James Andrews

It’s been one day since Steve Jobs announced the iPad to the world. Since then it seems like a world of haters has vomit their hatred of the iPad upon us. Complaining that it’s nothing more than an oversized iPod touch. What I am trying to figure out is this 1) why is that bad? and 2) Did you really expect something more? 3) Why did it have to be more?

In Steve’s keynote he talked about the computer and the smart phone and something in the middle. The iPad is not meant to replace the computer, and it’s not meant to replace the smart phone. It’s meant to compliment them. There are plenty of instances where you may want something portable like a phone, but not as clunky as a laptop, and that is where the iPad comes in. Something that doesn’t need a full computer operating system. Something that can become the device you need at the time.

Let’s say you are in the medical profession, do you really want to have to boot into a complex operating system like windows, linux or OS X that uses up battery life quickly? Or would you rather just turn on a device that allows you to open your application, view and enter patient data quickly and submit it to the servers in the hospital IT department? What if you are a photographer, or a real estate agent, or a business person in general who wants to track their appointments, calculate costs quickly. Applications designed specifically for you, so you don’t need to multi-task into other applications? That is what iPad is about.

Sure there are instances where multitasking may be nice, such as listening to Pandora Streams while doing something else in another application. It’s not a perfect device, but for people to condemn it for it’s faults and not look past them to the devices potential just seems real sad to me.

The iPad will be a great device once you get it in your hands, and see what it can do.

Photography is one of my hobbies. Sometimes I’ll do a wedding for a little extra money, sometimes I’ll shoot models. Trying to keep track of everything is a pain. Last night I was organizing apps on my iPhone and decided to look for some new ones while I was at it. I came across one called “Photographer’s Workflow”. From the images in iTunes App Store it looked like it did pretty much everything, and it was $3.99. Cheap enough for me to want to give it a try.

I downloaded and synced the app to my first generation iPhone. The first thing I noticed was that it requires use of Google Calendar. I give it my gmail account and password and it connected. Fulfilling that requirement, I attempted to add a project.

I add my project and the app crashes. I go back to the app, and enter the project. None of the information is there, and there’s no way I can see to delete the project and start again. I add another project, and wouldn’t you know it happens again. App == FAIL.

This app looked so very promising. I was really upset about the requirement for Google Calendar. I don’t want all my business information on the cloud, I’d rather have it sync to iCal through iTunes, or at least have the option for it not to use Google, and just keep it on my Phone. I couldn’t get a project to work at all which means that the application was totally useless to me.

I have contacted Apple for a refund.

Don’t waste your time, the app needs a lot of work.