Month: January 2010

Here are my initial, general thoughts about the much-hyped iPad. Clearly the world doesn’t need another blog post about this, but it sets the stage for something coming next.

• As many have observed, iPad is most easily summarized as a larger iPod Touch, plus some of the mobile data capability of an iPhone. Although this has been expressed widely as a criticism, I note that a very large number of people have bought an iPod Touch or iPhone.
• By making the iPad fit the above description so well, I fear that there is a tinge of Apple playing it safe for Wall Street. Playing it safe, has not been the strategy that invigorated Apple (and its financial performance) over the last decade.
• This iPad “1.0” is somewhat short on hardware features. I suspect a second generation device will arrive in 2011 with a few more ports, more storage, more wireless, etc. 1.0 only has to be good enough to prime the market for 2.0.
• The screen needs more pixels; the resolution / DPI is unimpressive. Also, OLED would have been nice; but Apple had to trade off some things to get to a price point, and the screen technology was obviously one of them.
• The battery life Apple claims, even if it is vaguely close to reality, is fantastic.
• I am surprised at the lack of a video camera.
• I expect to see some kind of trivial tethering interoperation between iPad and iPhone over Bluetooth, sometime in the next couple of revisions of both products. I suspect that loyal Apple fans carrying an iPhone 3GS will end up able to use their iPhone mobile voice/data service for both devices… possibly with some extra monthly service charge.
• iPad 1.0 will not replace Kindle or other eBook readers, though it might slow their sales growth a bit. But what about iPad 2.0, 3.0, with a better screen and even longer battery life? Once a beautiful color LCD device is good enough, monochrome eInk will be a very tough sell.
• I will quite likely buy an iPad shortly after it ships; but I’ll be buying perhaps 25% to enjoy it as a consumer, and 75% as a means of more fully understanding the industry importance of the tablet form factor.
• As a user of a “real” Apple computer (a MacBook Pro running OSX 10.6), I find the closed App Store software distribution model something of a disappointment, compared to a tablet form factor Mac OSX PC I could easily imagine; but I have another blog post coming about that in a few days, after I get some real (non-punditry) work out the door.