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Today We Discussed:

Apple iPad

As I’m quite sure you have all heard already, Steve Jobs gave a keynote for Apple last Wednesday on the 27th of January. Actually, it was the first time that Steve came back to doing big presentations since his health scares, including, most recently, his liver transplant he underwent in April of 2009. His return definitely got him tons of applause, as he couldn’t even seem to quiet the audience down! He began the keynote with some news about the App Store and iPods, as well as some quarterly revenue reporting, but the biggest news came about when he announced the iPad, which you can check out on the Apple website. I will let you find out the actual facts about the iPad for yourself, as today’s show is to be basically one for me to talk about my opinions. In the iPad, there are some things that really caught my eye, and others that did not, but I will be positive and talk about the things I liked first. Steve was touting the photo feature on the iPad, which I really do think is going to be a hit. It provides a very easy way for users to view their pictures, and innovative and cool-looking new ways of browsing them. For example, you can pinch an album to display thumbnails of the photos and see if the album you opened is the correct one, and, once you open up the album, you can easily scrub through photos and use features first prevalent in Apple’s iLife ’09, such as Faces, Places, and more. Overall, I loved the photo aspect. Another part that looks very promising is the Maps application, based of course on Google Maps. The Maps application, as Steve used it, first showed the Eiffel Tower using satellite mode, and displayed beautifully with great integration from the MultiTouch display. He also demonstrated how he found his sushi restaurants for the day using it. Some of the things about iPad, however, I just do not get. For example, why doesn’t it have Flash yet? However, I think some of these will just remain a mystery for awhile. For now, we just need to wait and see how it rolls out when it comes out in March or April, and see what happens.