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Follow UsYour time is limited, so don't waste
it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is
living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise
of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important,
have the courage to follow your heart and intuition - Steve Jobs at
Commencement address, Stanford University- 2005
Steve Jobs- Apple's big boss is the one who practices what he preaches.
From Mac to iPod to iPhone and now iPad- Jobs did not waste his time in
bringing some of the most innovative products that has revolutionised
user experience and opened up new dimensions -for instance multi touch
in iPhone or the MacBook Air and host of other innovations- that has
made Jobs an icon and Mac a religion with millions of worshippers from
across the world.
Last two years has been very unkind to Jobs who need to battle out
numerous health issues, but despite his long absence from work over the
last year-the innovation engines at Apple has not ceased a bit. Over
his period of personal adversity Jobs managed to steer the company by
leaving it to his trusted aides like Tim Cook, who took the company to
glory when Jobs took medical leave and was absent the first half of
2009. But a testimony to his never say die attitude that keeps
going.
iPhone and beyond
The latest innovation from the Apples stable is iPad launched at end of
January 2010 marks Apples foray in the tablet PC space. What is iPad?
Its a kind of device that can be called as a glorified iPhone. Going by
the first glimpses, the iPad looks like a larger iPhone with the
typical Apple interface.
Apple has created a device which does not have one direct competition
per se right now- it competes with multiple devices-a netbook, a tablet
and wireless reading devices like
and a low end PC. Apple has also chosen to put inside iPad its own
chip thus taking a daring plunge of not going with low power processors
like
or Snapdragon. The iPad is powered by Apples very own A4 processor
which comes with 16 GB-64 GB of Flash storage. Available information
suggests that iPad can have a battery backup of up to 10 hours.
With iPad Apple has opened up a new premise both as device as well as
from a processor point of view. Apples own G4 chip will stack up with
Qualcomms Snapdragon and Intel's Atom and experts aver the possibility
of next generation iPhones also adopting its A 4 chip. In the
space Intels Atom right now is the leader-but going ahead there is
every possibility Apple coming out with a low cost MacBooks on the
netbook platform using much more refined versions of its A4 which can
even do multi-tasking. That scenario is a worrying trend for
as well as mobile chip makers.
iPad up close
So what kind of apps a user can run on iPad which is expected to retail
at $400. Well with over 140,000 apps available from Apples iStore the
users choice is unlimited. In addition the iPad can do other
mundane tasks like email, videos et al. It will also compete with eBook
readers like Amazons Kindle as users can download books from the newly
created iBook store. Apple has already forged collaborations with
publishers like Penguin and Simon & Schuster for eBooks on iPad.
On the hardware ecosystem its just enough for some light
computing. The screen is about ten inches and the whole thing
weighs at about 680 grams. It has a 1GHz Apples own A4 chip. Other
goodies like Bluetooth, in built
3G and Wi-Fi supporting 802.11a/b/g/n complete the configuration. But
surprisingly it does not have in built camera, which many feel is a big
downer.
On the market impact the iPad at $400- at that price point right now
the user has a choice - from a netbook to a full-fledged low end
notebook. But Apple like in that past never competes with mainstream
and it creates unique segments and it takes a while for competition to
come with a similar device. What iPad is attempting is trying to
unbundle the apps side of smart phones by taking it to a larger, more
powerful yet a slim form that is highly portable. The probability here
is a user uses the phone to just make calls and text messages and for
all others one might use a hybrid portable such an iPad.
A Hybrid Tablet
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