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July 23rd, 2010
Apple iPad!
There is an excellent write up on the iPad by The Age newspaper. Being curious cats, we couldn't help ourselves and ordered 2 and are enjoying them immensely.
In our view, there is no doubt that this IS more of a discretionary item, than a necessity. The iPad is the ultimate boom box, complete with pictures and videos. It's a great way to sit on the couch or cafe and surf the net, and unlike a laptop, without ending up buried in work docs and feeling compelled to do business activities at 11am on a Saturday morning.
However, we have found the iPad to be terrific for travel and attending conferences. In fact, for short trips to Sydney, it will now completely replace the need to take a laptop. We've found the iPad to be a great way to keep a tab on business emails during days at conferences, or to explore a topic being discussed (by a key note speaker) on-the-fly.
From a developer's perspective, playing with the iPad has helped us strategise our approach. Unlike the iPhone (or other 3G touch models), the iPad gives us plenty of screen real estate to play with and therefore we will present our sites in full size (not their mobile 'b' versions). The key weakness is the well publicised lack of Flash animation. Video can be easily resolved, such as YouTube's HTML 5 work-around. However, animations requiring user interaction are another story. Solutions can be achieved, but it requires some creative thinking and quality development!
