It was never an easy catch! A pre-order that started a month before its launch date, a case which arrived 3 weeks before the actual product, almost prompting me to judge the “book by its cover”; add on yet another week of delay on the launch on the 3G version of it, when “ships by late April” seemed like the daily “proverb” that kick started my day alongside a dose of caffeine and it finally arrived on 30th April 2010, keeping the promise on “late april” – iPad (wifi + 3G) , yet another member in my Apple Family!

While it did take me a month to completely free myself from the habitual tapping on a laptop that had almost become a part of my system (I must admit, I did experience some serious withdrawal symptoms, at the early stages of quitting), the iPad did manage to replace a vast spectrum of the work that I did on it – from browsing to blogging, from spreadsheets to presentations and even a shell (although not locally, yet) to a shelf (book shelf at that)! Being completely unbiased was never an option for me. But I must say a well written critique would perhaps sound biased anyway! So while I can go on and on praising this gadget for the way it has changed my lifestyle so far – both at work (with this being my notetaker at the meetings and a paperless replacement for the sticky notes that took a liking to my monitors at the office) and at home (being my diary, Internet, blog, book shelf and a partial technology playground through “VNCs and SSHs” of course) – for once let me try and see if I can be on the other side of the fence.

One of the applications that I was most certainly looking forward to, did disappoint me – iBooks. While the application as such gave an experience that was amazingly close to holding a real book (sans the smell of course), the store has been a huge disappointment so far, with the selection of books restricted mainly to NY Times bestsellers, which never was a choice for me. Having said that, the free Amazon Kindle application did turn out to be a life saver. Amazon did manage to make a smart move to let itself free on a gadget that was bound to kill its hardware. And this would keep the Kindle market place thriving even more!

Wise men from the mountains say, a revolution is a forcible overthrow of an existing system. So while iPad is yet to prove itself to be magical, it certainly is revolutionary, threatening to kill the existing establishment where a combination of laptops and smartphones ruled! Now turning it around again, with Apple’s traditional characteristic of bringing down its own market on its existing products through the introduction of a new product (an example being iPods through iPhones), I do see a potential for iPads to have a go at the iPhones; what with the unlimited data plan on it plus a cheaper voice only option as a phone, working out to be way more cost efficient than an iPhone plan.

BUT then came yet another ios (read iOS, that “surprisingly” rhymed with IOS). With ATT making me eligible for an early upgrade, I guess the family is getting ready to welcome yet another member! And yeah, there is a Nexus One soon to find its way in as a black sheep too!

Technology never ceases to amaze me!

Offbeat: I started writing this two weeks back and somewhere along the road, back then, there was a big red board that said “block”! I saw no sign which would let me take a deviation and join back on track at someplace further up the road. They call it a “writer’s block” but I would just term it as the laziness to type more than a few sentences on a keyboard, when all I did at work, was tapping away to glory!

Just couldnt resist but post this. It truly was a mind blowing experience !! To see it on the web pages is a great experience, but to actually hold it in your hands is unimaginably greater an experience than that !! I almost bought it, but sanity prevailed and I decided to wait at least a week more

I spent quite a long time with it, never even bothering to see who was standing in the queue behind me (if any). I hope to write an “unbiased” first hand experience, here soon. But for now let me relish the excitement !!

PS: The picture was taken and sent through an iphone too, if there is anyone who really want to explore the camera capabilities of it hehe.

Ever since its launch in January 2007, as a new year gift from Apple, iPhone has gone through a myriad of controversies and analyses, merely due to the revolution that it was bound to create. First came the famous royalty case with Cisco Systems for its very name. Then came the debates over the pricing (famous being the Steve Balmer’s laugh, when asked about iphone), the vulnerability of the screen and the multitouch and ofcourse the third party application usage. Its hard to say if Apple has “survived” it all, yet. But things do look promising, esp. with the extended battery life and the glass display surface . Perhaps all these will become clearer on June 29th, the day when they launch it. .

But the reason why I started this post was not entirely to talk about what could be gathered through a simple search on google. iPhone holds a special place in my heart for yet another reason, apart from the fact that I always have an affinity towards the products from Apple. And it is this

(The image is slightly distorted and unclear, since I used MS Paint to put this together. Irony intended )

This is a collage of two slides from a presentation I made back in Oct 2006 on Mobile OS in one of my courses. To add a little spice into the otherwise obvious presentation, I decided to include this as a “possibility” or rather a “wish” that I had. Well, I didnt get laughed at, back then, perhaps due to courtesy reasons. But you sure could imagine my reaction when I saw this , three months later. . It did look a little too different from the prototypes I managed to pull out of a Google Image search, but I believe I do deserve to possess an iPhone, just for this

Couldnt help but post this. Its rather old, but relevant esp. when there was a reference to it at the D5 conference which saw the “historic” reunion between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Here is the transcript of what happened after that – Subtle slanders but overall, a very nice talk.

Also, things to look out for – Microsoft Surface , a highly exaggerated *concept* !!

And of course, an article on Apple’s answer to it esp. for its last paragraph – “Our bet is that Steve Jobs won’t spill the beans on Apple’s multi-touch efforts at the D Conference today — he’ll just show off the iPhone and leave it at that. But make no mistake: Apple has similar technology in its development queue. But in Apple’s case, we won’t see it as a demo. It will come in actual products you can buy.”

And oh, by the way, it rained two days after I wished it did !! Its all cats and dogs now.