So the iPad has been around quite a while now, in tech-time anyway, so it’s my turn to make a few points about it which will contrast with my colleague David’s article, The iPad: More Than Just a Big iPhone.
The Good,
Ok, let’s admit it: it’s great fun to use and it looks great. Some of the Apps with which I am famililar on the iPhone went straight on and were even better on the big screen however it was the standard websites that looked the best. So for example, the IMDb iPhone App is good and takes account of the small screen with just the key information and options available. Similarly the iPad App is fine if uninspired but actually the full site looks perfect on it. As do the majority of websites. No real need for the iPad specific App. If you just want to read an online newspaper or watch the iPlayer then its portability and dedicated interface, which automatically switches to full screen in the correct orientation, gives it the edge over a laptop or netbook.
the Bad,
I find it too restrictive when ‘loading’ existing media. I’d really like to plug in my USB key and copy some pictures, home videos and previously downloaded content and some free PDF ebooks such as God’s Debris by Scott Adams. I’d like to be able to use it without even having an iTunes account.
Instead I have to do everything through iTunes and, of course, already have a third party app installed to read a PDF. This is further compounded by the iTunes Information Architecture (basically the manner in which they hide what I’m looking for) has changed and now Movies comes under the Music Tab as everything is devoted to buying movies, tv programmes etc. iTunes made it easy to purchase the music for our iPods but the commercial aspect shouldn’t make it difficult to consume our existing media on their new devices.
The App Store has taken a dive compared to the iPhone App store. If you choose a view, say Free rather than Featured Apps, look at an App, then go Back it puts you back on the Featured Apps list. They make it hard to browse the App store successfully.
My greatest surprise is that Steve Jobs let the Safari web browser ship at all. My main mode of browsing is reading, say twitter or an RSS feed, and opening the links up behind the current window or tab to read when I’m finished the article I’m currently reading. On the iPad however, all links spawn a new browser. This makes Safari about 5 years behind Firefox and tabbed browsing.
There are a lot of inconsistent interactions and Don Norman speaks about this eloquently in his article on Gestural Interfaces. However, being a Grumpy Old Man I’m fed up with developers who ignore what even I learned as a programmer in the ’80s. To use the developers’ vernacular, RTFM.
and the Pretty
When Jeff Han delivered his touchscreen on Ted he guaranteed the future of multi-touch, gestural interfaces. They are cool now but perhaps they can be more useful in the future. Perhaps a more open format, with Flash and all media readers/encoders, would be the iPad killer.
What a great resource!