Archive for the ‘IPad Reviews’ Category
Gadgets -IPad: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Glare
No we don’t have an iPad, they don’t hit New Zealand for a few weeks yet. But some of you do. And those of us whose iron-clad policy is to never buy any first-generation Apple (News – Alert) anything would like to thank all you bleeding-edge first adopters, without whom the wonderfully bug-free Apple products we buy wouldn’t be possible.
It’s fast. “Applications literally fly open, and browsing the Web on Safari is way faster than on the iPhone (News – Alert),” he says.
On the not-so-great side, Patterson says, “Good luck reading e-books in direct sunlight. The beauty of the Kindle’s black-and-white e-ink screen is that text stands out quite nicely when you’re reading in the sun. On the iPad, however, the color display looks disappointingly washed out in direct sunlight, problematic for reading e-books poolside.”
Just a thought here: Wonder if it’s possible to switch to black and white display, instead of color? Just because it’s possible to render in color doesn’t mean it’s always best to do so, does it? Woody Allen agrees with us on this, by the way.
Frankly we’re not all that interested in buying an iPad, but this does remove one concern we did have: “The iPad’s virtual QWERTY keypad isn’t nearly as terrible as many had warned,” Patterson reports, adding that “I’ve managed to bang out a few decent-sized emails on the thing.”
However, it might not be the most type-friendly device made. To type one needs to “prop it (awkwardly) in your lap to type,” or “place it flat on a table – not the best solution due to the iPad’s curved back,” or “hold it in one hand and tap with the other, effectively slashing your possible WPM” or buy a stand at $40 and up.
Other points Patterson brings out: “HD videos look amazing. Absolutely gorgeous” – good. “Reflections on the display are pretty distracting” – ugly.
Apple Advances Helping Amazon?
So, yesterday Apple announced the newest version of their IPhone operating system, which contains several advances including bringing Apple’s IBooks to the IPhone and ITouch.
In theory, that should be good news to the company’s bookstore, which I’m thinking is off to not quite as great a start as they were hoping.
Here’s the thing. In his announcement yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said they had so far sold 450,000 IPads and that 600,000 books had been downloaded from IBooks. Let’s assume that none of those 600,000 are Winnie the Pooh, which comes free with the device.
That’s roughly 1.3 books per device, which I think should probably be higher. And given that IPads can download free books from Project Gutenberg, you sort of have to wonder how really significant that 600,000 number is — or at least wonder if it’s significant in the way Apple wants you to think it is.
Which brings me to the point of the headline — while adding IBooks to the IPhone and ITouch will certainly help Apple, every advance that makes their devices a better reader also helps Amazon with their Kindle.
See the thing that makes all those Kindle vs. IPad arguments invalid is the IPad is a device while the Kindle is a machine on its own as well as an app that runs on many machines including the IPad.
Apple’s software, meanwhile, runs on Apple devices — and while there are certainly a lot of them and while people are developing “enhanced” versions of books to run on those devices — the question remains whether it will be enough to steal a significant chunk of Amazon’s market or, actually, help Amazon grow.
On another note, I would like to remind the world that today is Books for NYC Schools Day. If you’re in New York, go. If you’re not, donate online.