How do I use my iPad?

This is my 2nd day since I bought my iPad. I still love it and I still think this is one of the best thing that I bought since my Sony TZ notebook. Probably at this time, you have read so many reviews and articles and obviously every writer will either love it or hate it depending on where they are coming from and their expectation. So what is my expectation? I think I mentioned in my previous post that I have been hold of purchasing Amazon Kindle and bought iPod touch instead. I love my iPod and love all the apps it has. However, doing certain thing in iPod touch does not make sense.

This is where iPad shines.

To love iPad you have to break several paradigms. First it is not a PC or computer or whatever Microsoft has planted in our mind about Tablet PC. Second, it is not a PDA. It is actually better than that. It is a true MID device, a new digital lifestyle device that supposed to compliment our day to day job. Of course, day to day job is a very broad term and the interpretation can be vary. But these are what I think it is great for and this is why i love it:

1. It is a great ebook device. I think the screen is gorgeous, although not a perfect screen for outdoor usage. But I live my life mostly indoor so this is not a big deal for me. The fact that I don’t have to choose between which ebook reader I want is a big winner. I still enjoy reading book from Amazon, books from B&N and now there is new choices from Apple itself. That’s just great. Because there are some books that only available from certain format and iPad becomes the most complete digital book reader device.

2. Perfect digital notebook device. I can now easily open up my Evernote or Wordpress and start jotting my ideas and notes as if I am using a laptop but without all the excess baggage that I don’t need. The virtual keyboard is really pleasure to use with. I don’t even know why we needs the Bluetooth keyboard with iPad. Digital journaling is so awesome with iPad.

3. Awesome web Internet tablet. If you like me, I do most of my work “web” way. Some people call it web 2.0 apps, some call it software as services, these new era of web based applications is making our life much more convenient. Apps like Google Docs, Evernote, Freshbook, Sales Force are so much easier to access now with iPad. And you know who’s coming to this list? Microsoft office 2010. Yes we’re going to be soon able to use Word, Excel online. I don’t need laptop anymore to do all the work. All day long I will have a device that allows me to connect to those apps and the device is light and easy to carry on and more importantly it has battery power for almost “all day” long usage for the first time!

4. Great device for social activity. From Facebook to Twitter, iPad has great apps for that or I don’t even need the apps as I can just fire off Safari and start to use the website instead. With the upcoming rumor of multiple-task capability on OS 4, these activities will becoming more pleasant.

5. iPad is the new media pad! Viewing photo albums and music and video collection cant be better than this. iPad definitely going to find a good niche among the photographers out there. We can use iPad to show the proof of the photo or digital media (songs and videos). We can even plug in a VGA adapter to use the projector to showcase the media!

6. Perfect combination of work and leisure. The list of apps are increasing rapidly. I can now do remote desktop through Logmein and at the same time play scrabble

So that’s it, you have my reason why loves it. I am not saying that iPad comes without its shortcomings. There are some level of nuances that I think they will be addressing sooner or later. But if you do what I do on my list above, this device is definitely for you!

Let me know what you think.

Apple iPad – What do you think about it?

Alright, so the mystery is gone now. Apple finally announced its highly anticipated tablet device, iPad. It is essentially a “much” bigger version of iPhone (without phone feature) or iPod Touch (with a lot of feature options) depending on how you look at it. So what do you think? Here are my thoughts on the device.

Without actually holding the device on my hand, it will be difficult to give a fair review on this one and I am not about to give one. My thoughts will only based on what I can see so far: the specification, the video demos and so on. First of all, am I jumping up and down excited about the device? Not this time. Not comparing when they first announce iPhone. iPhone was a ground breaking innovation. It was the device when Apple first announce the multi-touch technology, easy to use iPhone OS and sleek device design. iPad on the other hand, other than it is much bigger size, it isn’t really ground breaking to me.

I know they introduce the new processor (their own brand) and the multi touch on the 9 inch glossy LCD may be significant for the engineering perspective, but that to me is again nothing new. Apple iPad to me is an amazing eBook/web tablet. It is a for-sure Amazon Kindle DX killer. With one iPad I can enjoy more than three ebook devices: Apple iBook, Kindle, B&N Reader and more.

