Apple iPad

Till before launch of iPad it seemed pretty strange why Apple never ventured into the large ebook reader market. But it became clear with the unveiling of iPad that a new era of portable handheld reading device has just begun with features of a tablet pc to compliment it. All of the built-in applications on iPad were designed in such a way that it compliments the large Multi-Touch screen and its advanced capabilities. Some of its features are discussed below.

iBooks

• The iPad comes with a built-in iBooks application which connects directly to the App store to download ebooks.
• The iBooks icon on the iPad launches the bookshelf which has a store button in the upper-left corner tapping which the bookshelf flips around like a secret passageway to reveal the iBookstore, where books by title, author, or genre can be browsed.
• The iBooks app uses the famous ePub format (which has been revolutionized by Sony eReader as a free open-source format similar to mp3 for music).
• Reading on iPad is just like reading a book since you can flip the pages like a book.
• The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen (though not as eye friendly as e-ink technology based readers) displays every page beautifully, with crisp, sharp text with adjustable backlight brightness to read in low light.
• Tapping the center of the page hides the iBooks controls and the book can be navigated by moving back or forth by tapping the right or left side of the screen.
• Unlike any ebook reader iPad can be used to view two pages at once by rotating to landscape.
• Touching and holding any word looks it up in the built-in dictionary or Wikipedia, or can be searched throughout the book or on the web.
• iBooks works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPad, so it can read the contents of any page.

Maps

• iPad Maps is powered by Google Maps so all the fatures of a Google Map application is available with it.
• Typing a name of a place in the search field will bring in the location and holding it gives the street view.
• Maps even gives the directions and route from anywhere.

iWork

iPad has the iWork productivity applications (from Mac) inbuilt in it. It is a suite of three applications Keynote, Pages, and Numbers which have been completely redesigned for iPad for creating great-looking presentations, documents, and spreadsheets.

Keynote – It is a powerful presentation application completely reworked for iPad with Multi-Touch. The document manager is used to view the presentations. Saved presentations can be tapped to open and for newer presentations 12 Apple-designed themes can be used to choose from. Also the slide navigator can be used to scroll through the slides and tapping adds a new slide from the Apple-designed slide master.  With the Magic Move transition, Keynote automatically changes the location, scale, opacity, and rotation across consecutive slides. Keynote can also import Microsoft PowerPoint files and Keynote presentations. The created presentations can be exported as Keynote files for Mac or PDF documents, so that it can be attached to an email.

Numbers – It is the most powerful spreadsheet app designed to work with iPad and Multi-Touch technology. Numbers isn’t just a spreadsheet application it’s a flexible canvas where multiple tables and charts can be added anywhere on a sheet and can be moved anywhere. Dragging the finger on a table adds, deletes, or move columns or rows and with a tap, data can be entered. The keyboard helps to enter data and create formulas. Also it changes with the type of data required, whether it’s digit, date and time, duration, text, or formulas. Numbers has a full calculation engine, more than 250 functions, and clear and concise help for each of them built in.

Pages – It combines writing and layout tools so that all kinds of documents can be created including newsletters, reports, brochures, and flyers. The handy page navigator aids in scrolling through document in thumbnails, so that any page can be quickly accessible. When the iPad is rotated, pages show up in a widescreen view with large onscreen keyboard. The keyboard tracks whatever is typed, so that it can suggest words, correct spelling, and insert punctuation automatically. For comfortable writing the optional iPad Keyboard Dock or a wireless keyboard with Bluetooth technology can be used. The powerful layout tools can be used to add and resize images, format text, and create bulleted or numbered lists. Style texts can be quickly created using one of the Apple-designed styles. Graphics can be moved around using the finger which can also be dragged to resize a photo, or twist to rotate a shape, while the text automatically wraps around the object. With a few taps, new columns can be created with set margins and tabs, and headers or footers can be added.

Safari browser

• With Safari the whole page can be viewed in either portrait or landscape with sharp text at a size that’s actually readable.
• When the iPad is rotated to landscape, the page also rotates and then expands to fit the display.
• With iPad, navigating is done using finger to Scroll through a page just by flicking up or down on the screen.
• Double-tapping a section on a page will enlarge or shrink it and a pinch can be used to zoom in or zoom out.
• When you touch and hold a link, Safari shows you the URL so you know before you go.
• There’s also a handy thumbnail view that shows all the open pages in a grid to quickly move from one page to the next.
• iPad connects to the web via high-speed 802.11n Wi-Fi and also an optional 3G networking can be used to surf from just about anywhere.
• It also has a facility of syncing the bookmarks from Mac or PC with built in Google and Yahoo! searching capabilty.
• For entering URL or fill out forms, the big onscreen keyboard appears.
• Icons can be created on the Home screen for the most viewed sites that let you access them with a single tap.

iPod

The iPad displays the music collection by song, artist, album, genre, or composer and the tapping or flipping feature is somewhat similar to the iphone or iPod Touch with an exception of having a large screen and more viewability.

Beside this iPad also contains applications like Mail, Photos, Videos, YouTube, iTunes, AppStore, Notes, Calendar, Contacts etc which are common with iPhone.

To conclude iPad has proven to be yet another revolutionary gadget from Apple though its functionality is limited by it processing power which is meagre 1 Ghz and a very limited 64 Gb (Max) flash memory. Ideally the 1^st generation of this device can be considered as a descendent of iPhone rather than a descendent of Apple’s premier Mac PC’s. The awaited 2^nd Gerneration of this device might overcome its shortcomings just like the 2^nd Generation of iPhones did.