As most of you are aware, Apple announced their new Apple iPad yesterday. There have been the usual set of reactions to the announcement. Shills like Paul Thurrott providing their heavily biased negative perspective, and Apple fanboys proclaiming that this device meets all their needs perfectly, and that the device is perfect. Both sides offer their ‘armchair architect’ perspective, proclaiming all the pros and cons and design ‘flaws’ that the Apple engineers obviously didn’t consider. This post shares my armchair perspective, and frankly is not based on any personal experience with the device. All my opinions have been formed from information on the Internet.
While some may view the lack of multi-tasking on the iPad to be a drawback, I for one view it as a plus. Since I will be using it primarily as a means of reading content (whether web, eBook, or eMagazine), I do not want distractions from other apps. Everytime I get a Growl notification on my MacBook Pro, I switch focus. No multi-tasking = less distraction.
I am disappointed by the lack of security measures on the iPad. I tend to lean toward paranoia when it comes to electronic security (one of the pluses of working in the government/health/financial sector), and do not want my data being accessible to someone else at the mere swipe of a finger. I will not be using this for any work purposes until there is a better authentication mechanism.
I’m also disappointed with the lack of a webcam. A webcam would truly complete the home user experience of this device. However, Apple has seen fit to save that for another revision, so we must suffer sans video for the time being.
Overall I’m very pleased with the device. I love the way Steve Jobs positioned it as a market all to itself. It’s not intended to replace the PCs/Macs, and it’s not designed to replace the iPhone/iPod Touch. It is truly an intermediate device, one which may become the primary computing mechanism for neophytes. As someone else pointed out, non-technical people will pick this device up and not even realize that what they are doing is considered computing.
I don’t suspect we’ll see any remotely capable competition for quite sometime, at which point Apple will have improved the device again. As John Gruber pointed out, the custom designed chip has enabled Apple to put the performance of the device far ahead of any competing silicon. And since the chip is Apple’s, competitors will have to wait for Intel or another manufacturer to produce a truly competitive CPU. I’d guess Intel is none too happy with Apple at this point.
Related posts: