iPad review for photographers and creative professionals

Wed, Apr 7, 2010 I received my iPad on Saturday. A nice lady in a brown UPS truck gave it to me and had me sign my life away. The first thing I notices was that it was heavier than I thought it would be. Last month my wife bought me a Kindle for my birthday and while I knew the iPad was heavier than the Kindle, I didn’t expect there to be that much of a difference. When you use it as a ‘computer’ you don’t notice the weight. But once you use it as a ‘reader’ the weight is evident. Overall Impressions My overall impression is that the iPad is a game changer. When I first saw it, I thought, “Just a big iPod Touch. What the heck is Apple thinking.” But after using it for a while, I can clearly see that we are getting a glimpse of the future of computing. One reviewer said that Apple just killed the mouse – and he may just be right. What immediately struck me is that you can collaborate on this computer. You can lay it down and have a group of people around the screen, all with the ability to grab, move and create something. My immediate feeling is that this device is going to be a game changer for creatives. And this is supported by many of the top selling apps. Many of these apps are made specifically for mocking up IU, designs, even sports plays. As a reader I think that anyone who has owned a Kindle will be both pleasantly surprised and also know that the iPad is not a replacement.

The first impression when reading a book is that the page is crisp, clear and oh, so crisp. Wait. I said that. It is a pure pleasure to read books on the iPad. But, there are two caveats. The first one is that the iPad is pretty, real pretty. iBooks comes with the first Winnie  the Pooh by A.A. Milne. The text is very crisp and the color photos are beautiful. That is where the book reader shines. If the book has photographs, they are amazing. But, I think that heavy readers will be disappointed with the eye strain created by a back lit machine.

Photos

This is one area where the iPad truly shines. The photos on it look insane. They are bright and full of life. For anyone who grew up on slide film, the moment you put those slides on a light box, they came to life. The feeling is similar on an iPad. It is a no brainer to say that it is the perfect mobile portfolio. Clients will be wowed by photography presented on an iPad. I’m sure there will be many, many apps out there for photographers to show off their work. iPhoto is a great way to show the work on the iPad. With a rating system and the ability to create albums on the fly and the iPad would be pretty dang cool as an ordering device.

Movies

Of course Star Trek HD looks fabulous, but photo slide shows look amazing also. I loaded the HD versions of our eMotionMedia presentations and they look amazing. Yet another way to present material to clients. I can imagine a bridal show booth with 4 iPads sitting out on it as mobile portfolios and pricing information. It would be a pretty fantastic mobile presentation device. We plan on using a few of them in our WPPI booth next year.

Last night I booted up a movie on the NetFlix app, which let’s you stream Netflix movies directly to your iPad via WIFI. The quality was so good. You could tell it wasn’t HD, but, still, it was much better than a portable DVD player. I can easily say that the iPad, is hands down, the best mobile movie watching device available on the market. And I’m sure it’s the only one with 12 hour battery life.

Apps In General

The apps out in general are all pretty good. Some are a bit buggy. iMockup, for example, is a great app, but you can tell the creators don’t quite have a handle on the iPad user interface yet. Some things are a bit jumpy. The games are a total “game changer”, pun intended. Scrabble is super fun. And you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch as the tile holder and “flick” your game pieces onto the iPad. How the heck could they do that? Fairies?

The Apple Apps, especially Keynote and Pages are works of art. They’ve really put a lot of thought in them and they work extremely well. I can easily see students typing term papers on Pages on an iPad. Keynote on an iPad might be the best portable presentation device ever conceived. Not only can you create amazing presentations. You can present ones that you’ve created on your Macbook or iMac.

The big screen of the iPad, coupled with the fast processor and easy to use interface, means that we are going to have a whole bevy of cool new apps coming our way.

iPhone Apps Uprezed

iPhone apps uprezed suck. They are just horrible and pixelated. Sure they work without a hitch and if you have that App you just need to use and the iPad version isn’t out yet, you can use it. But I’ve deleted them off my iPad. Using super pixelated apps on such a beautiful screen is like taking Sears portraits with a Leica. It just makes you want to scream.

The Death of Flash

Remember when the very first iMac came out and it didn’t have a floppy? It just had these crazy USB ports and a firewire? Everyone screamed!! But then the floppy slowly died.

My feeling is that the iPad is going to do this with Flash. The main use online for flash is video. Secondly it’s used for games that kids play online and for photography sites. That’s basically it. HTML5 is taking care of video. You get a much better video experience with very little back end coding and everyone is happier. The games? Who cares. The photographer sites? Me thinks we need to think.

Will Flash be gone next year? Nope. Is this the first nail in the coffin. Oh, yes, maybe the second even. Flash will be gone.

Business Investment

On the forums people have been asking if the iPad is a good business investment. My first reaction is, “Really?” It’s just so much fun, who cares! But people do care. I think that ultimately they are going to be great business investments. They will pay for themselves with the great presentations we can make and also the bookings and contracts we can make on the iPad. But my feeling is that we really don’t know how useful it is going to be. It’s such a game changer, that we really don’t know how much the payoff is going to be.

Should I Get One?

Yep. It’s such an amazing device, a totally new look at what computing will be, I think you should get one. And if you don’t like it. It’s the perfect kid computer – easy to use and won’t play any online games or ‘unsuitable’ movies. My wife stole mine, so there you go….

Fundy

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