Mobility has always been the watch word for gadget-freaks. But after laptops came into the picture there was a big lull. Laptops, though lighter and more portable than traditional computers, are not completely mobile as they need constant power back up.
The arrival of iPad changed the computing scene, with some people even predicting the death of laptops.
Since the iPad celebrated its first anniversary just a few days ago, we thought it was the right time to find out how the year has been for this iconic device.
When it arrived, people did not mind lining up outside stores for the iPad — a sleek and shiny tablet.
“Is it a phone or laptop?” This was perhaps the most talked about question then.
The iPad can best be described as a bridge between all the earlier Apple products. It is made for people who want a device that is more capable than the iPhone; but don’t want something as complicated as a laptop.
Users can create bundles of their photographs, emails and files on the iPad, and then perform common operations on them, such as deleting and archiving.
The bundling is done by holding one file with one finger, and tapping other files with the other hand.
To resize an image the user just has to tap on it. Two images can simultaneously be resized. All of this is usually tedious on other devices.
The millions of available applications for the iOS also attract users.
Market observers, however, were quick to pick flaws in the device. They said it was more like a bigger iPod; it did not have a camera and it could not multi task either. It was also said that Apple’s is a closed system, a walled garden.
But, Apple continued on the path it walked because being a closed system also helped it maintain consistency in its products. Against all these criticisms, Apple had only one thing to show, its sales figures.
Apple took care of these flaws when it launched iPad 2 recently.
No doubt in future we will have more advanced products than the first iPad did. but iPad 1, like the wheel, is a great invention that started a new era in mobile computing.