Thursday 28 January 2010

iPad iDowner

I stayed up till 3am last night to watch the launch of the iPad.

First impressions were great. It's really slim and the size of the screen compares reasonably to a netbook size. But then the doubts set in..

Where's the webcam? Running Skype on this would have been fantastic.

Where's a USB port? Importing photos on the road for say.. a blog would have been cool. What about if you could connect a midi to usb keyboard or mic to compose on the run?

Installing Mac programs? Reason or Logic would've been cool to run. Photoshop would be nice for some simple photo editing.

Where's Flash? It's nice to be able to click a Youtube video directly from a webpage isn't it?

I really don't see what this machine can do that I can't really do already on my iPhone. I can fit that in my pocket at least.

For the "oldies", I think this could be great. Their eyes might not be as good as they used to be, so I'd say the size would benefit them. The simplicity of a "walled garden" would prevent them from "pushing the wrong button".

For me though, iPass.. There's a cheap netbook on sale at the moment that I can do all the above things. Apple reminds me of Japanese logic or lack there of.. I was hoping it would be something more, but I'm just left frustrated about what should have been included.

I guess Apple are saying, if you want those things buy one of our laptops. I think it will be quite successful regardless, but I REALLY wanted to like it a whole lot more.

3 comments:

avatar said...

I pretty much thought the same thing on my first impressions, but I figured that it could be good for two things - watching movies on a bigger screen (bigger than the ipod, less bulky than a laptop), or reading ebooks (which I find pretty painful on my ipod, especially when trying to jump to a bookmarked page).

When you think about that, it probably has its uses for some people. Still, I'd prefer one extreme or the other.

Jimmy In Japan said...

They just had to add just that little more functionality without having to buy OPTIONAL accessories for the "luxury" of SD/USB ports, and a camera to make it a whole lot more attractive.

I just wanted to see a powerful mini laptop that doesn't weigh me down. That was my hope and I guess we'll have to wait longer.

Maybe in version 2.0, they'll do it as a new, improved version with wait for it, a webcam!

Limo said...

All those extra features will come on subsequent models. Apple (like car companies) just want to maximise product runs. They know early adopters will buy no matter what and the can entice each new market segment with added features every 8-12 months. Wait 18 months and It'll be much improved.