The iPad. Where is The Magic?

In typical Steve Jobs flair, the announcement today of Apple’s tablet computer, the iPad, was heralded as “something magical.” John Ivy, Sr VP of design for Apple said, “When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. And that’s exactly what the iPad is!” Really?

We all knew it was coming didn’t we? And exactly where is the magic? To me, I see a rather large iPod Touch, and not really much more. OK, I can order it with an optional 3G modem, and get anywhere connectivity, so maybe it is a large, crippled iPhone 3G? But seriously, magical? What exactly do we not understand?

Personally, I hoped for a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautiful device, and I would not turn one away if offered. BUT, this is not some major leap of technology we are talking about here. There are a lot of things missing IMO: For example, why does this device not have a camera? MacBooks do. The iPhone does. And even some iPods have it (although still missing from the touch, something I was hoping would be announced today as well.) I think that is a big mistake. EVEN if the camera was facing the screen, at least for iChat and video conferencing like the Macs have.

And where is the hoped for multi-tasking version of the OS that a device this size really needs? With this much screen real estate, it would be really nice to be able to run more than one app at a time. But no! So like the iPhone and iPod touch, we still get to run only one app at a time, we just get to see more on the screen at one time. Is that worth a new device?

OK, the large screen is very cool, and we can now have more than maybe 5 touch points as well, about all you could really get on the smaller devices, but are people going to start developing iPad only apps any time soon? With so many iPhone and iPod touches out there, I do not really expect to see a lot of developers doing special versions for the iPad right now. At least, not right away. So, we basically get to run all the apps for the iPhone on a bigger screen. SIGH.

It has three USB ports, but not one word on what you can connect to them. And why on the lower edge of the device? When docked to the rather small stand, the ports are not accessible as they are too close to the desk. Gee, isn’t that when you would really want to use them, when docked at your desk? Can I plug in my 3G usb wireless card? These ports really need to be on the side.

And why is the doc and keyboard doc separate? Come on Apple, put a bluetooth receiver in the doc and let me use an Apple wireless keyboard. Why two docs?

OK, it can be bought with a 3G modem inside, but it can’t make phone calls. Obviously, Apple does not want to kill iPhone sales, but why leave this out as well? And yet another $30 a month for the data plan. Damn, AT&T must be happy. Is there any way I can use my iPhone data plan on this device? I suspect not.

OK, the iWork tools at $9.99 each is a great idea, and glad to see that you can do some real work on the device. but it is still an on-screen keyboard unless docked. I will have to try this to see how good it is.

I like the painting program as well, although not sure what I would really do with it, but it looks like fun. But it does harken back to the days of 1984 when the original Mac had MacPaint on it! I did not do much with that program either. Should this one be called iPadPaint?

And I think the price is a bit steep. $620 for the low end unit with the modem built-in is expensive, $130 over the same unit without the 3G modem. Really? Just how expensive is a 3G modem? Seems Apple is gouging on price here like the do with their memory prices for computers. Given that you do not get free access to the network, this modem should be a $30 upgrade, ESPECIALLY since phone companies are going to make money on this.

So for me, not so magical. We have seen all this before, just smaller. Magical would be if the iPad have been the first device, and then they showed me the tiny iPhone doing the same thing. Shrinking a device smaller and smaller is magical to me. But there is little magic in this for me. A BIGGER device doing what the small one did is not really magical at all, just bigger. Now, is bigger better? Well, maybe.

What do you think? Ready to run out and buy one? What it is missing for you, if anything?