Happy New Year! Wow, we're in 2013 already. I hope everyone had a great 2012 and a fun filled New Years celebrations. Did anyone use any cool tech for New Years? If so, please leave a comment below and join the discussion!
This blog post I've decided to write on another of my Christmas presents. In fact, I'm writing this blog from this present right now. It is an incredible piece of hardware, the perfect gift from my beautiful girlfriend: The 4th Generation iPad.
Like most people, when I first heard of the iPod, I was a little bit skeptical. Sure, it would be cool to have 1000 songs in my pocket, but I can't listen to 1000 songs in a period of time that I couldn't go and replace the CD in my walkman. But as with most Apple products, you never knew what you need until Apple tells you. I was the same with the iPad. I didn't understand why people would want to own or use an iPad. You had on one hand, the MacBook, for all of your processing needs and on the other hand, the iPod Touch that houses all of your entertainment needs. I saw the iPad as this unnecessary middle step between these two devices and it just confused the ecosystem.
But in true Apple style, the iPad started being used more and more around the world. For business, education, communication; you name it, the iPad (and iPad iOS developers) found a way to serve that need. The iPad not only meet the minimum standards of the needs of the users, but it did so in a beautiful and intuitive fashion.
Fast-forward 3 years and the 4th Generation iPad was released on September 12, 2012. This is truely a modern marvel in the technological world and no other company has even come close to reproducing the success of the iPad. I heard a statistic today: the iPad has 87% of all tablet web traffic. That is an incredible market share to be toting. And it's no surprise. The iPad blends power and beauty in a very sophisticated and easy to use way.
The iPad also has the A6x chip, the fastest processor that Apple has ever produced. For those unsure why that's a good thing, the processor is analgous to the brain of the device. A brain that can think faster can perform high functioning tasks in a much more efficient manner and really allow for complex processes to be completed almost instantly. This in turn allows app developers to write apps with incredible detail and complexity in the knowledge that the hardware will be able to run the app efficiently.
The first thing that hits you with this iPad is the stunning (yes, I sound like Jobs) Retina Display. The name 'Retina Display' simply means that when used at the average distance away from the eye, the cells in the retina of the eye are not able to discern the seperation of pixels on the screen. For users of the original iPad, the display on that device looks great as well...until you use a new Retina Display. The difference is night and day. For writing blogs or documents, everything on the screen looks unbelievably sharp. For viewing or editing photos, the screen allows you to zoom to incredible detail thanks to the 3.1 million pixels on the screen. My personal favorite use of the iPad display is to watch HD videos. Perhaps I have become spoiled, but once you have seen HD quailty video, it is hard to watch anything else.
In the end, hardware is really only as good as the software that runs on it. The iPad runs iOS 6, the latest operating system that runs on the Apple mobile devices. The great thing about iOS 6 is that it is incredibly easy to use, and yet powerful enough to manage most tasks that you could ask of it. My father recently got a 4th Gen. iPad as well and for a man who openly admits that he is not particularly tech savvy, he is navigating around the iPad like a champ. The beauty is in the intuitive design of the interfaces, both within the OS and the apps. The iOS also is able to run the apps that I enjoy, like Bloggsy, Pages, The Walking Dead, Evernote and Netflix. The App Store offers thousands of apps of all shapes and sizes; something for everyone and for almost every need.
The iPad will be replacing my MacBook Pro in most of my needs from now on. I will be taking notes in class, developing training programs, writing blogs, drawing drills, communicating with family and friends...all from the iPad. There is only one thing that I'm not able to do as yet, and this is my only hang-up with the iPad currently. I have recently begun learning programming languages and writing my own programs. I use an app on my MacBook Pro called VirtualBox that allows my to emulate Linux on my computer and remotely access a desktop that is used at Harvard for their programming needs. Unfortunately, I am not able to do that on my iPad and so right now I'm not writing any code on my iPad. However, once I have become more proficient in my code, and step away from that limited space, I believe the iPad will become my device for code writing as well.
In the end, I would recommend the iPad to almost everybody, simply because it's uses are so vast. If you are currently looking for a computer, and all you want to do is use it to watch movies, communicate with friends and family and surf the web, there's not too many reasons to look further than the iPad. If you need a portable device that is easy to carry around all day and powerful enough for all your processing needs, there's no need to look further than the iPad. If, like me, you're still scratching your head at where the iPad mini fits into the ecosystem, spend a little more and get it's big brother. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.
Until next time, please subscribe to my blog and watch this space for more tech reviews! I'll be finishing up with my gifts soon and move on to some cool new apps that are coming out!
Posted with Blogsy
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