NEW YORK — Apple rolled out the iPad Saturday to cheers from many early adopters (”To those who are asking, OMFG I LOVE THE iPAD” read one Tweet) and from Apple Store employees. The blue-shirted concierges were clapping in unison for and high-fiving customers who waited for hours to drop at least $500 for Apple’s “magical” tablet.
At the flagship 5th Avenue store in Manhattan — across the street from the storied Plaza Hotel and down the block from Tiffany’s and other high-end stores, who could only envy the business Apple was doing — hundreds of people were already in line at 8 am.
For more on Apple’s new tablet, check out Wired’s iPad full coverage page.
They were divided into two lines: not the haves and the have nots, but the have sooners and have laters. A reservation system — and the lack of any telco activation since the iPad being released today is Wi-Fi only — made for very smooth sailing. The doors opened at 9 sharp up and down the Atlantic coast and, in smaller markets like suburban Washington DC and San Francisco, the 50th person in line had his iPad in about 19 minutes.When I returned to wait in the reservation line shortly after 10, it looked hopeless. But store employees checking customers’ reservations assured us at one point that “it would be only about 20 minutes.” That claim seemed impossible but turned out to be true.
And then, the years-long wait for an Apple tablet was over.
So, what is the iPad? It is at once less than a computer, and more. It’s familiar enough to help us accept it, and innovative enough to guide us into different ways of doing things. Indeed, it is perfectly-crafted to guide us into a new-media way of life that Apple hopes to sell us, and away from the old media ways which still work (and are definitely cheaper).
As a leading entry into the e-book 2.0 sweepstakes, the iPad will have to wean people off dedicated devices and entice paper-lovers with its wiles, which include carrying your reading library around with you like you do your music, and adding to it on an impulse.
As a newspaper replacement, it will have to borrow from the e-reader playbook to convince people that what they can already get in paper (or for free on the web) is worth paying a premium for in this new format.
As a magazine delivery system, it will have to be an actual magazine, and not some of the component parts thrown together with a different creative sense, in order to be worth paying what we pay for paper.
And if has to make you forget about the device entirely, so you can focus on the content it’s displaying. This, it seems to do.
First and foremost, the iPad is fast. Very fast. Browser pages open on command. Swipes transition exactly when they should. We are used to the
Setting it on a table seems natural, and tapping out on the keyboard when necessary seems just fine in a hunt-and-peck sense.
A quick survey of available “print” content is impressive. It isn’t just that web pages seem bountiful or that games seem to have no latency and fill your vision. I synced with my laptop, choosing only a subset of the apps I use on my
All that’s to be expected. But to be the future of media the iPad will have to be a friendly reading device, and it will take a while to get a feel for that. At least two books, I would say.
And the cost of the media itself will be a determining factor. We know what movies and TV shows and books music will cost. We don’t know what magazine and newspaper publishers will be assuming the market will bear. The Wall Street Journal will charge $18 a month, more than for the paper and for the current bundle of newspaper and digital offerings.
Time Magazine, one of the first periodicals on the iPad, is asking $5.00 — the same at the newsstand price — and not offering a subscription yet. It’s hard to imagine that is a sustainable model, since even booksellers realize that e-books should be cheaper than their print analogs.
Loading up Time presents a cover page filled with a black and white photo of bespectacled Steve Jobs. This is strangely jarring, as if part of the branding of the device itself. But the smiling visage of the Apple CEO on the cover of one of the first iPad magazines is also somehow fitting.
The second page of Time is an ad. An ad which will not swipe away for several seconds. Hmmm … in a paper magazine — I paper magazine I paid five bucks for — I could tear the damn thing out if I wanted.
And I could not tell if it is a quirk of the app or of the hardware, but a black ban covered the bottom of many pages when they loaded. Rotating made it go away. But it appeared persistently.
Switching gears entirely, Skype works like a charm. The app needs updating, but the quality of the call, on speaker even, was fantastic.
So, yes, Virginia, you can make calls in the iPad. Good ones.
First impressions can be important, but are not necessarily the final verdict. The Gadget Lab regulars will take it from here, and I’ll delve deeper into the media aspects of the new Apple Tablet back on Epicenter.
More pictures below:
Pictures by Bryan Derballa, wired.com
Source: http://newscri.be/link/1062086
Over the last 10 days or so… every. SINGLE. DAY. there was at least 1 iPad story. Over the last 7 days, there have been at least 2 per day. Each of the last three stories today has been about the iPad.
Every.Single.Article painting it in absolutely the most positive light possible for a new gadget.
I really can’t take it anymore. We get it. Wired loves Apple. Now stop, for the love of god, PLEASE STOP. I have no desire to read this site anymore and I can assure you I will be removing the feed in favor of just slashdot and techdirt very soon at this rate.
At least make ONE article critical of it? Just patronize legitimate journalism? show a different side of the story, or future competition?