 "Photo: Molly Raskin")
Apple is such a brilliant company. Their customers have an incomparable level of brand-loyalty. Whenever a new device appears at an Apple store, it is greeted with lines of Apple die-hards as far as the eye can see.
The same is likely to be true when the company’s new tablet computer, the iPad, is released later this year. This interesting gizmo offers all the fun screen-groping people get from their iPhones, without the annoying phone calls, text messages or usefulness.
Apple has a reputation as a forward thinking company, but if the iPad is any indication of the future according to Steve Jobs, technology is going to be both frustrating and restrictive.
Like the iPhone, the iPad is incapable of multitasking. Although the device supports Apple’s entire catalog of iPhone apps, users can only run one of them at a time. That is good news for the device’s battery life, but bad news for anyone who wants to use the Pandora application while reading an e-book.
However, it is the iPad’s lack of media sync functions that makes the device truly heartbreaking. If users want music, movies or books on their tablet, they have to buy them through the iTunes music store instead of copying them from a computer.
Perhaps this is how Apple intends to supplement the iPad’s $499 price tag (the cost of the cheapest model). The money customers save on buying the iPad instead of a traditional computer can theoretically be used to purchase digital media. This is the kind of approach I expect from Brita, not Apple, and certainly not for a machine that is so tailored toward media consumption.
Despite all the complaints, the iPad is still a great invention, one that is capable of altering the future of computing, media use, video games and even journalism. As seen in a demo released by Sports Illustrated, tablet computers have the power to change the face of magazines completely. By infusing Sports Illustrated or any other publications with interactive media, the iPad could help foster a new era of user-oriented Web journalism.
With the accelerometer technology Apple first introduced in the iPhone, the iPad could even reinvent the way people play video games. Users playing Need for Speed can turn a steering wheel by tilting the device.Thanks to the smooth, flat surface, the iPad can also be used as a Frisbee by gently throwing it to friends.
Admittedly, the iPad is just the first step in what is sure to be a long line of enlarged touch toys, and an admirable step at that. Despite the iPad’s numerous shortcomings, it’s satisfying to see that Apple constantly introduces its customers to the future of technology. But in 2010, a laptop and a smart phone will still suffice.
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