Apple’s iPad Really Does Look Like A Game Changer

Post by Sharat | January 28, 2010 | Apple | Comment

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, has positioned Apple’s new iPad offering as being something that lies in between its iPhone and MacBook. But in order to fulfil that promise he has consistently made the point that it would need to perform some functions better than either of those two products.

Many people had tipped Apple to release a 10-inch version of its iPod Touch, which is basically what the iPad is. However that is only really true at the hardware level. The large screen size of the iPad combines the beautiful IPS LCD display of the MacBook with the mutli-touch sensitivity of the iPhone.

The large screen gives it so much extra room that it allows apps designed for the iPhone to mature in sophistication, allowing them to transform from mostly informational browsers, to full scale desktop applications driven primarily by a multi-touch interface.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Apple’s tablet device is that it works vertically, and though the device also works in landscape mode (because some apps favour one mode as opposed to another), the vertical mode is what is used in the dock and is the primary way Apple markets the product, as it does with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Vertical orientation begins to make sense when one actually uses the device, because the preconceived notion that many have of the device being a laptop without keyboard suddenly disappears, and one begins to see the iPad behaving like a digital pad of paper.

The other most notable feature is that the device is not simply a large screened iPod Touch. The applications that Apple bundles with the device, and some select third party applications that have been developed for it over the last few weeks, have all been revitalised to make full use of the larger screen size, increasing their sophistication and depth rather than just increasing in graphical size.

Simultaneously as developing iPad specific apps, the iPad is also able to run almost all of the 140,000 iPhone apps that are currently available. The iPad runs them either natively as the same size as you would expect to see them on an iPhone or the size of the app can be doubled to occupy most of the screen and existing games look simply amazing

Developers will be allowed to create their own customised versions of their existing applications to work on the iPad, and with the extra screen size available the possibilities that developers now have is simply mind boggling.

There is some debate ate the moment over whether the iPad will have the same impact that its legendary iPod had on the MP3 player market, Apple CEO announced a price point of just US$499 and somehow we think it will be a game changer.

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