Why I hate my iPad


Let’s start with some prelims:

1. I love watching movies or reading a book or surf the Web in my iPad. And Reading magazines in Zinio or flipping through selective stories in Zite is very addictive. But then, these are not something unique for iPad. Though, I have not used any other tab/slate, it can be always argued that any other make having similar "form factor" and hardware would have similar user experience. Am sure owners of Galaxy Tab will agree with me.

2. Many of the issues am complaining of, were known to me even before I purchased the iPad. Still I chose an iPad over an Android Tab, as Android can not access a proxy server through Wifi. That’s quite annoying for me as our institutional network is through proxy servers. It’s a shame for Android.

3. One feels unsatisfied only when some thing expected is not met. Here, my expectations are based on my experience with my Android phone, Samsung Galaxy S II.

Now the hate speech:

A) Oh boy! Forget about classy widgets or custom desktop or custom locks that I can use in my droid phone, I do not even have a simple one click switche/control/widget to switch On/Off Wifi or change screen brightness in my iPad. I have to look deep in settings to do those changes. Yes, you can call me a lazy ass; but then you should stop using a remote for your TV too. They could have placed those controls even in the pull-down notification area. But no they thought that’s not important. Use of the notification area for such purposes is not only easy for the user but also elegant in space saving. In terms of customization iPad is like a primitive B/W cell phone.


B) I was stumped when I realized that I can not explore files/folders in iPad, the way I do in Windows Explorer or in any folder explorer in Android. So I can not copy, paste, move files and even delete the way am habituated to do. The user is blind to file/folder structure in iPad. Yes an App can see a file if you wish. But this leads to another problem. Suppose you have two Apps those can read a PDF file. Today you have opened a PDF file using App 1 and yesterday you have used App 2 for the same file. By the grace of the architecture of iPad, the same file will be stored in two places, thereby reducing your storage capacity. Bravo!

C) I have read 5 files in a PDF reader, and now I have to delete those. No, I have no option to "select all" and delete. I have to do that one by one. Very smart!! Note, you will find this problem in other apps too.

D) An extension of the same issue. All fans of iPad use Dropbox to transfer file from another device to iPad. I used it to transfer my ebooks from my desktop to iPad. But in my iPad I can not download multiple files from Dropbox simultaneously. I have to do that one by one. I have transfered 24 books this way. And then deleted those one by one from Dropbox. Have another 36 still in my desktop to get transfered.

E) I want to download an mp3 file from a Web site. But I can not do that using the default browser Safari. If I insist, I have to use some other specialized browser like iCab. Hold your breath! No, you have no option to upload a file using a browser. Now, how the hell I will attach a file to my e-mail? Oh! Why do not I use an email App? Yes, right. What a smart solution to such a trivial issue. And then what about uploading a file to some other sites like rapidshare?

F) Another example with mp3. Want to transfer a song from my phone to iPad by Dropbox. Yes, I can do that, but can not add that file to the default music player. Excellent!

G) Here goes one well known omission: you have no option to share Youtube videos in Facebook through the Youtube app.

H) They say the quality of Apps in Apple Store is much better than that of Android and you do not get those "force closer" in iPad. I can not comment on all apps. But am facing the problem of hanged/forced closed apps in iPad as frequently as I get in my Galaxy S II.

I) I hear lots of noise about the finish and look of iPad. Yes, it is slick, and well built. But seems am not so civilized for it. Every time I try to hold it, it tends to sleep out my hand and I keep myself in attention for not dropping this 34K toy. Ultimately, have got a partial solution. Using a ugly, cheap plastic back cover having good roughness so that I get a solid grip.

This list is based on my experience with iPad since last two week. I belive my points of hate may increase further as I keep using it.

Yes you can suggest that I am making my life difficult; iPad is for fun; it’s a content centric device; for watching movies, listening songs, reading books; not for upload, download, move, delete business. But where the hell I get these fun stuffs? Where do I get the contents? Apple iTune store does not sell movies/music/books in India. Where will I get a digital copy of “Sonar Kella”? Where do I get a PDF file for “Desh e Bidesh e”? Those do not come with iPad. So eventually, I rely on torrents, ifile, rapidshare. And every time I try to enjoy contents of my choice I face these irritating issues.

