Is the iPad Overpriced and Underspecced? What should it have...

[needthephone]

No camera

No phone capabilty.

SJ said apple are the largest mobile device maker on the planet so surely then turn the ipad into a video capable communication device.

Apple above all else I really thought they would get it.

We now live in a connected world thanks to products like the brilliant iphone.

C O M M U N I C A T I O N is what people want to do and expect now.

Ipad could and should have finally made video calls popular and viable.

I just can not believe they missed this.

I am half expecting them to announce a camera. I am in denial at how stupid the have been.

ANNOUNCE A CAMERA-THEN I WOULD BE INTERESTED.

As it is it's just a Toy.

 

[zorahk]

Two reasons why this is a disappointment:

No handwriting support
Runs iPhone OS not Mac OS


If they changed these things, I would've bought one and so would every other college student on the planet.

 

[NewtonsApple]

It is a beautiful device. No question. That bezel is my biggest gripe. I would have preferred a true OLED display to go right to the edge. ----No FLASH support. The glaring absence of Flash support during the demo was disgraceful and an embarrassment. I bet the stock was dropping as you were scrolling thru NYT.com. Wake up, Apple! As much as I hate Flash and Java, it comprises a great deal of web content, and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon so until then get with the program and off your proprietary asses and support it! ----No iSight camera or iChat. WTF??? This is 2010! Everyone on Earth should have videoconferencing at their fingertips by now, either by phone, ipod, ipad, or wristwatch. The technology is there. Use it! How about facial recognition or biometric security to deter unauthorized use or theft? You could use face and smile AI as a starting point which you already are employing in iPhoto. How about eyeball gesturing where the camera detects certain actions like scrolling a page or turning a page? That would be a doable. How about some ports? USB, Firewire, SD or microSD? Something, anything! I've owned a MBP for almost 4 years now and have yet to use my express card slot. Give us something we can use. Please. How about some bigger storage space?
32 and 64 GB is so 2008. How about a name change? iPad is a terrible name considering there is no handwriting recognition capability or use of a stylus. Not to mention all my friends comparing it to a tampon. Call it the iTab. Get some more RAM in there and a faster processor. How is this device going to compete with anything? Ok, so this product is priced right, but it's not for me. Give the people what they want. Do that, and it will sell itself. I appreciate the multitude of ways you've come up with to generate continuos income with a device. I'm all for profit, just make it worth our while. Money is tighter than ever for us average folk so we want a bang for our buck, not more bang, just a bang. You have given competitors a green light to outdo you by releasing a severely crippled gadget. They will fill the void the iPad leaves in its wake. Have you lost your way? Has all that cash clouded your judgment and good common sense? This post is from someone who has used Apple products since the IIc. How did this device get past the likes of Jony Ive? I don't understand.

 

[bpd115]

No iSight Camera for Video Calling- It costs less than a $1 to implement. Even the iPod Nano includes it

Nano doesn't allow for Video Chat, just low quality photo and video which looks good on the small screen of the Nano. I don't want to take pictures with this thing, but video chatting would e nice. Don't know Apple's reason for leaving it out.

No GPS - This costs a few pennies, there's no reason to not include this when GPS chips nowadays are so insanely small and cheap

It has A-GPS, in the 3G model at least.

No Multitasking - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer

Would be nice, lets see what OS 4.0 has to offer

No Wireless Syncing or File Transfers - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer

Third Party apps like AirSharing are sure to come, plus there is rumblings Apple is developing an app similar to their iDisk app to work with Network Shares. The device also has a shared folder that mounts in OS X / Windows which apps have access to.

No File Management or Freedom to download files - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer

See Above

No Additional Touch Gestures - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer

Don't know what additional gestures you'd like, but I'm sure developers will come up with some cool things, like the developer of the FPS NOVA and how you open doors, etc.

No Java or Flash support (no hulu.com) - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer

No argument there, but I see why Apple is not including it. I think the solution is to build in a "ClickToFlash" type function.

Only 16 gbs of HDD space by default - 16gb is way too small for a device meant for movies, photos, songs, apps, documents etc. You can get a 64 gb iPod Touch for several hundreds less than the iPad. IMO, they should've just stuck a 200 gb laptop HDD in it like most netbooks do.

I have a 16 Gig 3G iPhone and haven't had any complaints about the storage space. Documents (Aside from photoshop documents) are small. Movies I rip for AppleTV average about a gig.
32 to 64 is the sweet spot and a standard laptop HD is just another point of failure on a device that's meant to be spun around and handled like this. Not to mention it's slower and more power hungry. Flash prices have gone down and will continue to do so and I'm sure a 128 gig iPad will see the light of day eventually.

