Been meaning to post this for awhile. I’ve had my iPad for about 1 month, and it’s great! It does 2 things, really, really well:
1. watching TV. The screen looks great watching iTunes downloads, streaming NetFlix and ABC shows. Bright and sharp. MUCH better than the dedicated portable DVD players I was using just a few years ago – not to mention much more comfortable than watching them on a desktop computer while you’re in a chair, or even using a laptop. The iPad fits great on your chest, on an airplane tray, etc.
2. web surfing. I’m surprised how great this experience is. Though the iPad’s (relative to other mobile devices, such as the iPhone 4) resolution is not as high as I wish it was, 132 pixels per inch makes for GREAT readability of web sites. I’m finding myself doing almost all of my web “reading” (blogs, newspapers, etc) on the iPad instead of my computer.
I’m going to keep this short and sweet – you’ve probably heard about it’s many problems (forced to use iTunes, no printing, no USB port, too heavy, etc, etc) but I’ve found ONE OUTSTANDING SHORTCOMING that I wish Apple would fix. Much to my surprise, I really, really, really miss Flash in my web surfing.
Don’t get me wrong. I sure as heck don’t miss Flash banner ads, and I don’t care (too much) about not being able to use any of the casual gaming sites (AddictingGames, ClubPenguin, etc). But the web feels vaguely…like it’s missing something without Flash:
1. No Hulu. No Xfinity. No Daily Show (or anything on Comedy Central). Though you can watch lots of YouTube videos on the iPad, you’ll still get the “not playable on this device” message all to frequently. Since watching TV and movies on the iPad is so great, it’s really a shame none of these services work. Not to mention all the other web sites still using the .flv format instead of HTML 5 (my guess, at least 50% of the web’s videos are still .flv).
2. Poor Facebook implementation. Forget not only social games, but watching your friends’ linked videos (one of my favorite parts of Facebook.). Even worse, many of the dialog boxes and other interface elements don’t work at all! You can’t scroll them!
3. WordPress is crippled. No way to edit Posts, etc. Ouch. There’s a WordPress app, but it doesn’t work too well…
4. No charting. One of the ways (the only way?) Flex has been a success is it’s use in charting. Most of the web uses this – so no stock charts on Yahoo or Google, for example.
Maybe it’s just me, but those are 4 of my most common web uses. All crippled without Flash.
I agree with Steve Jobs, Flash is too much of a CPU hog for smartphones (for now at least). But I’m sure the iPad could handle it. All you’d need is an iPad version of Ad Blocker and there you go.
I tried Flash on my Droid. It was slow. Really slow. Long story short, I removed it less than a day after I installed it. Incredibly disappointed after a long, long wait.
But it will be very interesting to see how the Android tablets do, as they’ll include Flash. My feeling is they’ll have a much better web experience than the iPad – unless of course the iPad finally allows the Flash plug-in.