The iPad Review For The Rest of Us

The first thing I notice about the iPad is that it’s wicked fast. Everything happens in a snap. Apps fly open. They close even faster. Web surfing is lickety-split, especially on a fast Wi-Fi connection. Netflix movies load almost immediately, and scrubbing through them is quick and painless.

I marvel at how seamless it is. Turning the pages of Winnie The Pooh is so gorgeous, I spend five minutes just turning and returning the pages.

Some new email comes in. Everything’s synced: email, address book, calendars, music and movies — all thanks to a two-minute setup in iTunes. I dash off a quick reply, and am pleased how easy it is to type on this thing. Woah — this is one slick gadget!

I know what you’re thinking. Should I get one for the kids instead of a nasty netbook? Can we replace our old PowerBook with it? Should I take it to a confernece next month instead of my heavy MacBook?

Read on…

For easing reading, here’s CoM’s review in an easy-to-read Q&A format with lots of pix. My colleague, Jose Gutierrez, contributed several sections, including the app reviews.

Is it well-built? What’s the quality like?
The iPad is a beautifully-made product. The aluminum and glass construction is top notch. It’s tough and durable. I haven’t thrown it on the floor of course, but it feels like it’ll take some lumps. As iFixit noted in a teardown, the chips are superglued to the motherboard.

Is it heavy?
It’s no featherweight. Weighing 1.5lbs, the iPad has got some heft. In fact, it borders on heavy, especially if you’re holding it in one hand for any length of time. It’s definitely a gadget that benefits from an arm or leg rest. And the glass screen makes it top heavy, especially when typing it portrait mode.

What’s the screen like?
The 9.7-inch screen is really bright and beautiful. It has a resolution of 1024 x 768, and great viewing angles. However, the glossy finish can cause reflection issues.

What’s battery life like?
It’s got seriously great battery life. We bashed on the iPad all day — a full 12 hours of more or less non-stop usage — and it’s still got 17% charge. When hibernating it loses charge at a very slow trickle.

How fast is it?
Very fast. Everything flies. Even slow-poke apps like Google Maps and Google Earth have almost no lag.

But where’s the USB and SD Card slots?
My wife is incredulous it doesn’t have a SD Card slot for her camera. What’s the point of having it if you can’t upload photos to it she says? She’s got a good point. There is an adapter but the lack of slots serves as a reminder that this first version isn’t yet a laptop/desktop replacement.

How is typing?
It’s OK for hunting and pecking, but the keyboard needs work. It’s difficult to type in portrait mode. In landscape the keyboard dominates the screen. Typing might be a deal breaker for some, but as this video shows, it is possible to type quickly.

Can you work on it?
Yes and no. You can make spreadsheets in Numbers and write in Pages, but the biggest hitch is the inability to export iWork files using standard Microsoft Office file extensions. This is a big setback if any work environment where everybody else uses Windows, which is most of the working world. Also, I think the keyboard will prevent users from using iWork on iPad for creating files. Without the optional keyboard, it’s better suited to light editing and twaeking files made on other machines. Until Microsoft Office comes to the iPad, it will not be taken seriously by corporate America. Maybe Microsoft Office for the Web will fill this gap?

Does it work out of the box?
Unfortunately no. You must initially set up the iPad through iTunes on a tethered computer. For some, this is a big disappointment. It shows the iPad isn’t yet a PC replacement but a complementary product.

Can you print on the iPad?
Printing isn’t built in but you can print with third-party apps like ActivePrint.

Is the absence of multitasking a problem?
Because apps return to the same state you left them when you quit, the lack of multitasking isn’t such a huge problem. Plus, third party multi-tasking will come probably with iPhone OS 4.0.

What about the lack of Flash?
The lack of Flash is definitely a pain point. One of the first sites we visited (the BBC for the Cambridge/Oxford boat race report) had no video. But Flash is a dying technology. Its only saving grace is Hulu.

