The other day I got a change to get my hands on Apple’s new iPad. As a designer my first thought was “oh no how are my sites going to look on the iPad!?!?!?”.

Prior to my trip to the Apple store I began my investigation into how the iPad was going to preview the web. It’s important to know how the web world is shifting, changing and moving. New technology can drastically effect the web, as we’ve experienced with the iPhone and other mobile devices. The iPad is the next game changing device… or is it?

I first looked into the screen resolution which I discovered was going to be 1024 x 768. A lot of people seemed to have issues with this screen size saying things like “it’s an archaic format” and “this will be terrible for watching movies with its outdated proppotions.” however even though this aspect ratio is retro in it’s design it did seem to be good news for the web community. It’s been a long standing standard not to exceed the 1024 users width with the content of your sites. Even though this group of users have been shrinking world wide they did make up enough of a user base to still maintain the tradition.

This being said the screen ratio would prove to be a valued element in the iPad’s design and an asset to standards compliant designers. A screen like this would only rejuvenate this standard for website dimensions.

Good news….

But now onto a bitter note for many web developers, Flash. Flash is an Adobe designed tool for creating web sites with more dynamic and animated designs. This program allows for sites to be much more well… Flashy. (Pun intended please) It appeared, like it’s predecessors the iPhone and iPod Touch, that it would not support flash in it’s Safari browser.

However, I’m not terribly upset about this. Yes even though flash is unique in many ways it doesn’t really seem to make for the most consistent web experience. It allows for crazy navigations and dynamic game experiences but the majority of websites out there don’t need flash. Flash isn’t friendly to computers who don’t have flash player on their computer. JavaScript on the other hand has a lot of the animation power that flash does but if properly coded still allows the site to function. Flash is also very unfriendly to he visually impaired.

I know it can be a hard thing to get rid of but the web will be fine without it.

When I walked in and held my site in my hands as i browsed the web I was very impressed with how Safari handled my sites. A combination of following web standards, using JavaScript and paying attention to the demographic looking at my site it all worked out.

The iPad does an amazing job at adapting the site in landscape or portrait mode. Safari had excellent speed and handled rendering websites like it was a breeze.

My overall review of the iPad – Amazingly simple and elegant. Browsing the web feels incredibly natural. I heart the iPad.