Today Apple finally revealed it’s Tablet. After months (even years) of speculation about this product, Steve Jobs presented the new mobile device. The Apple iPad. Here’s my two cents…
I’m a big fan of Apple products. I love the iMacs and iPods. I’ve been a Mac user for over 20 years and I was excited about this new product. My excitement was toned down a bit this afternoon as more information became available about the iPad. Some (missing) features that got me concerned:
- No multitasking
- No flash
- No camera
- No USB ports
Multitasking is a big thing for me. It’s a big let down if you can’t run two or more applications at the same time. No support for flash… Lots of content these days on the internet are flash based. Even in Steve’s demo you would see ugly white space with the missing plug-in icon. Hmm… A camera would be nice. I guess iChat is a no no on the iPad. No USB ports(?). It sounds like a pretty closed system and I can see the idea behind it but this could mean you are losing a lot of potential buyers.
I’m sure the web browsing on the iPad is phenomenal, much better than browsing on a netbook. The Calendar app really looked useful. So did the email app and the photos app. Again, the experience of these apps will be much better compared to a netbook.
I really wish it had a watered down (snow) Leopard OS. The iPad is basically an iPod touch on steroids. I guess when it comes out by the end of March I should test drive it. It still looks like an awesome gadget but I have my doubts when it comes to using the iPad as a productivity tool…