Ok, we have heard a lot about the Apple iPad quite a lot over the past to month or so, but now the dust has settled a bit…
So I’ve decided to have a look at the product and all the murmurs from other publications in an attempt to speculate what Apple plans for this “new” device.
What?
From what we’ve seen it’s a “iPod/iPhone” like device with 9.7in display. The press have been quite harsh describing it as an “iPhone” without the phone and too big for the pocket.
We know for a fact that the inside the device very different, definitely not a device we are familiar with. The iPad utilises a new multi-processor called the A4. It’s a 1GHz processor developed my Apples recently purchased PA Semiconductor division. The chip not only looks after the maths but also the graphics processing amongst other things, which reduced the chip count and the power requirements pushing Apples power estimates to 10 hours of surfing or watching movies – there is no mention if this refers to the WIFI or 3G version though.
Who?
Let’s look at the device; a slate, tablet keyboardless device – Who does Steve see using this?
I thought about it and here are some possible scenarios;
- Scholar/Education; of course its new eBook functionality and iTunes U links suggests that this would be an excellent supplementary tool, study tool in schools as well?
- Hospitals/Surgery; I could see this being an extremely useful tool in hospitals for doctors, nurses and the pharmacy.
- Museums; what an excellent interactive guidebook for a city or a museum, a fully interactive guide for the Louvre for example – imagine that.
- Business; with the introduction of Works for iPad it’s obvious that Steve has his eye on the business market. But I believe people are assuming its being aimed at the office, but we need to remember that business stretches further. A possible scenario for business could be for the urban warriors, checking stock, billing and creating quotes for example.
Why?
From the information we seen already, many questions have been raised. Here are a few of mine;
- With up to 64GB of memory surely iTunes can’t be the only way to get information on the iPad? For this to be a useful device the iPad needs to cut its apparently total dependence on iTunes. It should be able to download files, connect to network shares etc to save and load files.
- This could be such an amazing tool for photographers, it’s rumoured a USB adapter will be available to connect to cameras but for goodness sake why not include a SD card reader?
- With the new Apple A4 processor running the show at a speedy 1Ghz why is the device still unable to multitask applications?
- With the new A4 processor, why can’t the iPad use handwriting recognition as well as having a virtual keyboard?
- We’ve seen the generous customisation that we now have; yes we can change the background image! I want to see more! When the device is locked how about some installable widgets for mail, next appointment, weather?
- A recent discovery from one of the iPad maintenance parts suppliers suggest the supplied frame already has a space for a forward facing camera. The module space has been designed to fit the existing iSight cameras. Why build the space into the frame at this point without providing the device?
- It’s been suggested that although video content on the iPad is shown on-screen at HD (720px) output from the iPad will not be at HD?
Of course this is all speculation; on the 27th Jan we saw a number of working devices running OS3.4, a tweaked version of the same OS running on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
It’s quite possible the much rumoured OS4.0 (which is long overdue) for the devices mentioned above will include the software omissions mentioned. With the new Windows Mobile 7 shown for the first time in February the OS3.x is certainly looking very dated; hardly changed since the OS was first released in 2008.
When?
With the announcement on the 27th January, Steve told us that the WIFI version would be available in 60 days and the 3G version within 90 days, so not long now.
There seems a lot of disappointment when it was announced, always a problem with so much hype but I don’t believe we saw the iPad’s final configuration on either software or hardware.
If course it would be a big hit for Steve to release the iPad with a full multi-tasking OS4.0 and maybe a camera?
As a footnote, in the next couple of months an upgrade to the iPhone is expected. Perhaps the iPhone 4G will be release using the new A4 CPU and a true multi-tasking OS4.0.