iPad As The New Flash

Jeffrey Zeldman:

Too many designers and publishers see the iPad as an opportunity to do all the wrong things—things they once did in Flash—without the taint of Flash.

Everything we’ve learned in the past decade about preferring open standards to proprietary platforms and user-focused interfaces to masturbatory ones is forgotten as designers and publishers once again scramble to create novelty interfaces no one but them cares about.

While some of this will lead to useful innovation, particularly in the area of gestural interfaces, that same innovation can just as readily be accomplished on websites built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—and the advantage of creating websites instead of iPad apps is that websites work for everyone, on browsers and devices at all price points. That, after all, is the point of the web. It’s the point of web standards and progressive enhancement.

But the iPad supports open web standards. More than hoping in Apple’s tablet to save their magazines, I think publishers just want to make a shitload of money out of iPad apps. It’s that simple.

iPad Makes Its Way to the Farthest Reaches of the Earth

Pitcairn Island is currently home to about 60 people and is one of the most remote and inaccessible inhabited locations in the world, with its only regular physical connection to the outside world coming from a cargo and passenger ship that makes a total of eight visits per year to the island. Rare visits from cruise ships also bring occasional visitors to the island.

So color us a bit surprised when Andrew contacted us to let us know that he is now the proud owner of a 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad, the only one on Pitcairn Island. Andrew tells us that he made contact with a woman from New York who had arranged for a visit to Pitcairn Island on a cruise ship traveling from Tahiti to Easter Island and who asked if there was anything she could bring him. As an Apple fan with a 17” PowerBook and Power Mac G5 already in his possession, Andrew requested an iPad. Two months later, the visitor arrived and presented Andrew with his iPad.

Possibly the best iPad story I’ve heard so far. I mean, it’s here.

iPad Gives Special Needs Kids a Boost

Before she got an iPad at age two, Caleigh Gray couldn’t respond to yes-or-no questions. Now Caleigh, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, uses a $190 software application that speaks the words associated with pictures she touches on Apple Inc.’s device.

“We’re not having to fight to prove to people that she is a smart little girl anymore, because it’s there once they see her using the iPad,” said Caleigh’s mother, Holly Gray, who said her daughter can use the tablet to identify colors or ask to go outside.

Incredible.