What’s the set-up process like?
Initial set-up was easy but the sync process was slower than expected. It took forever and I thought it had crashed. However, after about 40 minutes it had transfered 30GBs of music, movies, TV shows and apps, plus all my contacts, calendars, a couple of photo galleries and so on. Syncing is now set to happen automatically via MobileMe.

How is it watching movies in your lap?
The Netflix app for iPad looks just like the website, which is awesome. No need to learn a new way to do things. Not only can you stream content, you can reorder your queue through the app. Streaming is super fast (of course this depends on your WI-FI connection) and very smooth. I used Angels and Demons for this quick test. This app acts just like the website version of the Netflix Player. Bravo Zulu to Netflix for this awesome app. Now get hot on a version for the iPhone!

Is it really as great as they say for reading newspapers?
The NY Times Editors Choice app is very easy to navigate and of course features content from some of the best journalists in the world. This particular NY Times app shows the promise of the NY Times in the iPad format. However, it’s quite disappointing that the NY Times isn’t ready to handle a subscription-based app — especially after their awesome showcase at the iPad keynote address. Let’s hope they learn from the mistakes the Wall Street Journal is making in pricing their online version higher than their print version. If I could get the full daily edition at a rate of about $10 a month, they would have another subscriber for life (or at least the life of the iPad).

How about comics?
I have not purchased comics since I was in middle school but had to check out the Marvel Comics app. I downloaded some of the free comics to try it out. Not blown away but it is an ideal way to read comics, as long as you are not into the collecting community and want to just “read” the comics. I hope comics stick around — but the end of the age of comic collecting may be upon us.

How buggy are the apps?
Some apps still have bugs due to lack of hardware availability to developers. Simulators can only do so much. Expect a firmware upgrade soon as well as many app updates. The lack of simple weather, calculator and stock apps is a shame. Sure, there are 3rd party apps for that, but Apple seems to have glossed over some of these details.

Isn’t the iPad locked down? Can you customize it?
I just loved being able to customize the wallpaper of the iPad. Just one more way to show that this one is mine. Being able to put six apps in the dock is awesome. Many features like this and the custom wallpaper need to make it to the iPhone.

Is it good for games?
Heck, yeah. It’s awesome for games. The kids fought tooth and nail about who got to play with the iPad, especially Flight Control HD (in 3D). We eventually had to take it away. The bigger screen make it much better for gaming than the iPhone or iPod touch. For a start, your fingers don’t get in the way as much. The accelerometer works great as a control mechanism.

DON'T MISS
First Impressions – The iPad Seriously Rocks

It might be good for kids, but what about the older generation?
We had to take it away from my mother too.

Does the screen get all greasy?
Oh yeah. But it cleans up easily with a good wipe of your t-shirt.

What’s the email app like?
The email app is well-designed. The emphasis is on the message bodies rather than subject lines, a good design choice that makes it very easy to read quickly and efficiently. Typing a lengthy email on your lap is surprisingly efficient. I’m a piss poor typist and make a lot of mistakes. But if I just power on, the system’s autocorrection takes care of most typos and missing punctuation.

How about Web surfing?
Web surfing is awesome. Mobile Safari is super quick. The bookmarks bar is very nice. Web browsing is one of the main reasons many people will buy an iPad. Safari for iPad is designed for quick and easy browsing whether your are on a ferry headed to Seattle or are sitting at home on your couch. Sites load up very quickly and new tabs open instantly. While visiting many tech blogs, I noticed that it was very easy to read the text even without zooming in to the two left columns as most blogs have a three column layout. It will be interesting if Apple approves the Opera Mini browser for the iPhone OS as that will open up a whole new way to browse on the iPad.

How is it as an iPod?
The iPod layout is very clear and useable. Again, the bigger screen makes it much easier to navigate than an iPhone.

How about productivity apps?
Setting up your email, contacts and calendar is as easy as it is on the iPhone. A note to Google users: Google Sync is not supported on the iPad. At least, that’s what it says when you visit m.google.com/sync on Safari on your iPad. However, if you then go visit that same site on an iPhone after you try it on the iPad you will see iPad as one of your devices. Strange!

