iPad: they had me at “uses iPhone apps”

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that last Wednesday morning, Apple made the tech world explode by announcing their long awaited, heavily speculated about iPad (people were also hoping they’d name it the iSlate ). Twitter exploded from Steve Jobs’ opening syllable. The long awaited Apple tablet is here (well, almost here…give or take 60 days) And I truly believe that it delivers. Here’s the specs.

I will be getting a G3 enabled iPad when they come out in April. I am going to be testing its business usability. There are some not-sexy-enough-for-the-big-reveal features that will make this a very usable tool in the business world. This article from Appleinsider highlights some of them. I can’t wait to get one in my hands.

I’ve been following #ipad chatter on twitter since the announcement. Some people cannot see the use for this thing at all. Honestly, I think even a lot of people with iPhones don’t get what it can do…because they still think of their iPhone as a phone…they are not using it to its full potential. I have an iPod Touch…so I use apps, I have often wished fervently that there was a way I could make my Touch’s screen bigger. Yes, the iPad is an over-sized iPod touch…and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.

Let’s talk about some of the issues people are shrieking about on twitter, because a lot of them are made by people who have not had an iPhone or an iPod touch…and really until you’ve had one, you really don’t get it. Stuff. Just. Works. You want to share files with your computer…5 minutes later, you are. Apple has a gift of making intuitive, user-friendly equipment, and the iPhone/Touch/iPad is a technological wonder at it. So here are some ‘issues’ raised by the critics:

The name iPad: When did the world become a bunch of 12 year old boys? Yes, its name is iPad. (hur hur you said pad) PUH-lease! Really? Can you people say notepad without giggling? Being a sci-fi geek, I think the name is kinda cool. Pads (or padds) have shown up in scifi for years as handheld input and reading devices. While all of you were snickering behind your hands at the allusion to feminine hygiene products, you missed the obvious hat tip to geeks everywhere.

Its just an over-sized iPhone/Touch: Yes, it is…and that rocks. Now I can really browse websites, use the WordPress app to blog, and use Tweetdeck without getting a headache. No more fat fingering a keyboard on a tiny screen, or having to pinch and drag everything to get it readable. Think the pinch and swipe is cool on the tiny iPhone/Touch screen?…how fun will it be to do it on a 9″ screen. There are so many things my iPod touch does now, that I wish could be done on a bigger screen. I can’t wait. Plus I can use the apps I’ve already purchased on the iPad. If you can’t see why having a bigger screen isn’t a benefit, you’re not using your iPhone/Touch to its full potential.

No Flash support: I have yet to really run into a place where this is a problem on my iPod Touch now. Sure, I can’t play Farmville…but really, I’ve got enough other time-sucky things on my Touch that this isn’t really a problem. hee You’re not missing YouTube, and many other video sites have made their own apps to get around the Flash problem. Not having Flash is really a non issue. You won’t miss it.

No multitasking: Like the no-flash issue, I’m just not really sure what the hubbub is about this. Again, I think we are running into people who’ve never used a handheld device beyond their phone, and they don’t get it. When apps automatically save what you are doing when you close it and open in seconds, multitasking isn’t really required. You just open and close what you need. My husband has a HTC Touch phone running Windows Mobile with this so called multitasking…all it does is cause his phone to crash when he ends up with multiple sessions of apps running and too many open for the processor to support…because his apps don’t close when he moves away from them, and end up piling up. Now with the Push support that Apple Store apps are building in, you can monitor your IM account, emails, Facebook alerts and other things in the background…so essentially you are getting multitasking functionality without having to keep all those apps fully open. Apple didn’t add multitasking capability because it wasn’t needed.

No Camera/Videoconferencing: Video conferencing is cool, but not a necessity. Plus, you really need a full fledged computer to do it. The iPad is not claiming to be that at all. If you need portable video, get a flip camera.

Apple’s closed platform: Since the release of the first iPod people have moaned about Apple’s closed system. Wouldn’t it be great if everything was open source and free? But to be perfectly honest, I have more trouble getting Windows Media player to do what I want it to do with my files than when using iTunes. Yes,with  files purchased from Apple I can’t just fling them around anywhere I want, but if I want to get them on an Apple device its dead on simple and straightforward. This usability is what has brought me into the Apple camp. I’ve said it above.. Stuff. Just. Works. And Apple doesn’t take over all your files. I can still do whatever I want with MP3s I’ve ripped off of purchased CDs, if I use an app to view a PDF file, that PDF file is still a PDF when I’m done with it. Apple has built a great system that simplifies tasks for users and helps you get complete functionality with your device. I see the iPad as giving us even greater options and uses than we have now.

Its not a competitive eBook reader: Its not supposed to replace eBook readers. It works with them. Not widely known, but you can already read Kindle books on your iPhone/Touch with the Kindle for iPhone app. You can also read eReader books as well. Once the iBooks store is live, you’ll have 3 large libraries to purchase books from, and if you have an iPad, a device that will work with all three of them. The iPad is not shooting to be the eBook reader, there’s too many other things you can do with it.

The iPad will be magic. As one blogger pointed out

“Apple’s not actually selling a computer. Or a flash drive or multitouch. They needed to make those things for their product, but that’s not what the product is. The product is, simply put, a magical screen that can do anything you ever want it to, no matter what that is.”

The iPad is something to look forward to. Portable computing is about to be reborn. This version will be awesome, and 2.0 will be even better. I can’t wait. Stuff to Love will be bringing you an unboxing and a full review once we get our geeky little hands on one in April. Stay tuned!

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