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Apple iPad Guided Tours

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Apple’s released 12 in-depth guided tours of the applications bundled with the iPad and iWork. These videos are the closest you’ll get to seeing an iPad in action until this Saturday, when people will be able to actually play with an iPad at any Apple retail store.

The applications sure do look slick and the videos do an excellent job selling the device.s

I’m pretty certain I’m not going to buy an iPad for the time being since I don’t really need one, but some of these videos did move me an inch closer to pulling out my credit card. A couple of others left me scratching my head, trying to figure out why Apple’s calling features ‘great’ that clearly aren’t.

The Mail app guided tour shows that the on-screen keyboard is ‘Nearly the same size as a notebook keyboard’ and it confirms my suspicion that taping out emails isn’t going to be a very pleasant experience. In the video, you can see that the user’s hands are kind of floating above the iPad and his fingers aren’t touching the display until he needs to key in a letter. Just try typing on your own physical keyboard if you want to see how awkward this feels. This is necessary because the capacitive touchscreen can’t tell the difference between a finger (or palm) resting or typing.

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. Mickey Segal

    03/29/2010 at 3:27 pm

    I’m still not tempted. I watched the Keynote and Pages videos. The Keynote video describes it as “the most powerful presentation application ever made for a mobile device”; I guess that means that they don’t count slate Tablet PCs as mobile devices. To output to a projector you need a $29 device https://store.apple.com/us/product/MC552ZM/A as well as a dock.

    I like the form factor, though about an inch smaller on height and width would be better, but I’d rather have a real computer. Hopefully the rumors that Apple will do that too in the slate form factor are true.

    I was just at a medical conference and there seemed to be more interest in my Motion LS800 than there was in previous years. People liked the idea of a real computer with such a form factor. It seems that the iPad has increased interest in the form factor, but at least doctors seem to prefer real computers that aren’t as locked down as the iPad.

  2. Xavier Lanier

    03/29/2010 at 5:00 pm

    Apple’s marketing department requires each piece of iPad material to have a dose or two of the requisite ‘hyperbole.’ What’s funny to me is that as the videos state the iPad being the bestest, fastest, greatest _____ experience on a mobile device, they’re also dissing the MacBook lineup and iPhone.

  3. jl

    03/29/2010 at 6:04 pm

    Funny (but probably not unexpected, since it’s Apple :)), but Quicktime is needed to watch…

  4. CLC

    03/29/2010 at 7:16 pm

    What do they mean you can watch the video right there on the web page? Don’t you need Flash for that? How many places actually have HTML 5 up and running right now?

  5. Chris Hickie

    03/29/2010 at 11:18 pm

    Gosh, maybe they’ll have an ipad simulator game for the PS-3, too.

  6. everbrave

    03/30/2010 at 9:20 am

    Xavier, I counted 11 videos, not 12, in the guided tour. As for the palm rest, I think it won’t be difficult to distinguish a palm from a finger (palm rejection) but probably the size of the device doesn’t allow for the required space anyway. On the go, short mail/reply can be typed with “floating” hands or resting the palm on the table but longer text will need the dock with a hard-keyboard. In my opinion, the iPad is a companion device and does not replace the “work-hoarse” computer.
    I found the Keynote video simply fantastic! That alone would sell the iPad, for me, when I think of taking it to the num. conferences where I make my presentations!

  7. CLC

    03/30/2010 at 12:01 pm

    You can listen to the iPod app while doing other things?! Isn’t that limited multi-tasking?

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