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The interface is basically identical to the iPhone or iPod before it which is a mobile, stripped down version of the formidable OSX. Navigation will be immediately recognisable to any semi experienced Apple user with the main menu system being grids of icons which you can press. There is a status bar showing battery life, WiFi status, Bluetooth, time and a dock for quick access to six of your favourite apps.
Apple have fine tuned specific aspects of the software interface however and It is worth splitting them into sections to explain:
Split Screens: Apple are using the larger screen to break up previously used multiple pages (such as on the iPhone). The mail application for instance allows you to look at the list of your emails while keeping an important message in view.
Contextual menus: The iPad interface has been enhanced to allow for contextual specific options. This is a change in direction from the multiple screens we are used to seeing on the iPhone.
Tabs (Cover Flow): Safari handles multiple pages and this same methodology is used across the iPad suite to navigate through files and many options. In Safari, as with other applications the content is shown as a grid and in other apps its a scrollable list.
Larger Keyboards: With a larger screen obviously comes the benefits of being able to have larger virtual keyboards. The landscape keyboard for instance is extremely usable and while it would never replace a physical keyboard they are getting closer to the experience. For those interested, you are able to hook up a wireless bluetooth Apple keyboard to the iPad – we tried and were successful. This means that for Office use, the iPad is an extremely capable tool for an author or journalist.
Pop Overs: These ‘modals' are windows which pop and hover above content you are interacting with and is used to brilliant effect in the iPod application for instance to display track listings when you touch upon an album or even getting information from the iTunes store.
The Itunes store has a plethora of amazing applications and games already available – and if you have imported one into the UK, fear not, because doing a simple find for “IPAD”, or “IPAD HD” on the store search will throw up a massive selection of the applications already filed into the database. I could literally write a whole review on the best apps on the store, but make sure to check out AIR VIDEO – which allows you to stream almost any video content to the iPad from a MAC or PC regardless of the iPads limited codec support (the desktop or laptop machine does ‘on the fly' encoding over the network). This certainly isn't a ‘mobile' option and is useless for 3G users, but for home entertainment and perhaps sitting outdoors, it opens up a whole new window of multimedia support for home network users.
The biggest weakness, which I already touched upon is the lack of multitasking support – there are so many amazing apps on the store for download, however if you want to check email while IM'ing or browsing the net and perhaps update your twitter or facebook page, its going to be a lot of clicking and logging in and out of applications. Power users may be quite frustrated by this simple methodology.
Safari is exceptionally well coded on the iPad and the interface seems to be usable on most websites either in landscape or portrait mode – the text is razor sharp and a joy to read. Although the iPad doesn't support flash and more than likely never will (see separate story regarding Steve Jobs on KitGuru regarding this) – sites like youtube work fine as they use a H.264 fallback method. I personally loathe flash content now so I felt it was actually a bonus to be not forced into using some convoluted flash based system. Hopefully HTML5 will be the format of the future (well until some crazy ‘over the top' designers try to ruin that as well).
iBooks is a beautiful app, and even though its not yet available for users in the UK, there is a method for fooling the system into running it via the US iTunes store (just google it) – and even though we can't actually buy any books here yet with UK credit cards, we sampled some of the free options to get an idea of the experience. It is a great e-reader with enough options to please even the most demanding of critics. Its a clean, neat layout and you are given a button to flip to your library as well as an additional brightness button, font size and face options and a chapter and search drop down. With this book you can long press for copy and paste options and there is a dictionary which appears over your content for reference. Bookmarking is also catered for, which is useful for later backtracking if you wish. Apple have also programmed in a beautiful designed page turning system., which looks very realistic and adds a very appealing visual quality to the overall experience.
The email client is capable, if not class leading and when compared to the OSX mail client is sadly lacking in a few areas – for a mobile solution however its more than adequate and I was able to open attached documents to read them, within the program. Threaded messages are not supported which can get messy with a lot of simultaneous conversations.
Youtube is a great experience on the iPad and full 720p content is supported (with some restrictions) – the screen really does a great job of delivering high quality images throughout all the ranges. It would be hard to find fault with the quality of the panel to be honest – I tried hard for this review.
