It’s been all over the news yesterday evening: first the “follow our live blog” offers, then the articles more or less in favour of Apple’s newest product: the iPad. The name is probably the biggest surprise since most sources went for iTablet or iSlate. I quite like iPad (which a friend of mine quickly dubbed iPADD – which may be the intended inside joke). The name, that is. The product? I’m not certain. I’m not an Apple fangeek though I appreciate their success in designing sleek, quite stylish computers and gadgets and I do own an old generation iPod shuffle – because it was the smallest device out there that I could find, though certainly not the least expensive and I still don’t like that I’m forced to use iTunes to load music onto it.
But I’m not here to rant about Apple right now. I want to talk about the iPad. I followed the Engadget Live Blog yesterday evening and I think noone was surprised anymore that the newest Apple product was a tablet.
The specs aren’t something that makes me go “waoh, so cool” either:
- 9.7″ LED-backlit IPS display with a resolution of 1024*768 px. IPS means in-plane switching which, according to Apple means that it has a 178° viewing angle and the screen is therefore easily readable in almost any position you hold it. Oh, and it’s glossy, of course.
- usable in portrait or landscape mode
- multi-touch screen
- it weighs roughly 680 g and is about 1.27 mm thin
- up to ten hours battery life
- built-in 802.11n Wifi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- 3G on some models
- 1 Ghz A4 chip that was apparently built especially for the iPad
- 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB disk space
- speakers and microphone
The screen is a bit surprising given the 4:3 ratio which is very outdated if you have a look at current computer and notebook screens. But Apple probably put some thought into that. The rest of the specs are, as I said above, not spectacular but rather something that I’d expect on any tablet that wants a share of the market. The iPad does not have an integrated webcam which some people think is a bad idea. Personally, I don’t use webcams so I wouldn’t miss it.
During Steve Jobs’ presentation, he and others demonstrated web browsing, watching videos, some games, a movie, iWork (an office software), an image editor and iBooks (an ebook software) with comments about how awesome everything is and how the iPad just makes things all so very easy. iPhone apps can be used on the iPad as well and new apps can be developed now especially for the iPad – all available, of course, through iTunes. Oh, what I forgot to mention: there’s an onscreen keyboard very much like the one you can see on an iPhone only bigger.
Now, the question I’ve been asking myself for a while now, not only concerning the iPad but other tablets as well is: what’s the point?
From my personal perspective, there’s no reason at all to buy a tablet. When I surf or write or chat, I need a keyboard that is usable and not simply an onscreen keyboard that takes away screen real estate. Sure, for a short mail that is probably all that’s needed, but I doubt you can work for hours with just the iPad. Yes, Jean Luc Picard uses PADDs for the day-to-day ship life, but he used them mostly to read reports. To input data, it seems to be normal to use a stylus. Now, we’re not in Star Trek, and there may well be people who like to sit on their sofas and idly browse while watching TV for for whom such a tablet may be a lot more practical than having to balance a netbook or notebook on their laps, but if it’s for more than just watching movies, browsing and viewing images, I still doubt the practicability. 
Even for ebooks, I wouldn’t use it. That’s what dedicated ebook readers are there for which use an e-ink display that is matte and is made especially for reading continuously for hours without strain for the eyes.
Still, this is an Apple product and until now, the company has succeeded amazingly in creating hype and need around products that are certainly sleek and stylish but don’t necessarily offer more than others and that for a price that is generally a lot higher. But the iPad is different in that regard. Pricing, that is. It’s “cheap” for an Apple product with the basic unit (16 GB storage, no 3G) at $499 and even the most expensive unit (64 GB storage, with 3G) with $829 still well below the usual $1000+ prices one can generally see with Apple products. Of course, these are US prices. In Europe, they will probably just exchange the $ with a € sign and be done with it. And while the iPad comes out in the US in 60 and 90 days for models without and with 3G respectively, a release date for Europe is not planned before the summer, apparently to cut a similar data plan deal with European phone companies as they have done with AT&T in the US, i.e. $14.99 for up to 250 MB data and $29.99 for an unlimited plan. Prices are per month without a minimum contract period which is very interesting.
So, given all this data and the fact that the brand “Apple” is on the product, I was expecting that everybody would be rushing to pre-order the iPad. I was therefore a bit surprised by a poll done on jkOnTheRun, a mobile tech blog. The question was “Are you planning to purchase the iPad?” and I would have estimated at least 50% to 60% saying yes. But the final results of the poll with 2,000 participants were as follows:
- 42% voted “no”
- 31% voted “maybe”
- 27% voted “yes”
That’s not even close to my estimation, but after reading some comments, I come to understand that quite a few people are disappointed by the lack of webcam, no handwriting recognition, no USB connectivity, no multi-tasking, no flash… Seems Apple may not have wooed the fangeek crowd as they used to do.
We’ll see how the sales turn out. As one commenter pointed out, the entry level iPad may well be a great Christmas gift this year. Not for me, though. My next gadget will be an ebook reader. :)