No USB Port/SD Slot - This again would've cost a few pennies.

Dock Connector accessories. Yes, it sucks that you have to pay 30 bucks for it, but it's an option.

The enormous bezel is a massive eyesore - It wouldn't have cost them a penny. Virtually every mock up online for the iPad looks far better designed than the final product ended up looking.

I didn't like it at first, but after seeing people actually use the thing, I can see why it's like that.

No Handwriting Recognition or Support for a Stylus. A huge selling point of any Tablet is to be able to take notes in classes and such. - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that every other tablet from 2001 onwards offers

There are apps for the iPhone that do handwriting recognition and there are 3rd party Stylus out there that work with the iPhone. They will work fine with the iPad. With the size of this screen, the apps for these will explode.

No Ability to run software not preapproved by Apple (Google Voice etc) - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that every cell phone based on either Andriod or Windows Mobile offers

App store is easy for the end user and easy for developers. It also prevents malicious code. It just works.

Screen is not 16:9 or even the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the iPhone, 4:3 is such a huge step backwards - It would've actually been cheaper for them

Valid point but the only place this rears it's head is with movies and for a portable device, it seems fine for watching movies to me.

A Very Low Resolution Display with 25% fewer PPPs than the iPhone or iPod Touch, the display should have a higher resolution - This wouldn't have cost much at all.

Can't comment on this until I actually see the screen, but everyone who has said it's fantastic. The cost for a higher res screen just adds to the cost of the device.

No integrated TV Tuner/Out (They even developed a HD DTV Tuner for use in cellphones to allow users to pick up OTA HDTV signals on the go! Just imagine being able to watch tv thanks to off the air hdtv signals, wherever you are. Why they didn't include this technology in this device I won't even understand. They could've even included a record video function on the tablet to give it PVR functionality) - Yes, this might've cost a few bucks. The $600 toshiba laptop I bought my bro offers it and a whole lot more than the iPad, but I would've been okay if Apple couldn't implement this yet.

I'm not screwing a coax cable into my iPad. It has VGA out for presentations which is fine by me and more than I expected. My Mac has an ElGato EyeTV and Apple would love for you to use the iTunes Store. I'll get TV Shows on there one way or the other.

It features a 1 Ghz processor that significantly slower than just about every single notebook on the market today (as demonstrated by this processor's inability to render MPEG4 at any resolution higher than 640x480 according to Apple's own site) - My netbook can render MPEG4 at 720p, and again, it costs half what this costs, couldn't they have included a better processor?

Let me know where you've seen benchmarks of this processor. Everything I've read puts it in the same class as the Tegra 2. "H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats"

It's a custom Apple chip that few have done anything with, but it seems to make the device fly.

No OTA Sync Servers To Stream Video - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software feature that many cellphones offer and every netbook can do using tversity, media server or literally dozens of other software

There are apps that let you stream your video content on the local network

No ability to connect to a bluetooth keyboard - It doesn't cost a penny, it's a software issue.

That's flat out wrong, it supports bluetooth keyboards.

No RFID/IR to use it as a remote, or to tag it to yourself - An RFID chip costs .02 cents

Why you want to use a 10" screen as a Logitech Harmony I don't know, but I'm sure you'll see some Home Automation apps and remote apps for network enabled devices. Let's not forget the dock adapter possibilities as well.

No Replacable/Removable Battery - This would've been virtually free to do.

Standard complaint that's existed since the iPhone and the unibody Macbooks. I'm sure they'll have a battery replacement program.

The $250 netbook that I'm typing this on gives me just about every one of the hardware features that I'm asking for (it has a 320 gb hdd, 2 gigs of ram, a hdmi out, two usb ports, an sdcard slot, removable battery, a great iSight camera etc), and you're seriously telling me Apple couldn't have incorporated atleast some of these features into their device that costs between 2x-3x as much as my netbook did?

Many people (including I) had their credit cards out during the conference and were ready to pay $1000 for an Apple Tablet that offers some of the above functionality, functionality that netbooks that cost a fourth as much offer.

We had every right to be disappointed.

The only reason you have to be disappointed is because the internet rumor machine created some mythical device. If you didn't see the iPad being exactly what they released, then you're not seeing the whole picture.

 

[ct2k7]

As an iPhone user, iPad is frankly insulting. iPad is a device based on mobile phone OS, for me, it's just as bad as sticking Windows Mobile on a tablet PC, and adding a few things.