So what are the things that I think iPad does it right?

1. I think the price is right. With $499 as the starting price, that will persuade people to consider buying iPad from devices such as Kindle and B&N Nook
2. New native apps are great (email, ebook, calendar, web browser, photo gallery). This always be Apple strongest suit. The update the user experience of all the native apps to nicely showcase the big screen of this device. NO compromise on the user experience here. Two thumbs up !!!
3. No contract with AT&T. Hurrrayyy !!! That is really great news. This allows people that do want 3G capability to use it with whoever they want. Not sure about the decision of using the micro SIM card

So what are my dislikes with iPad?

1. I wish it was smaller !!
2. Still no updates on the OS? Where is the multi-task capabilities?
3. No camera? Come on Apple, at least a front facing camera for video conference

Well hopefully once they have it on the Apple store to play with, it changes my mind. Especially the size. Well have to wait until March. Until then, let me know what you think about it.

Happy New Year 2010 !!

Hello all ICUBE reader. I’ve been pretty passive lately on writing the blog. Too much tweeting around instead making me so lazy to write. Not much new gadget that I bought lately. I am still waiting for the rumored iPhone tablet to come to reality. So instead, I am staying with several of my beloved devices: Mac Book Pro 15 inch for my music production tool, Sony TZ laptop for my main working laptop during travel, my beloved iPod touch that I wish it would have the camera, my Blackberry Tour that becomes a must-have phone to communicate to all my friends (all of them on BBM system), and finally my Archos 5 IT that has been hacked to have a full Google experience (waiting for the 2.0 upgrade soon). This year I hope it will be an interesting year for gadgets and subnotebooks arena (or if you prefer to call them netbooks instead)! For one, more Android devices are scheduled to appear. Obviously people is waiting for Chrome OS for netbooks. More on the cloud applications including Office 2010!

Alright, I think to kick off this new year, you guys should check out this Google phone (real Google phone), a.k.a. Nexus One. Engadget has the real unit on hands and created a small video with it.

Here is the link to it: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/02/exclusive-google-nexus-one-hands-on-video-and-first-impressio/

Let me know what you think about it. My first impression, it is very smooth and fast! But I am still not sold with the Android ecosystem for now. I stick around with my Archos 5 IT for now until later on this year for more worthy devices.

- Muliadi

[3-in-60] Affordable Blue-Ray, Fujitsu multi-touch tablet PC, Dell MID announced

Good morning, here are my three picks of the gadget news today:

1. Affordable Blue-Ray now includes streaming Netflix movies
Bestbuy and netflix teams up to bring the “watch instantly” movies available to a very affordable Blue-Ray players. At $179 ($199 for the wireless version), now you can get Insignia NS-BRDVD3 (or NS-WBRDVD for the WIFI edition) bargain Blue-Ray players ate Best Buy. To make the deal even sweeter, for Reward Zone, you can even get the BRDVD3 at only $99!! (according to a poster at AVS). The streaming feature won’t work out of the box but with a simple firmware upgrade, you will get the feature easily. Here for more info on the announcement. For the AVS bargain, click here (Reward Zone login is required).

2. Fujitsu Multi Touch Tablet PC
Fujitsu Corporation joins the foray of multi-touch technology announcing the new LifeBook T4310. Featuring 12 inches screen, Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz, 4G RAM and 320G hard drive, it is a pretty decent spec for an entry level tablet PC. And of course, the multi-touch will make it more fun to use Want to get one? Click here.

3. Dell MID
I’ve been in a hunt of Google Android Tablet for the last 2 days and happy to see this announcement from Dell. Nothing official yet but the photo leaks and information is quite complete (courtesy of some industrious folks at Vietnam). It features Android 2.0 OS, 800×480 resolution capacitive touch screen (allow for multi-touch), 3G WWAN, Bluetooth and dual-LED flash 5 mega pixel camera. This is definitely a fully loaded device. Price? Not sure just yet. Here to see the picture gallery of the device (courtesy of Engadget)

Thanks for tuning. See you all tomorrow.