You can still insist that I must use the iPad, just the way Seteve Jobs’ company has thought of without any use of my brain. Sorry, then either you are a dogmatic worshiper of Apple or have already lost your mind. In this age of convergence, the intentions and purpose of the user of a device is not the issue, but the capability of the device is. Believe me, use of multiple devices for day-to-day trivial jobs is a primitive idea. Just think of the camera that comes default with most of the cell phones. Why do you need a camera in a phone? A phone is just for talking to some one else. But no, we all buy phones with camera and use that frequently. And amazingly camera phones have changed the way we record our history and make news. On the same line of thought, when I buy a high end costly gadget like iPad, I would expect that it would have multiple capabilities. And it is quite possible to meet my expectations. The best example of that diverse capability is my Android Phone, Galaxy S II. It is just like a desktop PC in my pocket.

Let me end this rambling with some thing I stumbled upon while searching the Web. One fellow, who has a small business, keeps documents organized in folders named with name of each client. He wants to achieve that in his iPad. Obviously he can not do that as iPad has nothing like folder explorer. Frustrated, he posted the issue in one of the forums on iPad. One smart iPad expert was furious, to see that this guy is so primitive and not using any RDBMS Apps to manage his data. What a solution to a simple issue!! Perfect iPad way.

(Oh, I also store my data in folders just like this primitive guy. And my desktop and my Android phone keep all my data updated in the same fashion!!!)

Bottom-line: I hate Google more for not solving the issue of proxy server through Wifi.

Testing Windows Live

Still quite addicted with my new Vaio. Exploring the edges, corners and the groves in it. And just now realized there is something called Live Writer. Seems cool as it would allow me to write off-line and then post when my network is working. No idea about privacy and security though. If you know some thing which may cause trouble to me, do let me know.

Systems Biology

Like thousands of other fellow human beings, we biologists also follow the crowd. So right now, it is a fashion to be a Systems Biologist. It seems every one is talking about it and if your student does not have a credit in this subject, he/she will lag behind in the race. So, I am also introducing a systems biology course in the coming semester. Yes, I do have some personal greed too. First of all, it will be another point in my CV, which is a bit static right now: “developed a systems biology course” and secondly, I am really interested in this topic.

However, these are not the topic of this blog. Rather, I want to talk about my frustrations. I am growing frustrated with all that’s happening in the name of systems biology. It is supposed to change the philosophical status of biologists and provide us the vital clues about this ever elusive subject called “Life”. However, what’s happening right now is nothing but an over crowded maddening marathon to generate exponential amount of data and to fit those numbers in models. And obviously to get a publication, with a title: “Systems approach…..”

I think the problem (at least the problem that I feel) has two parts.

I have always observed that biologists are very much oblivion about the history of the science itself. We all know that every process in a living system (including the system itself) is history dependent. But we really do not care about the history of biology. We rarely stress that in classes and rarely discuss them with our friends. And that’s why it seems systems biology is something new. But the plain truth is that the current avatar of systems biology is nothing but an old wine in a new bottle. Complexity, emergent properties and modularity of biological systems - these three are the main pillar of systems biology. However, these three properties have been explored by so many people in so many ingenious ways for last hundred years. But we just never paid attention and rarely learned anything from them. So, we are just root-less misguided son of some rich parents. Any way, it is better to keep hope. And there is some light to show us way too. If you really feel that you are a Systems Biologist, please read this article on history of Systems Biology (Plant Cell.2006; 18: 2420-2430).

The second reason of my pain is that we are really not focusing on these three pillars of systems biology. Rather, we are busier in high-through put experiments and data crunching. Data (aka observation) is essential. But information with out a solid philosophy is worthless. If you try to dig into the literature on complexity and emergent properties of biological systems, you will find only a handful of recent articles. However, you will find so many mentions of these two terms in recent systems biology articles. So do we have solved the meaning of these two words? The answer is a big no. Even then we love to use them and leave the brain storming work, on mathematician, and physicists. This is nothing but a philosophical ignorance of our community. I do not discriminate or divide science, in field and sub-fields. However, people who call themselves biologists are not trying to explore the basic principles of life. Rather they are still busy, only, in cataloguing forms of life at different levels with different tools.