As everyone and their goat seems to be posting about the iPad I thought I’d join in.
First some background: I am 30 year old, professional with no children and a reasonable amount of disposable income each month and yes: I own many Apple products. Our computer set up: two Macs, one PC and enough iPods and iPhones to launch a franchise. I have a moderate gadget habit and spend 15 hours a week commuting. In short: in their target market.
Good stuff:
Some people are sniffing at the price. Compared to a netbook that’s a fair cop but it’s certainly a damn bit cheaper than some people were expecting.
The battery life seems pretty good.
There’s a great deal of scope for digital books (there’s a concern here as well) that have been held back by poor UI and screen technology.
Bad stuff:
The design is missing all sorts of things – like connectivity – but mainly it looks like an oversized iPhone and that’s just wrong.
The hard drive is too small.
Multi-tasking is an odd one, as is the reliance on the iPhone OS and severely limits the kit. I don’t really want a mobile OS on a piece of kit that expensive.
iWork is alright but still not my first choice.
Closed platform is bad and does grate. I’m still waiting for more details of DRM around the new system and how independent producers can get stuff into the platform.
The external keyboard dock looks kind of odd and I’m not sure, if you were going to go the iPhone OS route, why you would do that. It would be better, surely, to introduce a Mac Book Pro (13 inch) with a swivel touch screen, no?
Who’s it aimed at?
It’s very niche. I can’t see the masses picking one up because the functionality is too limited and the size is too odd for most people’s every day travel requirements. If you fly a lot you might well look to replace your kindle with one of these, or if you travel a lot and importantly if you consume more media than you produce. It isn’t going to be that useful for writers, or photographers, or artists.
I think it’s a typical first generation Apple device where they’ve created something with lots of cool stuff but not quite figured out how to put it together properly. I expect some interesting iterative changes in the first few generations of device and some kind of mash up with the full laptop range.
I don’t want one. Yet.