Friday, January 29, 2010

Reaction to Apple's iPad

The iPad has been announced. It's not an iPod Touch, and it's not a laptop. It's something in between.

So what are the reactions? Following the blogosphere in the past few days, here's some general comments that seem to be commonplace:

1) It's cool. Great show-off-to-your-friends factor.

2) No camera. Why wouldn't Apple include a camera? Mobile videoconferencing would seem an obvious application.

3) Does not support Flash. Now this is really a sticking point. Steve Jobs called the iPad the best possible web viewing experience. Except that for every web page that has a Flash header, the iPad will just display a dull grey box. How is that the best possible web viewing experience?

4) No USB connector. Yes, the iPad only has the iPhone 10 pin connector. While a USB connector should have been included, this has enabled Apple, and it's hardware developer partners, to launch a whole string of support items.

5) iPhone OS. Not OSX, or some new platform, but iPhone. So how will you work on that proposal document while on the airplane travelling to a conference.

Processing power for the iPad comes from Apples new A4 chip (unrelated to Audi). The big question in my mind is will this new chip come inside the 4G iPhone, scheduled for release this month?