8th Grader is future of entrepreneurs from NYT
This kid is an ipad developer. Read his bio
New Functions for a New Form
Sam Kaplan is an eighth-grader at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. He and Louis Harboe created iChalkboard, an app for the iPad, and The Math Master, an iPhone app. He taught himself 10 programming languages and completed Advanced Placement Computer Science in sixth grade.
My app partner, Louie Harboe, and I believe that the iPad opens a new world of possibilities — a third category of device.
It would be frustrating and boring to draw on the iPhone. But the iPad makes drawing fun.
When you design an iPhone app, you are restricted to the tiny screen. Mainly, you can provide only one piece of information, one activity at a time. The iPad doesn’t restrict you. Take web browsing on the iPhone. It’s awkward, hard to read, hard to navigate, and slow to change pages.
The iPad allows you to navigate pages as fluidly as on a full-sized computer. You can see already some of the new innovative ways people are pushing the iPad on the App Store. Look at a simple app like the one we made: iChalkboard, a digital chalkboard. On the iPhone, it would be frustrating to draw, constantly running out of space, boring. But on the iPad, drawing is fun. The simple addition of very valuable screen real-estate paves the way for incredible new applications.
Comparing the iPad to a laptop, you see a great difference. A laptop, while more portable then a desktop, is not something you would want to carry around everywhere you go. The iPad is perfect for using in the back of a car or on the beach — a light device but very powerful.
I would not want to bring a laptop on the beach to read a book or surf the web and I would not want to strain my eyes on my small iPhone. But I would love to use an iPad. The iPad is a third category of mobile device, not just a “giant iPod Touch” as some are describing it. It allows for a much more immersive experience without sacrificing the mobility of a phone.
