With the recent hype that Apple has gotten in the news lately on the strength of their game-changing iPad device, it’s sparked a lot of conversation about the future appliacations of the device. Very few places is this more evident than in the world of education, especially online learning. Here is a list of the factors that make this machine (and in essence, its competitors), an important step forward for the world of distance learning.

Pros:

1. Large, full color screen — Lots of real estate for graphically intensive data transfer. The full color screen allows for way more than the monochromatic display of a device like the Amazon Kindle. This opens things up to rich  textbook content via a touchscreen and link heavy applications. Check out the video below as an example:

2. Familiar OS — Uses modified iPhone OS, meaning anyone who knows how to navigate the iPhone or an iPod Touch will already know their way around this machine. Think about how many iPhones you’ve seen out in the wild. All of those people already have a working knowledge of how to use the iPad. Pretty formidable.

3. Chat — Enables the ability to voice chat via IM or VoIP. Not something that will replace cellular phones at this point, but the capability opens up a whole new world.

4. App store — Extending the capabilities of the machine is possible by way of third party apps. And with the boom of iPad developers only growing as more people get their hands on the device, we can only imagine what kinds of apps will be available over the next few months and beyond.

5. Size and shape — With a slim low profile design and a weight of only 1.5 lbs, this is the most powerful consumer device of this size that we’ve seen yet. And imagine the convenience of carrying this device as opposed to a stack of heavy textbooks. Awesome.

6. Ability to run programs — The iPad allows users to design presentations, organize and edit photos, create spreadsheets and documents and more. It’s powerful enough to replace the function that many students now use a laptop for.

7. Cloud computing — iPad’s interface and the technology behind it make it a fine device for cloud computing, a system that involves data being stored out on

the Internet (“in the cloud”), as opposed to on the device itself. While this is a topic best suited for its own blog post, you can read more in depth about this concept here.

Cons:

1. No Flash — Much of the web uses Flash to deliver content. But Apple does not support it in any way. Many think this will be a non-issue once HTML5 becomes standard. Apple boss Steve Jobs even weighed in on the topic with an open letter on Flash published recently.

2. No multi-tasking — This is a big one. How many people have more than one program at a time open? My guess is close to 100% of people who use computers regularly. To eliminate that is a huge blow to productivity and convenience.

3. No camera — This also naturally means no video chat, which is kind of a bummer.

4. Limited connectivity — No USB slot? Well that pretty much makes all of that handy data that you have stored on flash drives obsolete. And if you thought transferring stuff to an iPad would be a snap, think again.

5. NOT open source — iPad developers have to get the SDK that Apple provides you with and then all apps must be approved by Apple. This could hamper innovation in some sectors, much as we have seen in the iPhone App Store. Many naysayers have problems with this closed development system.

What do you think?

Is the iPad the future of distance learning? Or do its limitations leave the door open for something better suited for those purposes? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

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