Apple Tablet as Place to Dump Images?

After suffering a system failure on a 2 month old $1399 iMAC which Apple chooses to regard as a software problem which isn't covered by warranty, I would say the dump is the proper place for the new Apple iPad.

If you shoot jpegs, maybe. No indication how it would handle RAW files. The 64GB is total storage. Depending on what apps/data one would have installed in the device, the remaining space would be considerably less. Screen appears to be glossy - great for increased color saturation and apparent sharpness - but also great as a mirror. If it's the same as the iPhone, you'll be constantly wiping off fingerprints and smudges. For photographers, it would have been better with a matte screen, standard USB slot, and built-in CF and SD slots and native RAW support like at least iPhoto. Maybe version by version 3 it'll be a better device. For just dumping images for backup an Epson device or a cheap $300 netbook with 160GB drive and built-in SD reader and standard USB ports does the trick.

Its probably good to show them but you would probably be better off using a macbook pro.

It was very obviously designed without input from photographers. There are no card slots, no USB, no iPhoto lite or something similar, and no built-in camera. To get photos into it away from a computer, you have to buy an accessory kit.

I'll probably get one, but I don't expect to use it for dumping photos. My older MacBook Pro will still work better than the iPad for that task. The iPad does seem like an almost perfect living room web device.

It's version 1.0. There will be new applications and, I expect, later versions with built-in card readers. All the same, I'd rather have a laptop computer with a built-in keyboard.

What I find funny about the Ipad is almost all the accessories they have make it into a normal computer. I wish they would just incorporate a touch screen into a macbook.

Well, you have to remember that this isn't what they designed the thing to do. Their photo dock has an SD reader I think and a USB jack, but no compact flash card. But it's about a pound and a half, and that appeals to me as does the size of the screen for seeing my pictures. It's true that it would need to be able to read raw files and maybe it won't be able to. But it's something to think about. I have an iMac and the reflective screen doesn't bother me. One can envision making a device aware application, something like iPhoto or even Photoshop lite with a plug in device with the appropriate reader. We'll have to keep our eye on it.

I heard some speculation that maybe what Apple is doing is trying to get to the next "concept" of a personal computer by means of the iPhone. In other words, conventional tablets have never worked because conventional operating systems didn't work that well without a keyboard. But this starts out with a device designed to do that, so maybe it can be evolved into something better than our current idea of a personal computer. Maybe not too. I don't want to be this much under Apple's thumb, but it is pretty and light and I'm tempted.

I'm not sure where the angst over stuff like this comes from. The iPad obviously wasn't meant to be a photo storage device or even a "normal computer". If they had tried to do that, they would have had to make compromises in other areas that they felt were important (price, size, battery life). It is supposed to be a new sort of device that fits in between a smartphone and a laptop.

As I said in the other thread, I don't see the iPad as any sort of a photography device. Nor do I think it was intended to be. It's just one of those "digital life" devices (kindle, slingbox, ooma, iphone, etc) that may or may not fit in with your specific lifestyle.

If you want a cheap and small photo storage device with wifi abilities, get a $300 netbook with a real hard drive.