Well, it’s finally here. Apple introduced the much hyped and speculated about, iPad. I think that I, along with a great number of others, were disappointed in some things and excited about other things. What follows is my opinion of how the iPad stacks up against my personal expectations and thoughts about such a device.
Choice of OS
After seeing the Apple presentation, I understand why they chose the iPhone OS, rather than OSX (their Desktop OS). It really fits their vision about the iPad being a consumer electronics device, rather than a general-purpose computer.
From my own point of view, I was hoping for a device that really replaces my MacBook Pro. The only way to do that would be to provide a full fledged Desktop OS, but tweaked for a Multi-Touch world.
Form Factor
I love the form factor. It really accentuates the Multi-Touch centric way in which you interact with the User Interface. I think on this point, they have hit a home run. They have had a lot of feedback and experience with the iPhone/iPod touch to understand how to design an interface that is completely obvious in its use.
iBooks and iBookStore
I think this is definitely a win. The only question here is whether the iPad screen is good enough for reading purposes. Can you really read a 250-300-page book on the iPad screen without going blind?
Amazon, with their Kindle has done things to make their screen very readable, without the expected eyestrain of reading a computer screen. If the iPad can measure up in this department, Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook, become irrelevant.
B&N will have an upper hand, since they already have ‘ePub’ formatted books. However, it remains to be seen if they are importable to the iBooks reader, or will you have to use the B&N eReader for the iPhone/iPad?
Lack of Camera
Like most pundits, I was really hoping for a user-facing camera and an iPad version of iChat or Skype, etc. It just seems to be a natural function for this device. All I can surmise would be that Apple is holding off on that hardware feature until they have the user experience in software perfected.
For this reason alone, I think that for me, I will be waiting for version 2.0 of the iPad.
Multitasking Apps
Being able to have apps run in the background, other than the Apple included Apps like iPod/iTunes, would be a nice update for App Developers.
However, I understand that coming from the iPhone OS, they don’t yet have a plan for how to accomplish this (or at least have not implemented it).
Multi Tasking brings up a lot of questions related to how you present this in the User Interface. On a Desktop OS like OSX and Windows, you have the idea of an application that has at least one window, on which it displays information. On the iPad, you have the paradigm of all apps being ‘full screen’.
So, clearly, they wanted to ship some hardware before they have answered all these questions. In doing so, they had to leave out a few things.
Conclusion
All in all, I think that the iPad is a fine device, as demonstrated at the keynote. The true Apple fanatic will rush to get his/hers as soon as they ship. I am sure they will be as satisfied as I was with my 1st generation iPhone.
However, for me, this time around, I will still be waiting for version 2.0, just as I have skipped 3GS and holding firm for a possible 4G iPhone.
But, as Apple knows, they will eventually pry some money from my wallet, if they make me drool enough… 🙂
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