by Daniel Moran

On January 27th Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s new “magic” and “revolutionary” tablet known as the Ipad. With this announcement, Jobs proclaimed that they had now introduced a piece of technology that would present a nearly perfect way to surf the Internet, view photos, and experience your music library. However, there did appear to be quite a few hang ups with the information provided in Jobs’ keynote, namely the lack of Flash capability. If you aren’t particularly familiar with Flash , it’s the platform that drives many of the features you find on web-pages such as animation, integrated video, and various other features of interactivity. With this lack of support comes the loss of millions of components of an incredible amount of web-pages. The reasoning presented by Jobs for this exclusion was an accusation of laziness towards Adobe, as well as stating that their systems were too buggy to be incorporated into the Ipad. Regardless whether these criticisms are entirely true or not, or if the thought that Apple is attempting to further Internet content by pointing their finger is viable, it seems that limiting the access of users so greatly is counterproductive when incorporated into the “ultimate” in web surfing devices.

The introduction of this tablet came an odd bit of controversy. In late January a Chinese company known as Shenzhen Great Loong Brother Industrial claimed that they may seek legal action against Apple if the Ipad was to be released in China. This is due to the fact that in 2009 Shenzhen introduced their own version of a tablet, roughly the same size and dimension of the Ipad. The real oddity comes from the fact that upon some pretty basic observation of the Ipad it appears to be almost exactly what the Ipad is, a huge Ipod-touch. However, where the Ipad is merely a larger version of the touch, Shenzhen’s P88 is what appears to be an enormous rip-off of the touch’s technology. A quick look at Shenzhen’s product line also reveals the P28 TV-PC, which is also a carbon copy of the most recent Imac. With this all in mind it seems odd that a company who claims to be working for “a service platform full of friendship,fair and intergrity and cooperation for all clients” would think of suing the company whom they had already ripped off, especially while “remember the traditional concept ‘All men are brothers’.”

Also, the Ipad lacks greatly in connectivity due to the use of a 30-pin port acting as the only external access to the Ipad. Now, the unit does come with a 30 pin to USB connector as well as a SD card connector, but it seems very odd that the ultimate medium for viewing digital images has to have external adapters to upload photos. Mainly, the Ipad to me, as to many, is just an over-sized Ipod-touch without the portability. Altogether it seems like Apple is packaging already introduced technology, albeit upgraded, into a new package and reselling it to the public. As well, the fact that the Ipad can range from $499 to $829 also seems to be a set back, as you can get a pretty decent laptop for about $600; and though it may lack the touch screen, you can still have full access to the web, as well as incorporating the other various functions of the Ipad and then some.