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Microsoft released a platform preview of Internet Explorer 9 last month (I’ve only just realised).  All I can say is wow; the hardware acceleration and utilisation of the graphics card speak for themselves. IE9 maintained a smooth 60 FPS on this JavaScript benchmark with minimal CPU utilisation whereas Google Chrome’s fabled V8 parser managed a lowly 4FPS on my computer.

I’m breathless. A standards compliant Internet Explorer with HTML5, CSS3, SVG and amazing JavaScript support, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.

Did some playing around with the CSS3 effects support. There are a few effects missing, hopefully they’re addressed before it’s released:

• No text-shadow support
• No box-shadow support
• No support for multiple background-image properties

PS: Microsoft, this doesn’t make up for over 9 years of supporting IE9!

On April 2 Apple released the iPad. A device announced earlier this year that sits between the laptop and smartphone in terms of size and power.  Personally, I think the idea of a large touch screen device is fantastic; as Steve Jobs points out, it is a much better solution than the netbook. I agree with Apple that such a device is ideal for viewing a website, answering emails or watching a movie from in bed or on the couch. While others have called it “three iTouches duck taped together” I think this platform is a great idea and shows great promise.

I do have my criticisms, however. While the hardware sounds incredible, most of my criticisms stem from the fact that it’s an Apple product:

Media support

Like all Apple products the iPad will be restricted to certain formats of audio, video and lack support for browser runtimes like Flash (this is a good thing). My biggest gripe lies in the selection of video formats. If you’re like me you have many gigabytes of  movies and TV shows downloaded from the internet. Chances are that most of these aren’t the supported Apple formats (like Quicktime, MPEG4, M-JPEG and a few others) and are instead formats like Xvid AVI or WMV. A rough calculation to determine the time to encode all 1.5 terabytes of my video files from AVI to MPEG4 is roughly equal to infinity This doesn’t include the inconvenience of having to convert every single video file you download to a supported format.

In essence I want to be able to stream video files from my desktop PC via WIFI to my tablet without having converting all of my media files and copying them onto my tablet.

Multitasking

I haven’t actually held an iPad in my hands but from the online demonstrations I’ve seen it doesn’t seem to offer the level of multitasking I’d like from this kind of device. The operating system has not fallen far enough from the iPhone tree. While sitting in my proverbial couch I want to be able to be able to browse a website or view photos while talking to friends on my favourite instant messenger client seamlessly or quickly switch from the movie I’m watching to Facebook. Switching from one application to the other by closing one and opening the other (the way an iPhone does) is very laborious. A New Scientist article on the iPad thinks along the same lines:

“The iPad does not attempt to replicate the multitasking, stacked-windows approach of our desktops and laptops in the way that previous tablets have – with mixed results. Designed less for productivity and more for entertainment, it isn’t trying to be a computer of the sort we are used to. For the time being, it is a general-purpose media consumption device that is quite good at its job.”

Plugging it in

If you don’t already know iPod and iPhone’s have an annoying behavior of refusing to run on a computer other than the one it was formatted with; I expect the iPad to work in the same way. Not being able to transfer files, music, photos or movies between computers is terrifically annoying.

Well, what are the other options?

Enter the err… Google Pad?

I’ve been following the Google’s Chrome OS progress with a lot of excitement. To begin with Chrome OS is open-source; it can be customised and edited by anyone. What this will hopefully mean is that I’ll be able to view my AVI files without having to convert them, either it will come with native support for the format, or someone somewhere will build a plugin for it – something that isn’t going to happen when you buy an Apple product.

The biggest difference between the iPad and Chrome OS operating systems is their storage. Chrome OS is designed to run on the cloud, to allow the user to access their information irrespective of where they are. The iPad on the other hand will store most of its data on the device itself. While I like having a local version of files, especially movies and TV series (this is mainly due to Australian internet downloads being metered), the security and convenience of having your data in the cloud is more appealing than tying it to a particular device.

Google hasn’t announced much in the way of tablet support for their new OS but judging by these concepts it looks very appealing. I was initially skeptical of Chrome OS, I couldn’t think of a device where a browser based operating system would be particularly useful, the iPad clears that up for me.

An iPad like device with Chrome OS would be a match made in heaven: tabbed based windows, easy multitasking and an open-source operating system have me sold. The only question is will a manufacturer release a Chrome OS tablet? Hopefully not too long because I can’t wait.

PC World have a great article comparing the iPad to the Google Pad in more detail.