of the iPad!) advert appear whilst browsing this free app. If these were frequent, they would get exceptionally frustrating...
The Guardian Eye Witness app was also free and stunning. It focuses on one image per day from the Guardian newspaper (my old read) in the UK...
I loved how on first launch, an introductory video played to introduce you to the app and explain what the purpose of the app was...
The images were stunning to look at...
Not an iPad app at all, but Real Racing, expanded from its small iPhone size screen to an iPad size, was still fantastic to play. I spent a long time gripping the sides of my iPad like a steering wheel and (I have to say) doing rather well at beating everyone (I'm coming 5th out of 6th in this image as I had to slow down to take a screen shot....honest!). Real Racing is an example of where the developer has released a separate iPad app (Real Racing HD) that requires a new purchase, as opposed to making the app a universal one that runs on both systems. Given how much fun Real Racing was at 2xiPhone, I probably would buy the HD iPad version if it looks good enough...
IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) is a site I've used often, and their free iPad app is superb. I have to apologise here as I don't know why I took a screen shot (or even how I managed to) without any images loaded. You can see the IMDb app in all its glory (with images displayed) in one of the iPad videos I did...
Sheepish from PixelThis is Palmerston North was also fun to play. This iPhone version of the app still looked great on the iPad, and even seemed a bit easier to play on the larger size screen...
No "Hands on" would have been appropriate without trying out Flight Control. Again, an iPhone app that had to be zoomed up to 2x (You can see the pixelation in the image below) it was still a great game to play....and seemed to keep me more alert because it felt like I had a bigger airspace to keep a watch on...
Blimp - The Flying Machine, again an iPhone app, looked slightly pixelated, but also looked beautiful on the spacious iPad screen. I hope they optimise the game to play on an iPad...
Finally, GrooveMaker Free is an iPad specific app that was just a lot of fun. The extra real estate that the iPad has, makes it perfect for such an application. I can see this or the commercial version of this app (a little on the expansive side) being very popular to use....
Summing up
I didn't want to create a review of the iPad, as I feel that has been covered exceptionally well elsewhere. I also can't comment on issues such as battery life (which is being reported as very impressive) because I didn't have time to spend draining the battery just to write this article.
There are issues to be contended with though for iPad owners. The way it handles files (or doesn't) is something that will be discussed later. It appears that the ability to display content on an external display is app-specific...in other words, it's up to the app what it can display externally (if anything) and you can't just plug the iPad in and have whatever is on screen appear externally. I also noted that iTunes LP content strangely doesn't work, although I suspect this will change in a future version of the OS.
The iPad is as stunning to look at and use as I expected. It's a new way of thinking when it comes technology and it is no doubt a game changer...but superlatives aside, there are aspects to the iPad that need refinement. Even with the iPhone at its third iteration, how quickly those changes come about on the iPad will be up to Apple to determine. In the next few days I'll publish an article on some of the flaws I feel exist with the iPad, as well as discuss whether it truly is a replacement for your desktop PC or Mac.
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Philip Roy
said:
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An update...I've been informed that the system my University uses is in fact bringing out an iPad friendly format, so that is pleasing...but doesn't deal with the many sites that do make use of Silverlight. Phil |
Cuby
said:
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Great write up! Thanks for the great write up on the iPad Phil you lucky guy, it was really interesting to read. I love how you've done it differently to most other write ups out there and included tons of pictures and brief but interesting notes.  I want one now… |
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