Computers and Technology with Matt James
You may have noticed a lot of hype about the latest product from Apple. The iPad. Not the iPod but the iPad. I should state from the very start that I am a huge fan of Apple and their products. I am not however on the payroll of Apple. I just like their stuff. I've owned 4 or 5 Apple computers, an iPod and an iPhone.This new device is often referred to as a slate computer. Slate computers have been around for a while. They are made up of flat screens and very little else. The idea is that they are extremely portable like a phone but with the power and screen size of a laptop. They don't have a physical keyboard but put a picture of a keyboard on the screen which you can touch to spell out letters or numbers. The screens are touch sensitive and that's how you control the device. Previous slate computers have usually run on the windows operating system which really needs a mouse and keyboard to function well. The new Apple iPad runs on a beefed up version of the iPhone software. Although simple to use it is extremely powerful.
When Apple introduced the iPhone nobody expected that their app store would be so successful. The Apple app store sells applications for the iPhone. There are 140,000 of them. Applications to do just about anything you can think of. The new iPad will run all of these apps which gives the machine a real good head start. The other thing that we'll start to see more of is content specifically designed for the new iPad. I recently watched a YouTube video from Sports Illustrated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk
In the video you can get some appreciation of just what's possible.
At the time of writing Australian dollar prices are not yet available but US prices for the iPad range from US$499 to US$829. It will certainly get lots of attention from tech savvy types like me but wether it will sell in huge numbers is yet to be proven. However this is Apple we are talking about. First they sold millions of iMacs then thousands of millions of iPods, then they changed the mobile phone market with the iPhone. They have a reputation for making stuff people like. I wish them well. And if they would like to send me a free one I'd more than happy to talk about it at length.
Until next time. Matt James 2CH Overnight.
