I have to admit that I was looking forward to the announcement of the iPad. After Apple completely changed the way we think of mobile phones I was curious to see if they how they might reinvent the tablet. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed.
What is this better than?
Surfing the web?
Apple claims this is “the best way to experience the web.” Really? Um… where’s the Flash support? I realize that Flash is past its prime and the web is moving forward, but Flash is still a huge player and featured on a ton of sites. This is slightly annoying on my iPhone, but unforgivable on the iPad.
eReading?
So this thing is supposed to kill the Kindle? I do believe that eReaders are going to vanish from the marketplace—at least in their current form—in the next few years. I think people are interested in a device that does everything and eReaders are only good for reading books and doing some web surfing.
One thing the eReaders do have going for them currently is the eInk. It’s as easy on your eyes as printed pages of a paper book because it is not a backlit display. The iPad doesn’t have this technology. Apple claims their screen is pleasing to the eye, but I’m just not convinced.
Work?
Forget productivity. The iPad doesn’t allow multitasking. It’s basically an over-sized iPod touch. It lacks a USB port—are you kidding me?—so you can’t just connect a flash drive or external hard drive and drag and drop your files. If you want to transfer files, you’ll have to do it through iTunes or an App.
And speaking of hard drives… the largest hard drive you can get for the thing is 64GB. And did I mention you can’t just hook up a USB drive for added space? I do think they’ll have an adapter you can buy, but how lame is that? I love the idea of have to carry an adapter around with so I can use my flash drive.
The iPad also lacks a camera so you can forget video conferencing via Skype or anything else unless you bring along a separate camera… and adapter. And since it is app-driven, I won’t be working in Photoshop anytime soon. I know they have an app for that, but seriously, it’s not even worth talking about. Plus, it’ll be a pain to transfer my files. I guess I could always just e-mail them to myself.
Conclusion
I know that Apple is selling this thing below the previously rumored $1,000, but I’m going to take a long look at the competition—no, the iPad isn’t the only tablet on the planet—before I even think about buying this. And if the competition doesn’t have anything worthwhile, I’ll probably just wait for version 2.