Note that #6 (No International Support) relates to the iTunes support, not international language support which was covered here.
Here is the conclusion:
The iPad still rocks. It is an amazing device and for $499 you would be crazy not to get one (if you can afford it).
The issues described here will undoubtedly get fixed over time and while annoying are no deal breaker.
This one comes as a bit of surprise – Barnes&Noble has announced today that they will release an App for the iPad – essentially it’ll be an eReader that will allow you to view digital books sold through BN. I am not sure how this will jive with the concept of iBookstore, i reckon the two will not be competitors (they recently announced an alliance) yet it’ll be interesting to see how Apple is going to react to this. Another interesting point would be to hypothesize about possible sale of magazines (and other content) via RSS reader type devices (e.g., just announced Google Reader for iPad – another potential challenger to the Apple store/iBookstore concept.
Back to BN, here is blurb from what’s posted on the company’s blog:
We’ve been getting lots of questions from customers, so we wanted to confirm that we will soon be adding a new B&N eReader for iPad – continuing to fulfill our promise of providing consumers any book, any time, any where.
Designed specifically for the iPad, our new B&N eReader will give our customers access to more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers in the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, as well as the existing content in their Barnes & Noble digital library. (That includes eBooks and content customers have downloaded to their nook eBook reader.)
Matt and Jaclyn Wiebe of Soma Design (Winnipeg, Canada) have a nice article taking a look on how a potential widespread use of the iPad and iPad-like devices may change the future of interactive design. You can read the article here: On the iPad and Web Design – the key segments of the article are below…
NAMCO knows the game here – with 20M+ iPhone games downloaded Namco is the true leader in this space… Here is a blurb on the iPad game development:
… (NAMCO) We are already updating our apps to take advantage of the new device’s gorgeous display, powerful chipset, and updated Wi-Fi support. Being able to reach new players and connect with your friends regardless of where they are in the world is an important evolution of social gaming, and in the next few weeks and months we’ll be announcing our titles that support the iPad as well as many other new efforts.
Y Combinator (respect) has an interesting POV on how the iPad is meant to (silently) exterminate Windows from the marketplace:
… (coders) may never want a computer they don’t control, but ordinary people just want something cheap that works. And that’s how the iPad will seem to them. Many will never make a conscious decision to switch. They’ll get an iPad as well, then find they use their Windows machine less and less. When it dies they won’t replace it.
As always, the rest of the RFS is a good read – you may not agree with it but will certainly respect the view…
If you feel like watching a 60 minute long chit chat on the iPad and how it’s going to change the future of mankind here is the iPad Session at Macworld San Francisco 2010 (Dan Moren, Jason Snell, Ted Landau and Andy Ihnatko participate):
There is a lot of noise (and bad vibes) in the media regarding Apple’s decision to not enable Adobe Flash on the iPad. Reports range from claims that Steve Jobs called Adobe (and Google) lazy to assertion that Apple is still negotiating with Adobe. To sum it up, Apple sees Flash as a memory hogging and buggy piece of junk and, to protect the user and user experience, the decision was made to not include support for it.
Case closed, Apple will join a slew of other companies in support of HTML5, a standard that will bring us online video without the need to run an embedded or standalone media player… The decision ticked off many and th developers leveraging Adobe’s tools (Design Suite, Flash, Air, etc.) are certainly among the loudest.
My take on this is a bit different – while I hate when Flash hogs my CPU and RAM – I still see Flash as a pretty solid application (with quite a bit of room for improvement). I believe that Apple’s decision is almost solely based on the company’s strategy to protect the iTunes app revenue channel. At this point, aside from the jailbreaking circus, Adobe Flash is the only serious danger to the App Store. Imagine being able to run flash and all freebie flash games and apps that are floating in the cyberspace – that’d be sweet but it would certainly cut into the iTunes Apps sales.
Let’s finish on a brighter note: here is an interview with Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO – it touches on several points I wrote about above. Lynch is defensive throughout the interview and he’s trying to play nice – this interview does not help Adobe in convincing both the customer and the Street that all is rosy. Yet, it’s not Lynch’s fault! Whoever is in charge of PR at Adobe should have stopped this and let a strong business person navigate this very rugged landscape.
There has been a lot of noise in the blogosphere regarding VOIP over cellular networks (at least here in the US). Fring, a major VOIP app provider for iPhone and WinMo has an interesting post on the subject: it seems that restrictions for using VOIP over cellular networks (particularly ATT/iPhone) has been lifted and the iPod users can now make VOIP calls via several applications (e.g., Fring, iCall, etc.).
This has a potential huge impact onto iPad WiFi+3G users – it effectively means that if you have a 3G model you’ll be enabled to make VOIP telephone calls via the iPad. So, let’s say you use GoogleVoice (GV) as your primary number, you take the iPad to the coffee shop, you configure your GV number to redirect to your SkypeOut number, you bring up Skype on your iPad and volia – you get both your Cell and Cell calls on your iPad.
Now, I am not sure how this is about to work if you want to be reading an ibook (since the iPad inherits iPod’s inability to concurrently run two or more applications) – would that imply that you’d be cut off from phone access?
As a matter of fact the Economist has an interesting points in this article – here is the conclusion:
If Mr Jobs manages to pull off another amazing trick with another brilliant device, then the benefits of the digital revolution to media companies with genuinely popular products may soon start to outweigh the costs. But some media companies are dying, and a new gadget will not resurrect them. Even the Jesus Tablet cannot perform miracles.
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