 

[shipwrecked]

Two important things:

No multitasking!!!
Have to buy usb adapter and the dock separately.

Things it does:

Oh wow, you can change the background screen to "personalize it anyway you want."

 

[gibbz]

double post

 

[gibbz]

Have fun typing a 10 page paper on a touchscreen. Don't bring up the external keyboard...might as well get a real computer if you're going to keep it parked the whole time. Can it even print?

Now you are changing your requirements. Your Post said netbooks and other tablets can run MS Office for note taking. I said it has iWork to accomplish that task.

Why on earth someone would try and write a 10 page paper on a tablet is confusing. The iPad isn't supposed to be a full computer. People like you who expect it do so must not realize why tablets have failed so far.

 

[Amblinman]

The only reason you have to be disappointed is because the internet rumor machine created some mythical device.

I brought this up in another thread, and I just want to reiterate it here: I think this is a bogus argument. The internet rumor machine didn't create the expectation that a computing tablet would be able to multitask, for instance. That's just a standard expectation considering, like, every single competitor offers it. Personally I don't care about video conferencing or any of the more extravagant wishes. The device fails as a simple computer. It's kinda hard for Jobs to crap all over netbooks when his device can barely offer any of the features even the crappiest netbook offers.

 

[benzslrpee]

No iSight Camera (5 MP with LED Flash, 1080P Video Recording and a much
bigger lens so that it actually takes decent photos even in very low light situations)
- WTF? buy a camera that takes photos in very low light. however i will agree the lack of a webcam is a little weird.

No Videocalling/Conferencing/iChat (It would have been awesome to be able to keep in touch with family through video calling (even if enabled over wifi only) when away for college or serving overseas)
- agree

No GPS (it has the limited cell tower based GPS found on the iPhone 2G, not the true GPS that can offer up turn by turn navigation found on the 3GS)
- go re-read the specs on the one that's tied to AT&T

No Multitasking
- agree. with the hardware specs it's just begging for it.

No Wireless Syncing or File Transfers
- ambivalent. wireless syncing/transferring anything just takes too long but i can see where it would be useful

No File Management or Freedom to download files (even documents) from online, you can't even delete something off the iPad or move some videos over to an SD Card, USB Stick or an External HDD to make room for an App/iTunes Movie Rental
- disagree on file management. again, the iPhone has sold well without this function and keeps everything simple. this will _not_ change.
- ambivalent on the downloading capability. i can see where it would be useful.

An extremely disappointing 256 MB of RAM when even many cellphones have 1 gig of RAM
- disagree. yeah if you run WinMo apps you'll need the ram. have you seen the foot print of iPhone apps? tiny. that and where did you find the RAM specs? i've looked on Giz, Eng and the Apple website... none of which gave the spec you stated.


No Additional Touch Gestures (Here's the kinds of gestures we were hoping for... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnavI57gyQ)
- disagree. how do you know the default touch gestures are lacking before you even try it?

No Java or Flash support (no hulu.com)
- disagree. i don't get this one. Flash blows balls. go read up on the thousands of reasons (from coding efficiency to memory management) why Flash sucks harder than a hooker when the navy's in town. 10.1 is passable but it's too little too late. no matter what Adobe wants you to believe Flash is not going to be the future or any type of embedded media. if surfing without Flash is really as serious as Adobe claims then those ever increasing stats of iPhone web browsing surely must be false. Adobe's b*tchin because no Flash means no ads, it means that people are trying to pick up the adoption of HTML 5. hell even MS went off to do their Silverlight schtick. at this point Adobe's like GM busy cranking out SUVs running on V8s when their competition are already pushing forward with hybrids and electric motors.

Only 16-64 gbs of HDD space when most tablets offer 250 gbs minimum
- disagree. now i understand someone will inevitably bring up that Bill Gates quote but seriously...this is the iPhone OS. apps are tiny in comparison with desktop apps.

No USB (3.0) Port (you can't hook it up to a printer to print off an iWorks project, you cant connect a USB key that has some documents stored etc)
- agree. no USB is pretty dumb.

No ability to connect to an external hdd, or even to directly pop in an SDCard to expand storage
- disagree on the ext hdd, but i do agree with SD card.

The enormous bezel is a massive eyesore. I thought Apple was all about design, so how they could make such a large and ugly bezel for a premier device escapes me
- you have to leave some space to grip the pad do you not? if it was 100% capacitative end to end...

