iPad Thoughts
Like the iPhone and iPod before it, technophiles have had a lot of negative things to say about Apple’s iPad. Geeks tend to like spec sheets, and iPad doesn’t check as many boxes as some rivals. Some complaints are certainly valid; I would love to be able to have an IM client and Safari open at the same time. The big picture is, though, that Apple has fleshed out the iPhone interface to what it was meant to be: an alternative computing paradigm, not just some hastily slapped together desktop OS in a different form factor. I was extremely impressed by the the iCal and iWork implementations in particular, and can’t wait to see what the future holds for touch versions of other applications.
For the photographer, iPad represents a convenient display mechanism for showing portfolios, but also an alternative to the laptop for shooting on the road. It remains to be seen if the A4 processor is powerful enough to handle the workload — my guess is yes for a light JPEG workflow, no for a RAW workflow — but the platform will only get faster with time. I personally believe the touch interface offers the possibility of a superior UI for post production versus a laptop, and have already begun programming a fairly basic photo editing app that I hope to release shortly after iPad is available.