14 DAY TRIAL // Closing in on the iPad’s official debut, Apple has posted a series of guided tour videos that describe the various capabilities of the iPad, in a very typical Apple manner. Spanning areas from Safari and Mail to the iPod and the multi-touch iWork suite of applications, a total of 11 video guides can now be watched from the iPad section of Apple’s website.
In the videos, Apple includes few details that it hasn’t included in the many materials on its website, the January keynote presentation, and the press releases. They are, nonetheless, a valuable resource for prospective buyers and journalists alike. The latter category, for instance, can now draw a better picture of how the device is going to be used, by whom, etc. This is helpful when writing a personal thoughts piece, for example.
In every one of these videos, Apple outlines the basics of using each particular application, such as Safari, Photos, and the iPad version of iWork, with its respective individual applications – Pages, Numbers and Keynote. The tours on these three are particularly interesting, being filled with insightful aspects surrounding Apple’s scaled-down office tools. By the time you get to the Pages guided tour, you really begin to picture yourself working anywhere you are with the iPad. While there will be some limitations to working with the iPad (compared with work done on a desktop computer, or even a laptop), the iPad’s offerings are sure to change our view of work on the go.
You can visit Apple’s website here to watch the videos in large, 848x480 resolution (which will kill your Opera browsing session, so be sure to use Safari or Firefox), as well as in medium and small resolutions. Viewers can opt to watch one video at a time, or have them play continuously from the Safari guided tour, to the Numbers demonstration video. The iPad TV commercial and the iPad video (featuring Apple’s Jony Ive) are also available for instant viewing on Apple’s website.