this post is somewhat rambling, disjointed, because I am dictating it using Dragon dictation app for the iPad. I am still unpractised in voice dictation, and I still have a hard time getting things in order for speech. On the whole, I do think that using dictation on the iPad at least for longer things upwards of 100 words, is going to be the way to go. I do hope that this technology makes it into the system as a whole so that you are not limited to using it just in dragon’s silly notetaking app.
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The iBooks book reading application for the iPad is a disappointment to me. Apple has built its reputation on creating applications and hardware that “just work”.
Unfortunately, iBooks doesn’t. It is certainly pretty enough to look at, at least superficially. In fact it seems as if a lot of time was spent making the iBook screen both look like a book, with a stack of paper and a fold in the middle, and act like a book, with its very carefully detailed page turning animation. Unfortunately, when it comes to the most important aspects of a book, which are typography and text formatting, iBooks falls down.
I present for your consideration two screenshots taken from the iBooks application running on my iPad. The first shows a poorly formatted table of contents. The second shows poor line spacing.
A third example would show bad letter spacing and ragged text alignment at the left and right sides of the text block, but this would be hard to see except in a close up view. Nevertheless, inconsistent kerning and ragged text make reading more difficult, and are a constant distraction.
I do think that sometime in the future, iBooks could be an outstanding platform for reading. Unfortunately, despite the elegance and beauty of the iPad hardware, and the refinement put into many of the other iPad applications, the iBooks application itself seems unpolished in comparison.
With poor text layout, terrible kerning and unfortunate line spacing problems, reading books in iBooks is constantly irritating. I cannot recommend it.
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Paintbook 2.6 running on iPad. Combined brush and palette tools. Also note much better set of default colours.
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I’ll keep this short. It’s a revolutionary device. And Apple is the only company that has got the “tablet” idea right. This is not necessarily because of the operating system or the app-store “walled garden”, but because of the premise — which no one else picked up on. All the other manufacturers are trying to bring a touch screen to the old computing paradigms, and that doesn’t work so well. It is like polishing a tennis-shoe.
The iPad’s idea is this: a SMART SURFACE.
It is a deep black gloss surface that can show bright moving images in full colour, and you can touch them and they can respond to you instantly. When you launch an app, the device BECOMES that application. It isn’t running a computer program — that’s not what is happening; that’s not how it feels. If I start a piano program, the iPad becomes a piano. If I launch my Paintbook app, it becomes a sketching pad. It becomes a book. A video screen. A kaleidoscope. A real-time star chart. A newspaper.
It is a void upon which any concept can be imposed by a software developer.
It is a SMART SURFACE that can become anything.
In five years, the majority of our interactions with computing devices will be through smart surfaces of all sizes. In ten years, the mouse will be a distant memory (thank god), and smart surfaces will be everywhere on things that aren’t even recognisable as “computers” because they simply DO things — different things at different times, perhaps, but even that doesn’t matter.
If you don’t see this, please open your eyes.
I’m not too fond of walled gardens, but on the other hand, Apple’s insistence on people doing it their way (user experience-wise, not development-tool-wise) is going to enable this transition to new computing experiences happen. Because all the other tablets are too stuck in old paradigms.
As the iPad gains traction, people will stop thinking of computers as “oh, that’s so hard to use, I don’t understand it” and start thinking of them as tools. And it will become widely accepted, correctly, that it is the fault of the developer if the user can’t understand how to use an application, rather than the user’s fault for being too stupid.
And that’s a change that has been way too long in coming.
Sometimes I wish I could work for Apple because I can see exactly where they are going and what needs to be done to get there — but then I realize that would mean working in the US again, and that’s just not happening. Also, I think they’ve got enough angry visionaries on staff for now.
Specific review: The iPad 1.0 hardware is a little too heavy, the sound quality is just adequate, and it is underpowered computationally (though you may not notice this too often due to clever programming inside). Still, I suggest you get one of the cheap Wi-Fi only models, which at $500 is a great deal for all the FUTURE it is. Keep it for a year and then give it to a less tech-oriented family member, donate it to a children’s hospital or just let your kids use it. Don’t bother with the cellular version if you either a) have a cell phone already, or b) don’t travel much.
Next year you upgrade to the 2.0 hardware which will have a slightly larger screen, be at least 25% lighter (carbon fiber shell would help with weight and antenna range), and run about 50% faster with the same battery life. It will also have at least one camera (front facing for video chat), and it will be able to handle the important kinds of multi-tasking, such as streaming radio in the background, doing instant messaging, and being your telephone via Skype 24/7.
Go get one and see the future.
(I do not own Apple stock because I have no money, but I wish I did.)
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This is a test photo post.