Google Contacts works great as well as Gmail through the Mail app or through Safari. The calendar is gorgeous in the week or day format.

What does the App Store look like?
Apple needs to work on the iPad App Store in iTunes too make it blindingly obvious what apps are for what device. At the moment, it’s not easy to see what apps for the iPad and what are for the iPhone. A simple tab called “iPad App Store” in iTunes would solve this problem. Browsing the App Store on the iPad is not as clean as I thought it would be. Loading more titles in the top paid or top free apps is clunky and in need of a Coverflow-style scrolling option. You cannot simply just look at a page of the top paid iPad apps. You have to look at the top paid and top free iPad apps side-by-side, which makes for constant scrolling. I would hate to have an app at the bottom of the list — it takes a lot of scrolling for users to see your app.

But should I buy one?
The iPad is a good product that will become an awesome product when more apps are written and optimized for it. A firmware update is needed to work out some bugs. At the moment it’s perfect for relaxing at home or on a plane. It’s not quite ready for the working world. The iWork suite just not quite good enough. But that soon too will change. Version of two of the iPad will be much better, but why wait? We say experience the future now.

43 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by Leander Kahney.

Posted in Apple Tablet, iPad, Reviews, Tablet, Top stories |

Jason
Why wait? Because we’re in a recession and should be making smart purchasing choices.
Max-Russia
Wow. I neeeeeeeed it right now! But, im in Russia *sad*..
George
The BBC will make an ipad compatible iplayer like they have done for the iPhone.
jj14
Is Leander Kahney out of his f***ing mind. Flash a dying technology. Like all the sites i use use flash. and who the fuck would spend that much on a piece of shit ipad when a decent laptop can be bought of the same price. Buy a fucking ipod touch. Thats all it is a bigger touch and it gets a new name and they call it a revolution. F*** off.
Frederic
Wow, you are leaving a lot of personal information with the “contacts” app picture, aren’t you ?
Max-Russia
2 jj:
Relax, man. Nobody forces you to buy iPad.
Darwin
Jj, you need professional help.
mlahero
Hmm keep hearing the old “Flash is a dying technology” argument being swung around. You must honestly be kidding yourself if you believe that, the technology is not dying. HTML5 will eventually take a lot of video work away from Flash, and that makes complete sense, but it will be a long time until that happens completely, Flash offers too much right now that HTML5 simply has no capability to do. Visit http://www.thefwa.com and visit any of those FWA winners, they are all Flash websites and every single one cannot be replicated in Flash to the same level of animation and quality.
It does often seem that many people regard Flash as simply a video player and nothing else. It’s an animation package, a game creator, website builder etc etc yada yada.
Personally I want Silverlight and the HTML5 Canvas stuff to take and close the gap on Flash. Monopolies are bad for everyone but Flash is not going anywhere.
Clown
I do my best to avoid flash-based websites, on my “notebook”, because flash-based websites are abominations by default, except for a few well-designed ones like YouTube, which only uses flash to play the actual videos.
http://www.fort90.com/journal/ fort90
Umm, actually, I found this review to be the true “for the rest of us” review…
http://techland.com/2010/04/03/apple-ipad-eight-hours-later/
… The author doesn’t seem to hold any Apple bias whatsoever and tells it how it is; the device is great but hardly perfect.
kc!
Great overview, thanks!! I also have an ipad and still learned a thing or two from your post!! And nevermind the “flash cursor” above, you are completely right and it won’t be long before flash technology is replaced. Additionally, using a iPod touch in place of an iPad is like saying a skateboard’s a good substitute for a car.
ILoveGadgets
Thanks for the review for the ‘rest of us’. It answered some of my curiosities such as the finger prints, speed, games, etc… The takeaway from the review, to me anyway, reads that if you are waiting for gen 2 or something because the experience will be remarkably different that it may not be necessary as you will have a remarkable experience with this gen 1. Regarding the Flash commentary – reported on this site is a write up that Flash is absent on smart phones and other such devices because the mouseover or hover is necessary and since there is no mouse…. As such if the future is to move away from physical input devices more and more, then the current iteration of Flash is a dying one. Not to say that a new version of Flash won’t come out to adapt to this change. Most complaints I read are that Adobe is being awfully slow to roll out a means of adapting Flash for the changing landscape. At the end of the article, I don’t think he is telling or asking anyone to buy an iPad now if they don’t want it or find it an intolerable expense at this time. He is just providing a bit of information for those who might be interested. Whether I do or don’t get one, it was still good reading. At a minimum, nice to know my mum might really enjoy it.
