Apple iPad Tablet Review

Using the iPad

When you turn the iPad on, the first thing that you see is a picture of a USB cable with an arrow leading to an iTunes icon, as shown in Figure 4. You will see nothing else until you connect the iPad to a computer that
is running iTunes, which the iPad uses to synchronize files. In our opinion, this is the first drawback of the iPad. Later in this review, you will see that the iPad would make a great Internet and email appliance for newbies and entry-level consumers, but you have to have a computer to even get the device working. That’s a shame.

Figure 8: When you turn it on.

This need for a computer for setup is also disconcerting for those who purchase their iPad from an Apple store. Most are ready to show it off immediately and are saddened to find that they have to wait until they get home to get it up and running.

Once you do get iTunes up and running on your computer and the iPad attached to it, you don’t have to do anything but wait. Depending on how many pictures, songs, and videos you have in iTunes, the initial synchronization can take some time. Our first syncing with an iTunes program loaded with music, photos, and applications took about three hours.

When the sync is complete, the iPad is ready to use. We were immediately impressed by the clarity and responsiveness of the multi-touch screen. Also the speed of the device is immediately noticeable. Apple has kept the covers on the details of the processor, but the 1 GHz A4 chip is speedy and efficient. We were able to play videos for nine hours and still had a little battery power left. The iPad comes in 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB memory sizes. Rather than a hard drive, the iPad uses flash memory for storage.

The iPad works much like an iPhone or iPod touch. Rather than a Windows or a Mac screen, your home screen is a screen of Application icons. As shown in Figure 9, the iPad comes with the calendar, Contacts, Notes, Maps, Videos, YouTube, iTunes, the App Store, and Settings preinstalled. At the bottom are the four main applications that you will use: The Safari web browser, Mail, Photos, and iPod for music.

Figure 9: The home screen.

Other Apps can be found in the next pages of the iPad. Just swipe your finger to the left and more pages will appear. If you swipe your finger to the right on the Home page, you will get to a very useful Search page.

Unfortunately, the iPad, like the iPhone, lacks the ability to run multiple tasks at one time. As mentioned earlier, synching is done through iTunes which lets you transfer music, photos, documents, and videos to the iPad.

Videos look great on the iPad. It supports H.264 up to 720p at 30 frames per second and MPEG-4. There is a special app for viewing YouTube videos. You can also download apps for viewing certain television programming. Watching ABC television shows was a great experience on the iPad.

The iPad lacks widescreen capabilities, so when you watch a video on the iPad, you may see the black bars above and below.