After all the hype and all the rumors, Apple finally released their long awaited tablet, the iPad.  My initial reaction was that I was underwhelmed.  After thinking about it a little more, the iPad may be one of the best consumer electronic devices ever made.  It all depends on what type of person you are.  Are you mainly a consumer or are you a content creator?  I would definitely consider myself a content creator.  Digital photography and programming don’t seem to be the strong points of the iPad.  I’m also a consumer, but realistically, the iPad is a perfect device for a certain type of consumer.  I definitely think the iPad will give the Kindle a run for its money but there is something that the iPad lacks…  multi tasking.  No doubt, the iPad will be the best experience for browsing the web, just as the iPhone/iPod Touch has the best browsing experience for a mobile device.  No doubt, the iPad will probably give you the best experience for consuming your digital photos, but I’m a consumer who browses the web, views digital photos, views tweets, checks emails, all at the same time.   Is there a portable device that does this already?  Sure, it’s my Droid, but I’m not going to get the same user experience that Apple offers, plus there isn’t an Android tablet yet.  Maybe things will change with the iPhone 4.0 OS or if someone comes out with an Android table (that truly has multi-touch).

So, do I want the iPad? Sure…  but do I need it… definitely not.  The iPad can’t fulfill the needs that I have as a content creator.  The question someone has to ask is, can they justify paying $500+ on an additional device?  Maybe this year, I’ll start to do projects for the iPhone and the iPad.  If that’s the case, of course I’ll “need” to get one for “testing” purposes.  Until then, I’m excited to see how other manufacturers will respond to the iPad and I’ll save my money for now.  Of course, if things change, I’ll be sure to give my review on it. 

Update: There are a number of Android Tablets out there.  There were a few announced at CES but nothing getting as much press for sure.

Map of approximately where we went today using a GPS tracker:

View Larger Map

First day and half of Israel is in the books.  Arrived here Thursday afternoon, mostly jet lagged and still feeling a little jet lagged.  All it means is that I slept well the first night here.  We didn’t do much today.  We mainly hung out with Titus and Sharon.  They took us down to one of the outdoor markets, Carmel Shuk.  There were a crazy amount of people.  I mainly had my small camera with me taking a few shots and a few videos here and there.  Not much to say other than it’s an interesting country so far.  Tel Aviv is like any other big city…. lots of people, cars, etc.  Our plan is to go to Caesarea and Jerusalem soon.  Hopefully we’ll make it to the dead sea.  Tonight we have a sweet college meeting Netanya.

Here’s a slow motion video I took from the bus:

More pictures coming tomorrow.

With Google announcing their Chrome OS a few months ago, the boom of netbooks, and just the way people are using their computers these days, I think this is a very interesting area that is the future of computing.  Today, most people use their computers for checking mail, socials networks, checking the sports scores, etc…  just surfing in general.  It use to be, as new software and operating systems have evolved, there is the need for more processing power.  With so much of our work being done on the browser and on the internet, we need just enough processing power to run our browser.  Of course, it’s not just the browser.  It’s the flash video in our browser or any other multimedia content in browser.

One way that people are trying to make this happen is by making software and the operating systems they run on lighter.  This is what the Google Chrome OS will try to do.  It will try to take out all the other stuff that we don’t use often and put the browser and other cloud based programs to the forefront.  Jolicloud has come out with their own lightweight OS as well.  I think this is the future and this is going to be the future OS for my relatives who always require tech support.  The only concern I have now is, will our connection speeds catch up and be reliable and affordable?  I hope so.

Just another normal week.  All I can say, busy busy busy.  Working on probably 3 huge projects right now.  On Friday, Nam and I were at Real Time Crunch Up in San Francisco.  We were given in a once in a life time opportunity to demo our new site (http://www.baduku.com) in front of 500-600 attendees and probably a couple thousand watching on the internet.  That went well.  Other than that, took the wife to the Great Park Balloon and took some decent pictures (post of pictures coming soon).

Posts coming this week:

• First part of my review of the Motorola Droid
• Great Park Balloon Pictures
• Some thoughts on Google Chrome OS
• Whatever else comes up…

Have a great Turkey Day.

Interesting how Google always seems to stir up the pot.  Free turn by turn navigation.  They’ll eventually come out with this on other smartphones.  Of course, the main problem with Google maps is that you have to have a cell connection, which seems to be an issue where you need the navigation the most.  I’m excited because this is going to be included in Verizon Droid phone, which was announced today.

Link to article on Engadget

This could finally be it.  My next phone maybe.  I’ve pretty much decided that an Android phone will be my next phone and there are at least 2-3 phones coming out on Verizon in the beginning of November.

Checkout the Motorola Droid Preview.

So I was in Roland Heights today and I stopped at a light.  On my left was a restaurant named Boston Kitchen.  I realized I was on Batson Ave.  Then I thought to myself… do you think they named it Boston Kitchen because someone didn’t pronounce Batson very well and someone heard… oh… “Boston”.  Just a random thought.  As you noticed, not blogging much lately.  Maybe I’ll pick it up as things die down.