Yacko
jjs rant should be included with a warning on every flash heavy site – this is your brain on flash.
Rob
Great review, nice, straight forward questions and answers. Would love to get feedback on our free iPad app, Rock Show: http://bit.ly/cSC5ut
Also at http://www.rockshow.fmÂ
Chad
“J.J.’s Rant” (catchy name!) reminds me of Abbie Hoffman’s brown acid rant at Woodstock. Pete Townsend, escort this man off-stage!
David
I like the format of the review. Very creative! The content boderlines fanboy from time to time (“experience the future now”), but a nice read overall
http://jonathanbaldwin.co.uk Jonathan
odd – I can use the BBC’s iPlayer site on my iPhone and it’s really good – managed to stream a programme without any pauses. Why would the iPad be asking for Flash to be installed?
palosny
OK, here’s a question for you: if an app returns in same state and the CPU is wicked fast.. how is this perceptually different from multi-tasking?
Patrick
“Itâ€™s only saving grace” should be:
“Its only saving grace”.
Brett
I find that most Flash-based websites stress eye-candy over usability. Many are slow-loading and tax the system resources. Navigating them can be an exercise in frustration.
As HTML5 and Javascript authoring tools improve, and browsers are updated, most of Flash’s functionality will become redundant. There will be no need to author sites requiring Adobe’s proprietary plug-in.
You know who is the most upset about Apple’s boycott of Flash? Flash developers, that’s who. They have invested years becoming proficient authoring Flash. Their income will be threatened if their clients abandon Flash. And they’d rather not have to climb yet another learning curve (HTML5) in order to remain relevant. Its human nature to want to preserve the status quo when things are working out for you.
Well I say “tough luck”. Nothing lasts forever, especially in technology. Wail, gnash your teeth, and spew FUD all you want, but there is no holding back the tide. As the native ability of web browsers inexorably improves with HTML5 and fast javascript engines, the need for Flash (and dependance on a single company’s proprietary plug-in) will diminish.
Right now it is challenging to develop anything really sophisticated in HTML5. It may even take a year or two for GUI development tools for HTML5 to catch up to the Flash authoring environment, but it WILL happen.
The sad thing is that getting rid of Flash won’t magically cause “overly-creative” designers and coders to get a clue about usability. (Hint: Don’t employ nonstandard ways of interaction just because you can.)
iphonerulez
>OK, hereâ€™s a question for you: if an app returns in same state and the CPU is >wicked fast.. how is this perceptually different from multi-tasking?
For the average consumer, it will appear exactly the same. But a geek is different. It’s either true multitasking or it’s not. They can’t be cheated or fooled into thinking otherwise. My solution would be to allow a maximum of two apps to fully multitask and that would somewhat satisfy the geek demands and yet minimize shortened battery life problems to the low-tech consumer user who may forget to close apps.
Apple has likely solved battery life problems with the iPad and maybe the latest iPhones with advanced processor tech and will finally allow multitasking on the newer devices. I do think that any printing app should be able to run as a background task unless it can buffer data very quickly so a user can return to the foreground task at hand.
Flash may not be dying very quickly because there are still an awful lot of desktop internet surfers out there who seem to love Flash. I do think that mobile users would benefit if more sites did include non-Flash alternatives. The more iPads/iPhones/Touches that are sold, the quicker the move will be to alternative solutions for watching video. If advertisers want to reach Apple mobile users, they’ll have little choice but to offer alternative solutions because Steve Jobs isn’t the sort of man to give in to anything. Most major content sites undoubtedly will, but the poorer, smaller sites won’t. Users and website developers unfortunately got caught in a war between Apple and Adobe. It’s might take all year to sort this one out.
