Thursday, April 01, 2010

I cannot WAIT to get my new iPad.

OK, for those of you who know me, and are astute to seen that this post was created on April Fools Day, I can just hear your chuckles now. I bet you are saying "Ha Ha Dave! You got me on this one!" But alas, I will probably buy a few. You see, I was present at the Apple launch event to cover it for G4 and back then said that the device was going to be a big fail, limited in use and will not be adopted. I even shot some YouTube HD video of my and another G4 producer's lack of love for it.


Yet today, perhaps due to my being out at sea for three days, I am considering a different tune. I have read the Walt Mossberg Wall Street Journal review where he says it has lasted more than 10 hours with constant and quality use, calls it a decent consumption device for media and websites. Uncle Walt even goes so far to say that the limitations on content creation, due to its lack of USB ports and an on-screen (for the time being) keyboard are not so bothersome. I have also read David Pogue's piece for the New York Times where he saved face and wrote two reviews. One for the technology experts like myself, and one for the people who just got on Facebook in 2009. He kind of likes it too. Those stories are OK, but this one is better.

At the 2010 SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, I covered a session on HTML 5 Video for Gearlive.com; which supports streaming media without the requirement for Adobe Flash. The iPad and iPhone do not support this format, as Steve Jobs says that it is a processor hog, unfortunately it is seen on many websites like YouTube, Vimeo and pro-media outlets like Hulu. Newspaper websites even use the format to give some "flash" to their words. This HTML evolution should integrate its capabilities within. At the same time, Google is announcing that Flash support will be built into Chrome, their browser. It is also supported in their Android mobile phone handsets, which I have been testing successfully with the Nexus 1 Smart Phone. More on that in a subsequent post.

So HTML 5 should make the iPad be a more usable media CONSUMPTION device. Accessories and hacks to Bluetooth should make it a better CREATION device. But one important thing is happening that I did not foresee due to prior stubbornness; Media sites like CBS, Hulu and New York Times are building specific applications and web sites for the iPad. This will deem the lack of Flash media support moot, but will most likely come with "premium content" pricing schemes.

If you want to find the real reason that I am excited about the iPad; with its no-contract 3G service plan with UNLIMITED (for now anyway; lets keep it up AT&T) data plan for $29.99 a month, take a look at the episode of Cranky Geeks that I was a guest on, just one week before the unit shipped to stores and Apple fan boy's hot little hands via UPS.

Ziff doesn't do embedded video, so enjoy this URL: http://www.crankygeeks.com/2010/03/episode_211_apple_ipad_details.php You just click on it, and a page opens!

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