No Handwriting Recognition or Support for a Stylus. A huge selling point of any Tablet is to be able to take notes in classes and such.
- disagree. this is a non-issue. there's an app for that? plenty of doodling apps, only a matter of time before someone makes one for note taking. why would Apple make it when they can get a portion of the money from someone else doing the work? as for the stylus...they make iPhone ready gloves, i'm sure someone will make an iPad stylus.

No Ability to run custom Apps not preapproved by Apple (Google Voice, uTorrent etc)
- ambivalent. however, i think the push is still towards webapps for netbooks. it's what Chrome OS, Jolicloud, Moblin etc are going for. it's what Jobs wanted in the beginning but people wanted their SDK...

No Ability to download files from online
- ambivalent.

No OLED Screen (forgivable) but the screen is capable of displaying 1080p resolution, and is not 16:9 or even the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the iPhone, 4:3 is such a huge step backwards
- disagree. 16:9 really is only good for watching movies. horizontally, it's too squat to read long(er) paragraphs without constant scrolling. vertically, you'll have to scroll side-to-side. plus if you're wanting note taking, spreadsheet entering capabilities...the ability to see the majority of a document is always a plus.

A Very Low Resolution Display with 25% fewer PPPs than the iPhone or iPod Touch, the display should have a higher resolution
- ambivalent. regardless, how are you able to make the judgement call without actually seeing the device? from most event reviews the screen was a non-issue.

No integrated TV Antenna, HD Radio Antenna or FM Transmitter (They even developed a HD DTV Tuner for use in cellphones to allow users to pick up OTA HDTV signals on the go! Just imagine being able to watch tv thanks to off the air hdtv signals, wherever you are. Why they didn't include this technology in this device I won't even understand. They could've even included a record video function on the tablet to give it PVR functionality)
No TV/Video Out (HDMI out like many netbooks)
- disagree. seriously what? not even netbooks have that junk equipped on it by default. that's pretty much laptop/desktop category. entirely wrong market segment.

According to Apple's page on the product, the maximum resolution it is capable of playing MPEG4s at is 640x480 resolution at 30 fps (note I'm talking about MPEG4 Video here, the most popular format for Apple devices)
It features a 1 Ghz processor that significantly slower than just about every single notebook on the market today (as demonstrated by this processor's inability to render MPEG4 at any resolution higher than 640x480)
- disagree. again, iPhone apps? hello? this ain't Windows. quit using Microsoft standards and applying it to Linux. on the video aspect, wouldn't the playback in this case be limited by the screen as opposed to the processor?

No OTA Sync With Apple TV or Servers To Stream Video
- disagree. read up on why they bought LaLa.

No Low Reflective Screen Mode for high contrast Ebook Reading that doesn't hurt your eyes
- disagree. this is another point i don't understand. how many people work 9-5 staring at the computer screen at work? how many hours a day do people spend online while staring at their oh-so-horrible lcd screens?

No Gamepad attachment for Gaming With Physical Buttons/Tactile Feedback
- disagree. how did Nokia N-gage turn out?

No ability to connect to a bluetooth mouse/keyboard
- disagree. mouse on a touch device? for what?
- ambivalent on keyboard

No RFID/IR to use it as a remote, or to tag it to yourself
- disagree. ok what? IR? RFID? this is crap that the majority of laptops/netbooks/phones don't even come with. wayyyy wrong market segment

No Replacable/Removable Batteries
- ambivalent. however, what's the point? if there was a profitable market for replacement batteries on Apple products they would make one.



most of what you brought up reminds me of Taiwanese/Chinese products. throw whatever sounds good on there and sell it. if it works, great! if not, put it on sale and try again. when the iPhone(s) came out everyone was shouting about no physical keyboard, no haptic feedback, no forward facing camera, no SD card slot, resistive screen is better, no stylus, no e-wallet, no Flash support, tv tuner, bluetooth stereo, HD screen etc.

between Samsung, HTC, LG, Nokia, and Motorola they pretty much had that crowd covered. i remember when people thought the Instinct was the iPhone killer. or was it the HTC Touch-FLO-Diamond-HD-whatever? or the Nokia 840985093904*10^23? or the BB Thunder/Storm/Tropical Typhoon/Kansas Hurricane? "everything but the kitchen sink" is a viable strategy and there obviously is a market for that.

weird thing is that there also exists a market where all those specs just aren't important.

