is the ipad a “must have” device?
there has been a lot of buzz around the ipad since it’s release about a month ago. in it’s first day in stores, apple claims to have sold more than 300,000 units. sales fell short of analysts expectations, but that’s still pretty impressive by most new product release standards within the category.
with so much hype surrounding the release of this product and a myriad of applications developed to support it, i wanted to wait for all of the chatter and marketing buzz to become a murmur before i provided an honest assessment of the device. i also wanted to have an opportunity to test drive before critiquing. that said, is the ipad a game changer? no, not even close, and here’s why…
1. no hdmi outputs - positioning the product as a multi-media device when it lacks hdmi outputs and the ability to connect directly to a television or computer monitor doesn’t make sense at all. the mac book air, which is pretty close in size, has hdmi outputs. apple was in a rush to release this product and attention should have been paid to this important detail.
2. no usb ports - pretty much every computer on the market today comes with usb port connectivity. not having the ability to connect your computer to your phone, mouse, keyboard, speaker, video camera, and digital camera was an error in judgement. sure, bluetooth is cool, but what happens when you run out of AAs?
3. no voice capability - the ipad is basically a larger version of the iphone using the same mac OS found in the iphone, but it lacks one important feature, the ability to make a phone call.
4. multi-tasking - when running several programs at once i found the device to be a bit sluggish and borderline unstable. if you want more processing power, purchase a mac book.
5. no flash support - steve jobs recently stated he feels that flash is a “dead software on it’s way to the technology graveyard” and that html 5 is the future. if flash is dead software, then why does apple misrepresent their products and show their devices (ipad, iphone) correctly displaying content that requires the adobe flash plug-in on their tv spots? truth in advertising? hell no! the truth is that flash would open the doors to content that competes with apps in the app store.
6. built in camera - there is an ipad camera connection kit available on the market for $70 in stores, if you can find one.
in summary, is the ipad a great computer? no, it’s more like a neatly designed (amazon) kindle and multi-media device with a slick user interface. the ipad is an entry level device offered to consumers with the goal of capturing additional market share at a lower price point in the hopes of converting them to more expensive products (sales) later.
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