The new Apple tablet, or iPad is now official, and true to the trend of the moment people are finding things to complain about. I was just reading the mass of comments following the coverage of Apples event by a major technology blog and it is a thick solid wall of whining. Have we been spoilt by amazing products in recent years? Do we just take it all for granted a bit now?
Perhaps it is because Apple have trained us to have such high expectations of new products that unless they contain a big dollop of unexpected magic and sorcery we are disappointed. Maybe it is a psychological thing that makes us want to knock things that are causing a stir, a little like the way we claim not to like a band when it becomes very popular. We don’t want people to think we are following the crowd after all.
Many negative comments however are actually directed at the apparent lacking of certain technologies; memory, processor speed, ports and so on. Looked at in isolation these components do appear to be lacking. I have no doubt that this product will also have its faults and individually, aspects of it can be criticized and compared to other products in a negative light. but I believe it is important to see a product like this in a more holistic way. It my be easy to complain about the processor or the keyboard but I expect as a whole it will be a very good product designed to perform certain tasks very well and at a good price point.
Yes it probably is just a big iPod Touch as so many people have mentioned. Is that a bad thing? I use my ipod touch a lot in the house, on the sofa, in bed. It’s somehow more convenient than my laptop but it is very small which of course is great for a pocket computer but when im sitting on the sofa wanting to browse the Internet, read an eBook, go through my mail, write a letter or whatever a big iPod Touch on the coffee table would be great.
I don’t think the iPad should be compared to a fully blown tablet PC. I don’t think that is what it is trying to be. I don’t think it needs a super fast processor, though it would be nice if it didn’t add too much to the cost. Cost is of course a key issue. It will be good to have a well made device with just the stuff you need at a good price rather than a super high performance tablet at a high price. That would be a different product that will probably come later. I think if we had an iPad kicking around the house it would be used a great deal.
On the whole I expect it will be a good but not mind blowing product. As with all these things only time will tell. What do you think of the iPad?