 

[bpd115]

I brought this up in another thread, and I just want to reiterate it here: I think this is a bogus argument. The internet rumor machine didn't create the expectation that a computing tablet would be able to multitask, for instance. That's just a standard expectation considering, like, every single competitor offers it. Personally I don't care about video conferencing or any of the more extravagant wishes. The device fails as a simple computer. It's kinda hard for Jobs to crap all over netbooks when his device can barely offer any of the features even the crappiest netbook offers.

Like I've stated, multitasking is a valid wish but look at the recent Giz article on the upcoming tablet devices. They have a nice chart and guess what? Not every tablet supports multitasking. Not every tablet supports flash. In the few short days since the announcement we've heard rumblings about wireless printing, safari downloading, a shared folder which apps can access, network folder support and some sort of multitasking in OS 4.

Threads like these will be looked back on in a years time and laughed at for their lack of forward thinking much like we look back on the threads posted after the first iPod announcement.

 

[Blitzinger]

I have a Macbook Air. Had it since the third week after its initial launch. Love the machine as well as the company who makes it. Only problem is the fan, the very very small fan, can't cool down much of anything and after watching videos on my MBA for 30 minutes, everything gets dreadfully slow.

Will the iPad have the same problem? Will it even have a fan?

Aside from that, I want something I can walk around with and have Office go with me. I saw no indication of any office products being compatible. As noted earlier, a stylus would def. be a plus. Thus far, I love the idea, I love the look, I just can't find the use.

 

[BreezyXC60]

I have a Macbook Air. Had it since the third week after its initial launch. Love the machine as well as the company who makes it. Only problem is the fan, the very very small fan, can't cool down much of anything and after watching videos on my MBA for 30 minutes, everything gets dreadfully slow.

Will the iPad have the same problem? Will it even have a fan?

Aside from that, I want something I can walk around with and have Office go with me. I saw no indication of any office products being compatible. As noted earlier, a stylus would def. be a plus. Thus far, I love the idea, I love the look, I just can't find the use.

It's not meant to be an office product "yet". It's to surf the web, watch movies, listen to music, play games, read books......

 

[Blitzinger]

It's not meant to be an office product "yet". It's to surf the web, watch movies, listen to music, play games, read books......

Those are actually some big tasks for such a thin machine. I'm worried about processing power and cooling. Will it have a fan and will it heat up? My MBA gets very hot.

 

[bpd115]

Those are actually some big tasks for such a thin machine. I'm worried about processing power and cooling. Will it have a fan and will it heat up? My MBA gets very hot.

The reason your MBA gets hot is because of that little plugin that Apple is being chastized for leaving out. Flash. On the Mac it's a CPU hog.

 

[MRU]

The iPad is not inheritantly bad. It simply doesn't do what I would like it to do, or what i had 'hoped' it would do.

The most enticing rumors I read a while back was that it may have been able to be used as a external multitouch display for your existing mac. This of course has not happened.

I decided to save the € I would have paid for a top of the line iPad+3G 64GB and purchase a Cintiq 21 instead.


Maybe in a few revisions the iPad will suit my needs. As it stands I'm happy to sit it out.

 

[surferfromuk]

It's brutally simple.

The world was expecting OSX on a tablet. Every tablet that has gone before put a mouse-pointer desktop class OS on a tablet and expected the user just to use it the same way but with their finger or 'stylus' acting as mouse. Problem is - doesn't work, which is why HP slate will fail

Apple spent years figuring out why this is - that's hard and requires lots of thinking different - but they've done it - which is why the rest of the industry is crapping themselves cos they don't have an answer to this - they don't even have an answer to the 2007 iPhone yet!

Give it a few months - devs will start to wow us - it's gonna be amazing.

 

[KnightWRX]

Every tablet that has gone before put a mouse-pointer desktop class OS on a tablet and expected the user just to use it the same way but with their finger or 'stylus' acting as mouse.

Broad generalization there :

And since those are 5" tablets, they're actually portable. iPad requires a laptop/netbook sized bag, might as well just bring a laptop/netbook in it.

 

[Amblinman]

Like I've stated, multitasking is a valid wish but look at the recent Giz article on the upcoming tablet devices. They have a nice chart and guess what? Not every tablet supports multitasking. Not every tablet supports flash. In the few short days since the announcement we've heard rumblings about wireless printing, safari downloading, a shared folder which apps can access, network folder support and some sort of multitasking in OS 4.

Threads like these will be looked back on in a years time and laughed at for their lack of forward thinking much like we look back on the threads posted after the first iPod announcement.

iPod was ahead of the curve when it was launched, iPad most certainly isn't. ID be willing to bet it's going to fit in with Apple TV as one of the company's misses.

