Calendaring – iPad is better than a traditional laptop because of its integrated google apps exchange support.

Multiple languages – iPads keyboard changes on the fly to most any language you’ll need.

Speech recognition – iPad has a wealth of excellent speech recognition apps, that, because they use the cloud for processing, work better than what we’ve seen on the desktop for years.

Battery life – the iPads battery is phenomenal.

Portability – iPad is incredibly light.

Apps – WordPress makes a beautiful iPad app, something they don’t do for macs or windows pcs, Bank of America, Evernote, and others are making apps that are nicer than their desktop counterparts, more functional, and are far less expensive to boot. Incredible.

Quesation:

So if I get the Overdrive from Sprint and basically carry a WiFi hot spot in my pocket all the time, then I would not need the iPad with 3G capability, correct?

The 3G model just behaves like an iPhone that can connect to the cellular network; and the WiFi only is like the iPod Touch that requires you to find a hot spot to connect to the Internet. Again, referring to the first sentence the Overdrive creates that Hot Spot – so long as I have Sprint coverage, Correct?

Thanks. Just looking over all the iPad features, etc.

It’s personal preference, convenience, and budget related.

Personally, I see the fact that we’re at the dawn of 4G, where Sprint is deploying 4G, Verizon is promising it(LTE) by year end(http://bit.ly/dbPuUG) and AT&T planning 4G(LTE) for 2011(http://bit.ly/dsrQXn), I (reiterate personally) do not see an incentive to invest in embedded 3G in my iPad(which I would hope to use for a lifetime of about three years).

On the other side of the fence,

AT&T is making progress on upgrades to their 3G network(http://bit.ly/8HeOOj), which mean that it can faster internet over existing 3G devices.

and, AT&T’s iPad deal is a no contract affair,

AND, the Wifi model has NO GPS capabilities.

So the 3G model could be attractive to some for these reasons.

Have I confused you, or helped you with this information?

Brendan

On Mar 14, 2010, at 1:09 AM, Christopher Aguilar wrote:

This is real! and coming from Penguin books:

On the other hand, Microsoft is releasing concept videos of a project called courier, which who knows when it’ll see the light of day:

Just found a good write up about the iPad by Louis Trapani over here.

He drew my attention to the PADD from Star Trek, the next generation, and the all knowing handheld from The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, both of which I’d long forgotten (The tricorder I certainly remember, and is how the iPhone, and in certain less powerful ways, the palm, android and other phones seem). And made good points that I agree with. Like:

The possibilities are bountiful.

But I have some comments.

Nice post Louis, and I must ask if you’re closely related to Gina Trapani? But on topic, everything you wrote makes lots of sense, and you’re one of few who I find uses the Phone on the iPhone as little as I do, so cool, glad we meet there.
The only comment I can differ with you on is the space issue, with your portfolio in the cloud, then you have zero limit to your storage(depending on your provider), wheras 64gb is still a limit, so why get 64 over 16gb for simply media? Personally, I see, as does Tim Cook, the $499 model as an AMAZING value, with the price of 64GB of Flash memory costing maybe $50 at the store, why spend the $200 extra for that unamazing part?

For $499 you get the following features (ranked by amazingness in my eyes):
The Platform
The A4 Chip
Giant screen
Connectivity(Wifi N)
Keyboard capable
All the blood sweat and tears of the Apple engineers
Everything Else
Storage, dead last.

The only thing that can bite you on storage is if you dont have a permanent mobile connection to the net (boo, this will change rapidly, see the amount of places offering free Wifi? The honda dealership on market has it, unadvertised, welcome to the future, or drop your home comcast/dsl and grab an overdrive), OR, an app needs lots of room, so that’s the chance to take, but with Apple’s recent purchase of Lala, which will take your entire iTunes library online, the wealth of podcasts, and available resources online, and the increasing power and storage potential in the cloud, does your local storage on a mobile device still matter?

Comments welcome…

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn’t a price worth paying to have a computer that isn’t frightening anymore.

In the meantime, Adobe and Microsoft will continue to stamp their feet and whine.

The whole article is a good read