Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Reflections on my Ipad and Apple in general

"So Garrett are you getting an Ipad?"

I think almost anyone that knows me was aware that I pretty much had to have one of these things on day one. I remember when I finally made it into the Apple Store in Northridge after waiting for 5 hours in line to be one of the first to get the original Iphone the day it came out...I saw one of the staff members playing with an actual Iphone...(the first time I ever saw one in person). My reaction was a physical one, I got weak kneed and tingly at the sight of this amazing object in this girls hand, glowing like a luminescent jewel.

So on to the Ipad....It arrived for me at my doorstep last Saturday and I didn't get my hands on it till a few hours later because I was at the Dodger Game. When I powered it on and started to play with it I was hit by one primary thing...The Display. I have never seen a better display then on the Ipad...it makes everything: photos, web pages, e-mail, look amazing. It is like the transition from 480i to 1080p HD in television terms.

Now would be a good time for a disclaimer...I wanted to like the Ipad...for a few reasons...everyone wants to be right about the decisions they made...I am an Apple fan boy who has bought most every one of their products...etc. But this product actually exceeded my expectations..in a few areas...I didn't think it could replace the traditional laptop, but after a few days of playing with it and especially doing my company work and playing around with their "Pages" and "Keynote" apps for the Ipad...I was making killer presentations and great docs...(The mt. Whitney Doc for one was made entirely on the Ipad) And I realized "Wow! I don't need a laptop anymore.." It is easy to type on especially in Landscape mode with the large onscreen Keypad, and with the Blue tooth apple keyboard it is even better. The versatile case can be quickly configured to lay the Ipad on a flat service at a perfect angle for typing. Anyways it is even better than I thought it was going to be......

Is it as big a revolution as the Ipod and Iphone were? Probably not, but it is a revolutionary new device in so many ways.

On a practical note..here is how our computing life will go from now on....We will always have one large IMac....that is like the central hub of our network....all our stuff is on that...The Ipad will be the device that is carried around in the house and curled up with like a book to do e-mail, surf the web, read books in low light, etc...And the trusty Iphone will always be on my person wherever I go.

On another note....Apple is so far ahead of all of it's competitors in the category of smartphones, music players, and computers that I (no joke) cannot even comprehend when someone asks me what I think of a Blackberry, or The Droid for smartphones.....Or if someone has a "Zune" music player....or a Windows 7 based desktop or laptop...it is mind boggling to me!

P.S. Congratulations to the newest owner of a Mac Book Pro my brother Matt!


Garrett Riley

Iphone 3 GS 32 GB
IMac 2.0 GHZ
Mac Book Pro 15 in 2.16 GHZ
Ipad 64GB WIFI only
IPod Shuffle 2GB

1 comments:

Brett said...

Gar,

A couple of thoughts. First, I will disclaim with you that I want to like the iPad, but I think I won't need to force it... I think it will come naturally.

I disagree with you on an item or two. I think it will be as revolutionary as the iPhone. Maybe not this year, but I can't imagine this not changing (long term) the way we see mobile computing (i.e., displacing laptops and netbooks) and changing the way we do education (i.e., displacing textbooks) and the way we read (i.e., displacing newspapers, magazines and books). Apple has opened the doorway to a different medium for all these things. The reviews for the first generation are overwhelmingly positive. The next five to fifteen years will see a lot of venues open up for applying it.

Secondly, I think it only fair to note that while the Android operating system is not quite the iPhone OS, it is leaps and bounds better than every other competitor. I got Jen an HTC Hero for Christmas (she is shackled to Sprint because she has a killer friends and family employee plan that we can't afford to give up). I admit it is a pretty slick phone and operating system. There are few things that are better than the iPhone even, though over all the iPhone is better. Just wanting to be fair.

Thanks for the update(s) on the iPad.

Brett

13" MacBook
Power Mac G4
Mac Mini G4
iPhone 3g
Apple TV
AAPL Stock :)