 

[bpd115]

iPod was ahead of the curve when it was launched, iPad most certainly isn't. ID be willing to bet it's going to fit in with Apple TV as one of the company's misses.

How is iPad not ahead of the curve? I've seen crappy tablets which run a full desktop OS. It's novel at first to try and control with your finger and watch the little mouse pointer jump to where it thinks your finger is.. I've seen other crappy tablets that run some form of Linux. There is a video floating around of a $150 tablet by some Korean company running what looked like Windows CE. When they tried to launch Skype, they tapped it about 7 times before anything happened, a Skype window was horribly drawn and the crappy and tiny little Windows on screen keyboard popped out.

Sign me up for those devices!

When the iPod was launched, there were large 20 gig devices the size of a portable CD player. There were also expensive little 128 MB MP3 players. Sure they had standard ports and open file systems. The software also sucked and they were cheaply made.

Seems like a similar comparison to the Tablet market of today.

People need to let go of the fact that it's running 'iPhone OS'. It should be renamed to "Multitouch OSX", because that is exactly what it is.

As each day passes we tend to learn something new about this device and many of the gripes people have are going away. Seems like Printing support will be there, multiple ways to access some sort of file system or shared folder, etc.

It's only a "Big iPod Touch" right now because the multitouch Apps that exist right now were designed for a 3.5" display.

In 60 days? Whole new ballgame.

"But it's tied to iTunes and the App Store!" is another common complaint.

Well, I'm sure Apple isn't making this thing so they can profit a huge amount off the hardware. If that were the case, they'd start at $1000. Apple wants to make it's money off the App Store and the iTunes (and now iBooks) store. That's also a great model for an innovative developer to make a mint off their software. Sure beats them trying to market it themselves and rely on some shareware model.

I'd be willing to take your bet. One year from now this device will be just as popular as the iPod Touch/iPhone and will run Apps that we can't even wrap our mind around today.

The AppleTV isn't as successful as it can be because it's simply a way for iTunes content to transferred to your Television and nothing more. For average Joe, that's purchased iTunes movies and rentals. I would think it would become more successful if they allowed Hulu and Netflix access but that shoots their whole iTunes model in the foot. For me? It's a great device and I have two. I also know how to encode my daughter's Disney DVDs and Barney etc. to stream to her AppleTV rather than having to switch physical disks every time she wants something else on.

 

[bpd115]

And since those are 5" tablets, they're actually portable. iPad requires a laptop/netbook sized bag, might as well just bring a laptop/netbook in it.

1) I can't do much more with a 5" screen than I can with a 3.5" screen.

2) iPad doesn't require me to carry a messenger bag. Have you seen the Apple branded case for it? I can carry it like a notepad or notebook. No doubt there will be 3rd party alternatives as well.

If I'm walking around and want to jot something down quick, I can do that stand up, while holding the iPad. If I want to do that with a netbook, I need to find somewhere to sit down, unfold it and type away.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

The iPad is a disappointment to me because i was expecting a tablet computer, not a tablet ipod.

 

[surferfromuk]

Broad generalization there :

And since those are 5" tablets, they're actually portable. iPad requires a laptop/netbook sized bag, might as well just bring a laptop/netbook in it.

Hardly set any hearts racing did they...or maybe frantic hyper-tension hearts racing when the stupid things kept crashing or didn't actually do anything of any value

Truth is, we all know that once those gifted visionary developers start shipping insanely kick-ass multi-touch-apps for this thing it's gonna be a hit. All this bad-mouthing by the astro-turfers won't really matter then...

 

[wikoogle]

Lol no.

The iPad will be a hit, but only AFTER apple listens to fan's complaints and released and Gen 2 iPad that addresses all of the limitations listed in the opening post.

The original iPhone was not a big hit, the only people that got it were Apple fanboys.

Everyone else complained that it lacked 3G, it has no GPS, its camera sucked, and couldn't do any of the functions that other smartphones could do because it had so little software.

Apple listened, and released an iPhone 3G that addressed all these complaints, Apple released an App Store because people were mad at how little software was available for the phone, and when people still noted that the phone was too slow and choppy, Apple later released a much faster 3GS.

It's the 3GS (and to a lesser extent the 3G) that absolutely exploded in sales for apple, and that only happened because Apple listened to people complaints and addressed all of them.

 

[~~Hello~~]

People may have moaned about the lack of 3g on the original iphone, but I certainly wouldn't say it wasn't a big hit.