I try to avoid sites that rely on Flash, but I seem to keep adding sites to ClickToFlash exceptions preferences. I must have about fifteen exceptions out of the 100 or so sites I normally use. I’ll just keep hoping that more sites offer non-Flash alternatives as time goes by.
M. Hunt
“Right now it is challenging to develop anything really sophisticated in HTML5. It may even take a year or two for GUI development tools for HTML5 to catch up to the Flash authoring environment, but it WILL happen….”
Seems like a good argument to wait a year or two to buy this product. This and many other comments make this seem to me to be an appliance that is pretty amazing in many ways, but still missing so many features that I’d find it frustrating to use (pretty much the same way I feel about the iPhone/Touch).
Stuart
You mention not being able to export files in Microsoft Office format, but there’s an option to export in Pages, as a PDF, or Word document.
Doug Petrosky
No I don’t think he is out of his mind. I think many people feel the same way, not because it is going away tomorrow but because the most common use for Flash (video playback) is simply unnecessary and fairly easy to replace with a free and open standard. Flash has never been the best video distribution technology, but it was the most common one to all platforms so for that one reason everyone uses it. But it’s codec’s and players have always sucked! (scrubbing, fast start etc have all been better with others).
The success of the iPhone, iPod touch and now the iPad could cause more sites to support alternatives and once Flash is not the only universal player, I’m thinking that flash usage will drop off.
Rahim
I can no longer read what you write because you think hulu is flash’s saving grace.
charli
three things
1. the iwork apps most certainly do import/export with Office
2. if you are buying at a store they will happily let you ‘turn on’ your ipad right there in the store so you can use it right away
3. that BBC player for the iphone likely works on the ipad although the res probably sucks.
http://abc.com Bob Lackerfy
“flash is a dying technology”, like your mom!
fanboy!
http://abc.com Bob Lackerfy
All you other mac fanboys gooble up hook, bait and sinker whenever Apple comes out with premature devices like the ipad. You live in a goldfish bowl where everything else is controlled by the Apple gods. And they are greedy, corporate bastards that do not care about you but your cash. Sell your soul to Apple!
http://abc.com Bob Lackerfy
gobble*
Shawn Pero
@Bob Lackerfy: As opposed to selling your soul to Microsoft. Or using Linux and not getting anything done unless you’re a hacker. Or, how about this: buying an Apple product because you like it and think it’s nice, and does what you want it to.
Going forth, let’s agree that anyone who uses the term “Mac/Apple fanboy” is a Windows/Linux fanboy (or a closeted, ashamed Apple fan), and can be safely ignored.
http://jacksite.net Jacksite
“Flash is a dying technology”
Allthough I don’t use any flash at all on my site because I hate it, YouTube still uses flash (and YouTube is popular, you kno what I’m saying) HTML 5 is getting better, but it’s still not good enough to display feature rich – animations like flash can.
Dray67
I think it’s fair to say the fanboys will lap it up, I do like the idea though of making it easy to use for those don’t need a full on laptop/PC, the flash thing is a pain, how good or bad flash is, is moot, it’s out there and used a lot, hopefully it will change, but for now a bit of a pain it’s not supported but not a deal breaker, as a reader it’s going to be decided by use, no review is going to tell you how well your eyes adjust to it, personally I think I could happily use it as a reader.
I have a 10 year old iBook running Debian Linux that I use as a reader so the iPad screen should be ok, for general PC tasks like email, and browsing I have a MacBook pro, my gaming rig is a high spec i7 win7 pc, and I have a Box made up of spare parts running Ubunbtu, which to be honest, I cant remember the last time I used it.
With all this in mind would I buy one? I would love to try one I really would, my wife is thinking about one, but between my MacBook, her win7 laptop, her iPhone and my iPod touch we’re really good for anything that we need to do that the iPad offers.
Pity you can’t test drive one, and the lack of smart card support is a major flaw, but one I think will be addressed.
On the face of it I couldn’t justify it as it would be a luxury item and if a friend asked about it, I think I would in all honesty tell them to pay extra for an entry level MacBook.
jr
