Tech Features

A practical test of Apple's iPad

By Christoph Dernbach Apr 25, 2010, 15:45 GMT

The window display at the Apple store announces the launch of the iPad in San Francisco, California 03, April 2010. EPA/MONICA M. DAVEY

Hamburg - Bill Gates was predicting great things for the tablet computer a number of years ago. 'It's a PC that is virtually without limits - and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America,' the Microsoft founder proclaimed at the Comdex computer trade fair in November 2001. He was dreadfully mistaken.

While the tablet computers since that time have been a string of flops, Bill Gates' arch-rival Steve Jobs appears to have broken through with the iPad. 'It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world - it's going to be a game changer,' the Apple CEO crowed after 300,000 of the devices were sold on the first day.

To date the iPad is only available in the US. It's due in other countries such as in Europe later this spring. At that point the three WLAN-only versions currently available as 16, 32 and 64 GB models will be joined by three 3G-ready (UMTS) models.

The first thing one notices about the iPad is its weight. At 680 grammes, the device is heavier in the hand than expected. That makes the iPad best used in a sitting position, or with the tablet computer in a docking station like those offered by Apple.

The iPad screen is literally brilliant. Videos and photos are razor-sharp on the screen. Compared with a smartphone like the Nexus One or the iPhone, the screen (25cm/9.7 inches measured diagonally) seems gigantic. It provides 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, with 132 pixels per inch.

'The iPad isn't a big iPod Touch - an iPod Touch is a miniature iPad that restricts the full multitouch experience in exchange for offering greater portability,' wrote Jacqui Cheng from the well- regarded technology website Ars Technica. Yet it's not just the photo and video applications that benefit from the full multitouch experience.

Film fans may complain that Apple opted for a standard 4:3 picture ratio and not the widescreen 16:9 format. That leaves black strips on the top and bottom of the screen when playing back films and HDTV shows.

Experts from iSuppli have taken the iPad apart and calculated that the touch-sensitive screen cost 99 dollars to build, more than a third of the entire 250 dollars in material costs for the machine. Apple's unwillingness to compromise on the display is clearly evident. The display reacts quickly and precisely to finger input. And the virtual keyboard is quite useable. While it doesn't take long for the screen to pick up visible fingerprints from where it has been touched, those smudges are then easily wiped away again.

Among the plus points on the iPad is its battery, offering more than ten hours of continuous use. No laptop can match that, nor most smartphones either, for that matter. Apple's critics complain that the battery on the iPad (just like on the iPod and iPhone) cannot be replaced by the user. In this case the criticism is unlikely to gain traction, since the iPad battery in fact fills up almost every free millimetre of the casing and is indeed best replaced by a trained technician.

The iPad is designed as a mobile internet machine. The integrated Safari browser runs impressively fast, even on complex websites. Put to the key web standards test Acid3, the iPad scored a perfect 100 points. That said, Apple has stubbornly refused to incorporate Adobe's Flash technology, frequently used on the web for video playback, interactive graphics and online games.

Important video portals like YouTube have started offering their pages in HTML5 instead of Flash, allowing the iPad to display them properly. Websites that haven't made that jump appear with Swiss cheese-like holes in their content. Apple justifies its omission of Flash based on the security vulnerabilities lurking in the Adobe technology.

Prior to the launch of the iPad, there were intense discussions on whether the iPad would turn the e-book market upside down. In the US, iPad users can download iBooks from Apple's iTunes app store. Apple still hasn't worked out the agreements with book publishers in many other countries yet, so that function will initially be lacking when the iPad launches globally.

Yet Apple is seeking to position the iPad as more than just a mobile entertainment device. The iTunes App Store also offers special version of the iWorks office suite for word processing, PowerPoint- style presentations and spreadsheets. 'We don't think the iPad is a laptop replacement,' writes Engadget Editor-in-Chief Joshua Topolsky, adding: 'Not yet.'

Whether the iPad will truly revolutionise the computer world, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs promises, remains to be see. Tim O'Reilly, inventor of the term 'Web 2.0,' sees the iPad not just as the end of the age of the computer mouse, but also as bringing sweeping change to the ways we access computer programs. 'The iPad signals more than the end of the PC era. It signals that the App Store, the first real rival to the web as today's dominant consumer application platform, isn't going to be limited to smartphones.'