Apple iPad Review – Part 2 – UI and Applications
There really isn’t a lot to say about the UI and the built-in applications that most people aren’t already familiar with.
Since the OS is a variant of iPhone OS, it works pretty much exactly the same. You get iTunes, Mail, Safari, YouTube, Notes, etc. There are some cosmetic differences to some of them, such as Mail and iTunes, but they’re essentially the same.
However, there are two new built-in applications that may or may not interest consumers.
iBook is the first one, and the one that Apple is really trying to capitalize on in the long term. This is their take on the eBook market. Kindle and Nook were poised to be the market leaders in this segment, with Kindle already holding a comfortable lead. Of course, that’s just an assumption since Amazon won’t tell anyone how many they sold. There are some pretty significant differences between what Apple is offering and what every other eBook reader is offering. Most eBook readers are black and white, have some variation of e-ink, and are not backlit. iBook is color, standard screen, and obviously, it’s lit up. This also segues into Apple’s new iBookstore, which is where you purchase the books from. I’m not sure about the DRM issues that will inevitably take place here, but from what I understand, the Kindle application should probably still work on the iPad, so you’ll have options. Say what you want about LCD screens giving people headaches, most of us watch TV on and LCD and compute on one all day long, and we’ve managed to survive.
Brushes is a paint-like application. Without knowing too much about it, I fail to see the purpose of this application unless it has some additional photo editing abilities. There’s not much to say about this.
Other things offered in the UI are more advanced multi-touch. I say more advanced as in more than the iPhone. This is simply a result of more real estate with which to work. I was unsure about the single pane trackpad on the recent Macbook Pros, but after using one for a while, I hate using a Windows trackpad where I have to *gasp* browse the internet with more than one hand. While there is a slight learning curve to get used to it, if you use multi-touch for a week, I challenge anyone to say it’s not a better way to get around your OS.
The App store is what’s going to take this device to the next level. Designers took the original iPhone from a fanboy device to a multi-purpose, must have for a lot of people. It even serves as a complacency device for kids. Sure, there’s a premium over the PSP or DS, but you can do more than just play games (yes, I know they both do more, but who really uses them for anything else), and it’s something everyone from 4-50 can use on a daily basis by just finding apps to meet their needs.
As much as I’d like to talk about updated licensing agreements with magazines and TV studios and how that’s gonna work, we don’t have any new information, so I’ll just leave it with saying that by this Summer, there will be more than a few magazines that will be leading the charge with their own apps for subscribers, and they will be cool.
Check out the continuing review at the links below.
Part 4 – Overall Conclusions and Predictions
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