The book of Jobs (post two of the thumb drive chronicles)

Moses came down from the mountain with tablets in hand to give to the masses the commandments of the Lord.  As these commandments where chiseled in stone so too is the faith chiseled in the minds of those who believe in their lord and savior.  But if your faith is more on a technological level, than a spiritual one and you are looking for that savior that is going to alleviate your woes of system crashes and deadly viruses and you are also looking to trade in your travel bible for a digital do it all.  To thee I say don’t panic because there is an APP for that.

In an auditorium full of anxious Faithfull’s and gleaming lights resembling Sunday mass at an Evangelical temple; Steve Jobs appear onto the crow with tablet in hand to give unto the world the IPAD.  And Jobs spoke selling the iPad as the messiah of technological innovation.  But like every other messiah before it, it has fallen short on deliverance and heavy on gimmicks.  Like every other new religion that springs up out of nowhere, with its ideas and underlining structures rooted on century old believes and sprinkle with a modern twist of propaganda so is the iPad rooted on four years old technology simply implemented in a bigger shinier package.

And Jobs said on to thee…

I am Steve Jobs, who brought you out of the land of Microsoft and free you from windows.

You shall surf the web anywhere.

You shall read eBooks.

You shall play games.

You shall watch videos and movies but you shall not purchase them anywhere else but iTunes.

For six days you shall labour and do all your work, but on the seventh day you shall enter the apple store and spend all of your money.

I shall take 30 to 40% of everything sold in the house of Apple.

Shall you make fun of me your app will be rejected from the app store.

You shall not use flash or even think about future support.

The lack of flash support in a device being sold as the ultimate web experience is like a born again Christian without the Holy Ghost.  75% of online videos are made in flash, 70% of games online are made in flash including those on face-book.  The IPad lacks support for Java, adobe Air, and lacks any USB connections.  Closing the devices to an apple mandated doctrine will only hurt the device in the long hull.  Forcing developers to use apple tools to produce their applications; only stagnates advancement and hurts the consumers in the long run. The lack of a camera has certainly crushed the hopes that many had for Skype conversations or for face to face meetings on the go.

But in the end no other company can compete with Apple in terms of product desirability or mass appeal.  Therefore I don’t see the Church of Steve Jobs fading anytime soon even under the worst recession we have seen in the last 60 years.  But less not forget that when it comes to aesthetics there is no other religion like the Catholic Church, where the Catholic Church fails is in being open minded and progressive and Steve Jobs seems to be pulling his doctrine out of the same page.

What’s so great about the Apple iPad?

As I was watching the tube last night, yes it was a geeky show on the Discovery channel! So I came across this iPad commercial which looked nothing like the I’m a Mac or their iPod commercials and I realized that there is nothing great about the iPad. Why? Because there is nothing special about it. It behaves exactly like my iPod touch.

We recently got a hold of one at the office so we could test all of our web applications, designs and to our surprise it behaved again just like my iPod touch. So basically this thing is a big iPod touch with nothing new. You can use the existing applications which you can use on your iPhone or iPod touch(http://tinyurl.com/y8j5s22) and the darn thing has Wi-Fi connectivity issues; out of all things that could go wrong is the Wi-Fi.

All the web applications behaved just like they would on a Mac/PC or on any other standards compliant web browser(Internet Explorer does not count). Some of the form controls on the web applications were a bit out of place although the CSS for these web applications validates without any errors and they are design with WebKit in mind.

Also I recently read some disturbing articles about how Apple wants developers to only use their tools to create applications for all their devices this just does not seem right. A developer should be able to use what ever tools he/she deems fit to create applications. So I’m starting to wonder how long can their devices survive starting with the iPad. Sure the iPhone was great when it first arrived and so was the iPod but these devices are quickly being dismissed by other products which are more open for development and less expensive such as the Android.

There are tons of small tech firms coming out with tablet devices based on Android as well such as the WePad(http://tinyurl.com/y8wvbxs) and the Adam by NotionInk(http://www.notionink.in/adamoverview.php).

So going back to the commercial on the tube it stated that it is already a revolution but why? There is nothing revolutionary about the device in fact touch screen tablets have been around since the year 2000. So why would Apple make such a claim. I honestly think that is because people like the Apple designs but not because there is anything revolutionary about it.

The one thing I liked about it is that is light and it is slick just like all of Apple’s products. But besides this nothing else stands out. If you guys have a different take on this device please share it or if you plan to get one or wait for the competition to arrive. I would like to be enlighten.