Here is what I think of the iPad: Apple probably thinks they have a demographic locked up with this, but the problem is that this isn’t a computer or a peripheral; it’s some weird middle ground (by Steve’s own admission. It’s designed to appeal to people who consume media gluttonously from the iTunes Store but what about the people like me who manage our own media (movies, television, music, books, periodicals,etc.) through whatever channels we prefer and consume them when we have time? I still buy CDs. I buy books. I LIKE physical media. We’re probably not the target audience, even if we are complete gadget nerds.
The platform reigns are far, far too tight for my taste and they imply that Apple has a strong desire to become the gatekeeper for ALL applications and content (despite their relatively capricious and arbitrary standards of judgment beyond the ones laid out in their developer or reseller agreements). Amazon acts as a gatekeeper too, but they will sell me anything that isn’t illegal. I can buy sex toys and pornography on Amazon, as surely as I can buy a copy of Where The Wild Things Are (both the film and book). Apple applies subjective standards of taste to what they sell, and that troubles me.
The niche that this thing is supposed to fill doesn’t really exist yet; this begs the question “can Apple create a new niche on its own?” and I don’t see this specific incarnation of the tablet doing it.
Also, I hate how they’re describing this thing as “magical.” Gandalf was “magical.” Unicorns are “magical.” This is just a computer with a really, really garish keyboard it can dock into. I look forward to seeing what Gruber has to say about this and if he’s snowed over or a touch confused by it as well.
iBooks seems to have robbed its interface wholesale from Delicious Library. I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed. Only slightly distasteful…
I described this to a friend earlier as a cornerstone in the foundation of the next computing paradigm revolution, but not the revolution itself. I absolutely believe that within 10 years the desktop metaphor will be relegated to the same niche as command line interfaces: useful, but most people don’t understand them or understand why we still have them. But right now, the sheer volume of the functionality that’s abstracted away from the user is disheartening to me. I personally would prefer it if this device skewed closer towards the laptop on the scale and further from the phone, but maybe the next year’s sales figures will just demonstrate that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The bottom line, for me is this: it requires a computer to sync to and it’s extremely iTunes Store specific. It’s an end point on the digital hub, but it’s not the hub itself. It doesn’t appear to be able to talk to an Apple TV or Airport Express, and there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling multitasking (except for the “blessed” applications like Mail or the iPod app). It is extremely ambitious but I don’t think it lives up to those ambitions, save for the fact that it comes closer than the other devices that have tried. On the other hand, I would really like to see some of those features (like home screen wallpaper) in iPhone OS 3.2 for the iPhone/iPod Touch proper. High hopes for that!
I reserve final judgment until I can actually get my hands on one and finally play with the damned thing some, but in this form, the way it is now, this entire device feels like an incredibly well engineered but still ultimately half-baked gamble.
