iPad Features » Safari

How to restore closed tabs in Safari on the iPad

admin — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:16:35 +0000

For those of you who didn’t yet know, it is now possible to restore closed tabs in Safari on the iPad. You no longer need to waste your time re-entering URLs in Safari. This neat little feature lets you open the last closed tabs right from the tabs bar without looking in your history. To re-open the web pages you last visited simply hold the ‘+’ sign in Safari to open a new tab and you’ll see a pop-up with a list of your most recently visited websites.

iPad Features: Mail

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:23:24 +0000

Netbooks step aside, the era of the tablet is coming! And the iPad will be the very first high-profile tablet to come out in April 2010. But will Apple’s latest creation set the standard for tablets (just as it did for MP3 players with the iPod) or will it disappoint by being just an oversized iPhone?

In this post, we look at one of the many iPad features: Mail.

Mail

Mail is Apple’s signature e-mail client, and it’s actually a really good one. Mail on Mac OS X has a characteristically slick interface, an efficient workflow and advanced search/customization features for the e-mail power-user.

The question is: can Apple translate the magic that made Mail so good on Mac OS X onto the iPad when it releases it in April?

Answer: We think so, but we’ll really have to wait until we actually have a version of iPad Mail.

However, we do have to remind people that the iPad is an oversized (but very cool-looking) iPhone and that Mail on the iPhone is catastrophically annoying to use.

Basically, setting up Mail on the iPhone is quite easy and the general light user won’t every encounter a problem or develop frustrations with it. However, if you’re a power-user and receive a hundred e-mails in a day, sifting through all of those on the iPhone is a real nightmare.

This pains associated with e-mail usage on the iPhone might not find themselves in the iPad, and we really hope so. The iPad (9.7-inch) does have a much bigger screen than the iPhone and hopefully that will be enough to fix the shortcomings iPhone Mail had.

But, we’ll have to wait until we get our hands on an iPad in April in order to be fully able to review this iPad feature.

iPad Features: Safari

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:19:41 +0000

Whenever Apple announces the launch of a new product, the entire technology industry is abuzz with anticipation. Month before the official iPad announcement, rumours of Apple’s upcoming tablet reached epic proportions and fired-up an army of articles, tweets, blog posts and searches. And then on 28 January 2010 at 1:00 PM EST, Apple finally revealed its tablet, called the iPad.

But, does the iPad live up to the hype? We’re going to take a closer look at the announced iPad features. We’ll begin in this post with the iPad’s browsing capabilities via Safari.

Safari

iPad Feature: Web browsing with Safari on the iPad

The iPad is a basically a large 9.7-inch iPhone. Just like the iPhone, the iPad features a LED-backlit multi-touch widescreen display with Safari.

Safari is Apple’s internet browser. Safari, as a web browser, is fast and stable. For any Mac user, Safari is generally the browser of choice simply because of how well it is integrated in Apple’s operating system through an easy, elegant and efficient workflow.

Apple is trying to brand the iPad as the “best way to experience the web, e-mail, photos, and video”. So, will Safari help Apple to create the best surfing experience ever?

Sadly, the answer is, “perhaps, but not yet.”

Just like the iPhone, the iPad’s version of Safari isn’t and will not be compatible with Flash. Yes, the iPad isn’t Flash compatible!

Millions of websites use flash today and if the iPad isn’t Flash compatible, then it will significantly limit the iPad user’s browsing experience.

In a official response from Adobe to the iPad’s lack of Flash, the popular software maker mentions that:

“without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.”

Indeed, those are some pretty grim numbers for the iPad (see Adobe’s official repines on Gizmodo.com, Adobe Responds to the iPad’s Lack of Flash)

Moreover, in TheFlashBlog.com, Lee Brimelow provides a concise, but very visually poignant post on what it would be like to browse without Flash (see The iPad provides the ultimate browsing experience?)

[View with PicLens]

Perhaps at a future time, both the iPad and the iPhone will be Flash compatible or we’ll all live in a world where Flash is a thing of the past, but until that happens the iPad will not be the “best way to experience the web”.