@palosny: Huge advantage of running simultaneous apps: how about playing Pandora or iHeart Radio while surfing the web or creating a Pages document? Or chatting with someone on IM while doing the same?
I’m certainly disappointed that Flash is not on the iPad. The best websites are built with Flash… you just don’t see the quality animation, movement and interaction with a website using other technology. If Apple ran tests and discovered real issues with battery life reduction, I can’t blame them for drawing a line. But if this is some kind of grudge between Apple and Adobe… not cool. Either way, most complaints about Flash not working on the iPad are about the lack of being able to play embedded video. It seems that HTML 5 will take care of that. But if we want to truly “experience the future,” we have to find a platform that will efficiently work on devices such as the iPad and also stay on the cutting edge of webs development.
Even so, the iPad is a compelling new computer. It is interesting to see Leander’s family use the tablet in the photos above. If its as compelling to the average family after the novelty wears off, seems this new form factor could become the new “family computer,” possibly dethroning the desktop someday.
Burke
“YouTube still uses flash”
Good thing youtube works wonderfully on the ipad!
:)
People who complain about multitasking or flash have obviously never used the device. People who do use the device the answer is always “why?”
lol @ flash. “I want Punch the Monkey!!”
b
flash is annoying as hell, as a windows user, it has crashed my pc and hulu doesn’t stream well at all. thank god for youtube.
http://nonw eric
ITS VERY SIMPLE.
-If you like the latest and most hyped product, buy an iPad..Is it a revolution? YES and NO..
Yes=Its the first of its kind..Meaning a big touchscreen thats easy,cheap and well rounded.
No=It really is over priced in the sense that its just a bigger ipod..you pay for the size simple.
Do I want one? Yes and no. I would like to buy one because I love the newest gadgets and it looks like something fun for trips and what not..But thats about it.. to me its like an xbox 360..you only have it for entertainment. if I ever need something done I will use my macbook..If im going on a car ride thats going to take 8 hours,yea I can see how having a 3g iPad would be nice. Surf the web,watch some movies and kill time..Other than that it serves no real purpose..I cant see people sitting down and writing full on Powerpoint presentations with it, just not convenient.
Jess
Love it. I’ve been doing my research for a little over a month about whether or not I should buy an IPad, only because it is quite an expensive purchase. For over a month, I’ve been looking for a review that was a little more in depth rather than ‘it doesn’t have flash or a usb port’ as the cons and ‘it has a beautiful display’ for the pros..this is perfect. Thank you so much for publishing this for all of us who are a bit more on the wall about this product!!
As a side note…can we be a bit less hostile about the flash, please? That was just ridiculous.
Dray67
@ Jess
This is a good review, but it is a little bit to friendly to the iPad, try this review if your genuinely interested in getting an iPad.
http://www.slate.com/id/2249822/
http://jamy.mahabier.net/ jamy015
Of course i don’t need it, but after reading some reviews i kind of want this thing. Problems arise: it’s not sold yet in my country and i don’t saved enough money. Awww.
Paco N
I think its a great product, no matter what people has to say about it.
I always read comparision comments with what you get versus other netbooks or smartphones, etc, etc, etc….
Anyone has really really to see the many things you can do without using the mouse, the keyboard and being sitting, laying or standing; and most important the freaking user experience that it has.
Time will let you know what all this is about, you’ll see. And yes, the Apple logo in the back do matter; give the company the credit…. remember that is a creation of a one of the few companies of our times that will be remebered on books forever.
appleenlightenment
Lets do the flash dance for a while. Well not to exciting a dance because it does not have any emotion just facts. Something that is far different than all the poop about flash pro and con. Personally I use both. Thats right I use both. Its not a world of one or the other. Oh wait it is if you are in the Apple world because Steve Jobs says it is bad for you. Why? . Could it be that Apple horsepower isnt there? Flash is on 97% of the computers on the planet. Apple marketshare is not what most of you think it must be. Wait a second now this gets off topic a bit but with Flash being on 97% of all computers on the planet how come he called Adobe Lazy? In the interest of keeping this to facts only I can’t put in my reasoning for this. Developers know html unlike the comments written here. Also in the interest of time lets stick to video portion of html5. Developers write using standards for interactivity knowing their end product will play on mostly any device. Since html5 is not even an official standard this means there is some issues with this desired outcome. 