What baffles many is that the iPad has no specific role to speak of, except maybe to fulfill the desire to look and feel cool. It seems to perform well at many of its functions, even threatening to beat the competition out of their own markets. But it’s not quite good enough, many will suggest.
It’s a good e-reader.
Depending on who you ask, the reading experience with iPad is either as good as, is better than, or is nowhere near comparable with other eBook reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony E-Reader, or Barnes & Noble’s Nook.. To many who have not read with devices like these, reading on an iPad is an experience that can soon replace reading of actual books. With some thoughtfulness thrown in to the design and mode of reading on iPad, it is definitely an e-book reader killer. However, for those who have already read with a Kindle, comparisons can be made that may understate iPad a bit.
But then again, iPad offers great features that other superb e-reading devices doesn’t. Fast refresh, for one. Whereas Kindle DX offers the most convenient and perhaps the best reading experience with its slow refresh function – that is a slow way of navigating from one page of an eBook to another, page after page – iPad offers the fast refresh which can let readers jump from one section of the book to another. When reading fiction books, this isn’t much of a big deal. For those people doing their research work on iPad, this is as close as you will get to reading an actual reference book.
It’s a good comic book reader.
For better or for worse, iPad stands alone in allowing readers to read digital comic books without a problem. Most electronic reading devices, although performing well with nearly all files, don’t fare well with digital comic books. This is probably among the few places where iPad’s superb multitouch screen performs very well, without the need to compare it to other devices in the market because quite frankly, there is no point of comparison.
It plays video very well.
What is that glossy, multitouch screen for if not for displaying video files? From the very beginning, Apple has already made it very clear that iPad is geared to providing a medium for consuming all types of media. Many believe that the true role of the iPad is to simply consume media True, it is not big enough to compare with your gigantic plasma TV and even notebooks and laptops can do as well as an iPad on displaying livestream TV, but it is portable enough to be carried around. And that’s exactly what you need when you’re just lying around, not wanting to be tied on a TV.
It’s a decent web-surfing device.
Decent-enough, that’s the operative term. iPad is a hybrid, it is a cross between a toy, a laptop, and everything else in between. Web-surfing is not its real forte, although Steve Jobs claimed that it has the capacity to give you “the best browsing experience you’ve ever had”. Honestly, if Mr. Jobs wanted that claim to be 100% accurate, the iPad browser would render Flash. But that aside and the fact that you are stuck with the “clunky” Safari Browser, overall it’s a great tool to access the web.
iPad is also a really good gaming platform but that’s to be expected given the history of its sister the iPod Touch. E-mailing is a different, nice experience. And you can actually do some real work functions with it.
Apparently, iPad can do as many things as you can expect an Apple’s product will do while at the same time setting the standards higher for other developers to follow. Because iPad seems to be good at everything, let’s just say that it is a jack-of-all-trades device. At least for now. One can just imagine what type of devices will be spawn from Google’s Android platform. Let’s not forget, when Android phones hit the market, Apple quickly sunk from number 1 to number 3 in smartphone sales.
Maybe it’s just a hunch….but it’s safe to say the iPad won’t be alone on the shelves for long.
Read More About the iPad Here.
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