Although Apple’s live announcement is over, details are still pretty scant on what’s under the hood of the new Apple iPad. However, considering may tech-heads are already placing orders for the product without seeing the specs, we thought we’d point out some of the immediate failings that might cause you to think twice before following suit:
1. The name “iPad” is an enormous failure in Apple’s market research. It sounds like a feminine hygiene product. You can be assured that no woman would be game enough to say the words “Check out my iPad” out loud.
2. The iPad has a battery life of 10 hours – presumably of video playback. That’s not bad for a laptop, but the iPad is not a laptop – it’s somewhere between an iPhone, an e-reader and a netbook. Compared to Amazon’s Kindle, which we’ve been able to stretch out to two weeks between recharges, 10 hours isn’t good at all.3. Maximum capacity of 64GB. After factoring in all the other apps and media you’ll be storing on the device, this is manifestly insufficient for the early promise that the iPad is a gaming platform.
4. Pricing starts at US$499. Netbooks deliver more performance, power, functionality and connectivity at this price; and, we’ll gamble, better visual fidelity.
5. The Apple Keyboard Dock. Even with the larger screen, Steve Jobs couldn’t get around a few inevitable typos during his presentation. Nothing says ‘we can’t really get touch-typing right’ like a custom keyboard dock available from launch. Why not just get a netbook, then?
We're waiting with baited breath for Apple to release further details on the iPad's specs. Who knows? We may yet fall in love with it.
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The whole iPad feminine thing doesn't bother me.
My issues:
1. that black border, sure on the iphone you can deal with it because it has to be small, but this is much bigger and I would prefer to have less black around the edges - is this needed to prevent accidental interaction when your holding it? I don't know yet but I do wish it wasn't so thick
2. No multi-tasking, a dirt cheap netbook can do this
3. Whilst the whole OS looks just like an iphone I would have prefered that they changed it since there is so much space around those icons it looks weird - do they all bunch closer when you have 100 apps instead of 4? not sure yet; either way I would have prefered a more OSX style to this
4. Capacity - 16gb, 32, 64? sure the 16gb for the 499 base model is fine, but a $100 increase to 32gb? This pricing shits me there is no way that flash costs or warrants that increase; a 16gb base model, with a 64 midrange and a 128gb top or even 256 would have been preferable..
5. I waited, this is what they've come up with, either i'll just buy a netbook with windows 7 or wait until thier 2nd gen tablet. Maybe even both..
I just had an idea, I bet this would make a KILLER GPS device - with the huge screen. On top of that it would have to be perfect for driving around and on the go finding information about stores etc, the iphone whilst it can do it, it can be annoying.