85% of the top 100 alexa sites use flash. Some developers still use AS2 and I think this is normal for some people to get behind. But using this argument what is the hurdles for html5 to become a standard. Should everyone as is present be trying to make their own html5 standards? Is this better than the known Flash? The answers are quite obvious. The whatwg and w3c are the two bodies that publish the standards. Whatever the standards are Browsers have to support them. Presently the two biggest web browsers that take 88% of the population comes down to IE at 58% and firefox at 38%. So 88 percent for these two browsers. So what is the browsers in relation to html5. So in html and again concentrating on video the html5 relies on using the tag. Yeah people developers really don’t have a problem learning about tags. But lets see Firefox allows the video tag in their browser but not the decoding of the key video format used presently experimentally by youtube and vimeo. Internet Explorer does not support the video tag at all without a plugin. Oh No. the point of html5 is getting rid of the plugin.
html5 does NOT define a video format to be used with the tag. H.264 video is vying for the standard and that is what youtube and vimeo are using in their present experimental stage. The bad news I guess is that h.264 is a proprietary format. So if you want to build a browser that plays back h.264 based video in html5 you have open that wallet and put some very large numbers on the check to the companies that own the h.264 patents. Apple is ok with the royalties but pontificates about a free and open internet.
So do you think that these issues are going away any time soon? Lets look at Flash 10.1. It has instance management, It also has with the work of other hardware manufacturers the ability on mobile devices to access hardware acceleration. So is this why every other top 8 manufacturer of the smartphones announced they are backing flash 10.1? Everyone except Apple? Apple against the world? The mobile phone web market is 1% of the web. Lets imagine that Apple now has 50% of this. Well you can do the rest of the math. The reality is that Flash will be increasing on the Web in the short term not shrinking. Don’t despair You may note that testing as seen on lifehacker site show that on a mac firefox and safari with flash required less cpu horsepower than chromes html5 implementation. What you cant get flash? Oh sorry bout that. Well Adobe made I presume in their sleep being the lazy people they are .. an apple feature with CS5 that translates to native apple code. Whats that … you cant use it because it didnt start off as native code. Those lazy bastards at Adobe, or wait is someone pulling a fast one on you that thinks you are too stupid to know better. Could it also be possible that someone is telling you html5 is ready for prime time because when they release their os4 they will be releasing it in html5 and have an iad campaign that will have you clickin and forced to respond. Now that is impressive to pull that off and have a flock of sheep that are going through that gate. Will it work? I dunno I seem to see a lot of passion for Apple buyers that seem to want to be told what to do, what to buy, what to watch. Its kind of what I think I may expect when I have a HP Slate hooked via HDMI to my home automation and other consumer electronic devices. Its not going to sit alone with Apple exclusive usage like an ipad will.
http://www.jrunderhill.com deepgoddess
As a one-person advertising-related design studio, I need to be efficient in my choices of programs for which I pursue technical training. When I use Flash, it’s to create an animated embellishment or slide show detail in a website. I do want my web work to be compatible with as many interfaces as humanly possible, and I’m frustrated that these little parts of my Dreamweaver websites can’t be viewed on Apple mobile devices.
May I get a concise suggestion or two for creating these graphic pieces with a program other than Flash?
TheScientist
Lack of the ability to install apps without going through the iTunes store is why I’ll be exchanging my iPad for a real tablet. I need apps like emacs, maxima, gnuplot, octave, and zotero. These are all portable to new operating systems, but I doubt that will happen as long as apple charges $100/yr just to be able to plug your iPad into a computer and debug. :( Why oh why must the iPad be locked down?