Frankly I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy this thing like the gullible masses did. The information that is slowly leaking out doesn't paint a pretty picture.
6.
Likewise all the reports about how speedy iPad is means nothing if you can't quantify the performance against real work loads. Sure Apps load fast, but honestly what did you expect, they are loading from Flash memory. The real question is this: can you take a complex Excel spreadsheet from work, load it into numbers and if that succeeds get reasonable performance? It is no wonder MS has declined to commit to Office on the iPad.
Benchmarks have been done by people and posted in the iPad forum showing it is essentially 200% faster than the 3GS. I don't know you mean by performance against real work loads. This is a full benchmark that is comparing the speeds of devices doing the same high level of processing.
I would guess Microsoft questions their ability to program in a specturm that requires restraint and efficiency and can't fall back on bloat and over doing things. I am not even saying that as a stab at Microsoft. I am being serious. Most coders/programmers are not used to programming with such restraint. However it is how things used to get down in the old days and why some amazing things were done in the day when computers had 4k or 16k. Now computers have 4 gigs of memory, I don't feel like I am getting software that is 1 million times better or more efficient.
The reality is there is a tight environment there. The reality also is most coders/programmers do not normally go to lengths to be concise and efficient with their coding. So for most people there is a lot of give.
I would also add I haven't heard any speed or performance issues from the people who have actively been using their iPads since yesterday. Sure their may be some instances where things slow down... but the reality is my 2 gig netbook is slow at pretty much everything it does... Which the iPad is not. The iPad can do a lot of things very quickly, while my netbook does nothing quickly. Yet my netbook has almost 10 times the ram.
7.
Even worst for things like the iWork suite is how the apps will behave a release or two down the road as they become more feature complete. All that Flash memory is not going to do any good if you run out of code space for your app.
What app are you working on where this is a concern? Will it come up? Perhaps? Was never an issue with iPhone/iPod Touch apps. I realize the bigger screen and platform opens things up, but I suspect most of those who want to make money will figure out how to get things done. I think you are putting the cart before the horse.
The iPad may do some things perfectly well but it is at a high cost for what you get. There is talk about schools issuing these to students, but I can hardly see where 16GB would be suitable for the average highschool student. Just loading the mandatory apps, books and other documents would tend to plug up the machines. Not to mention that no matter what iPhone OS 4 delivers it is likely to take up even more room on the device. In this case the comparison to early netbooks is stark as they too came with far to little flash storage.
I don't get this at all. I assume students would not be encouraged to load music and movies on their iPad. Books take up almost no space, and apps take up very little space. I can't see students running into a 16 gig problem with just normal apps loaded.
Why do you assume OS4 will take up more room? That is old school thinking where every revision has to get better and not more efficient.
I don't know about the rest of you but $500 for 16GB of flash memory and a fancy screen is a lot of hard earned cash to layout. We will see how sales go after the mad frenzy. I think many will step back and say hey what value am I getting for my cash. It is not like iPhone where that is easy to answer.
Well put it this way.. Nobody else could make a comparable device and sell it for the same price, so it seems pretty significant to me.
I am sure people will be yammering for their device to get it with a 25 megapixel camera front and back, 2 gigs of ram, am/fm radio and shiatsu massager, but those don't exist yet.
The biggest problem is most computer hardware developers are misguided much like some of the people here and are only worried about the parts.
Apple is more worried about the sum of the parts and what that creates, not just throwing a big list of parts together and trying to make an impressive spec sheet.
Ultimately the iPad will succeed or fail based on its usability for people who buy it. How much ram it has or doesn't have will not disuade that. If it does have slightly less memory than the Touch then that is for the developers to deal with...