Comments on: Nothing ‘insanely great’ about Apple’s iPad

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:20:50 +0000

“Another niggle is the size of the bezel around the screen. I’d have liked to have seen more of the surface of the device dedicated to the actual display area. But I guess that was an engineering issue. Hopefully the bezel will get smaller in future editions.”

Uhhmmm, without the bezel and with a touch sensitive screen, how were you planning on holding it?

By: Marinus

Marinus — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:55:29 +0000

Awesome device, but needs flash support and multitasking!

By: Andre P

Andre P — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:41:08 +0000

With regard to the iBook store. If you compare the SA Apple site http://www.apple.com/za/ipad/features and the US Apple site http://www.apple.com/ipad/features all references to iBooks have been removed. Looks like the iBooks functionality is not gonna be available here for now. But, lets hope things change…

By: halicon

halicon — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:35:07 +0000

There are moments when I feel my laptop is too big and my iPhone too small, but those moments are not worth the hassle and extra costs the iPad may introduce.

I would however be inclined to buy one and put it on my fridge door if it really will only be sold for R5500.

By: Brett

Brett — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:56:19 +0000

Yawn. Apple brings out a shiny white version of an existing tech and everyone swoons.

By: Raymond Day

Raymond Day — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:39:56 +0000

You did not add this negative, no SD card slot. They want to get that $100 more per 16MB! Have to still wait for there next one or some one else to bring out big screen pods.

-Raymond Day

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:39:17 +0000

I think the big problem with the iPad is that it doesn’t have a solid place in the world. iPod played media and built on that – iPhone was a phone and built on that. iPad is … a browser? an ebook reader? It doesn’t seem to have a “core use” that hasn’t been done better already.

I think the microSIM thing is Steve’s way of making the iPad “Unlocked GSM!!! See we listened to you!!!” but still having exactly the same effect as tethering you to one provider. If anything, this is even better than tethering in the short term because of the lock-in to what seems to be 1 provider in ths US.

There’s a lot of backlash about the lack of HDMI/USB/SD ports, I think the world has had enough of the long history of Apple’s non-expandability, which is good.

Lastly, Steve made a big deal of the tech involved in this, but it’s really old hat. Nvidia’s Tegra platform is better than this, I think the Zune HD is actually more powerful than the iPad in a number of respects, and Asus has announced their tablet will use a really high-powered Tegra chipset running Android, which will right many of the wrongs of the iPad (hdmi, usb, multitasking, etc).

They made a big deal about the 10 hour battery life watching movies, which I thought was awesome, but after thinking about it, this thing weighs 600g+ and uses a similar chipset to, and gets similar video playback times to the Zune HD which weighs 74g … I’d imagine the benchmark for tablets, once a few are on the market, would be at least 12+ hours of 1080p video playback.