~ It's a beautiful world ~
It was relatively amusing reading the early commentary on Apple’s newest hardware, the iPad. It’s as if the media was looking for something to endorse, and the iPad was in the right place at the right time, even if it was the wrong product.
Wired for example put an interesting spin on it with it’s “10 things missing from the iPad”. For every point missing from the iPad, they rationalized it as the right thing to do anyway. For instance:
Flash is the most widely accepted and distributed technology for delivering video content on the Internet. But you won’t find Flash on your iPad. “Who needs Flash, anyway?” said Wired, and went on to tell you why it’s a good idea not to include Flash. Get used to the Blue Lego Tiles.
USB is the most accepted way to connect peripherals to a computer. Sorry, not available for your iPad. No SD port either. “Apple has already announced a camera connection kit, a $30 pair of adapters which will let you either plug the camera in direct or plug in an SD card to pull off the photos.” Ah, that says it. You’ll need a different adapter kit for each device you want to connect. Of course. Why weigh down the device with necessities when you can purchase extras? A fancy way of saying they are going to get more money out of you for more hardware.
There’s no Camera or WebCam. Even the iPhone has a camera. “We expect to see one in v2.0”. Didn’t we expect one in v1.0?
The list goes on. And it’s not just Wired either. It’s obvious that the tech gurus are trying hard to get behind the newest Apple hardware. But the truth is it’s going to be a tough sell. Many people expected the iPad to be a revolutionary cross between a Cellphone/PDA and a Laptop, and it fell way short. Some people are calling it a larger format iPhone.
And aside from the screen size, it’s not much different from the iPhone Well, there’s no phone either, and there isn’t a fashion designer who’s made pockets large enough for you to carry it on your person wherever you go. Overall it’s “features” make it less practical/functional than the iPhone. Nothing revolutionary. Runs on iPhone/iTouch platform, not OSX. No multi-tasking. No USB. No Camera. No Flash.
That said, I’ll join the hype and say it looks like a cool toy – for those who can afford it.
Two thumbs down.
OK, so I’m a PC guy from way back. But I’ve been looking for an excuse to go over to the other side. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be the product that takes me there. I think we’re seeing now what we really got wasn’t a smaller MacBook or a larger iPhone. What we got was an iDud.