I thought I'd address some issues, personally I think the iPad is fantastic, I see no problems with it whatsoever.
It does however lack a few minor features that would be desired, but otherwise it's no big deal.
I'm not trying to have a dig at the OP, just putting my perspective out there, don't take it the wrong way. I look forward to a reply.
Obviously, any improvement would require a higher price for the iPad which Apple don't want, they want this to BOOM.
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)
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)
An iSight camera would be thoroughly displeasing, I'd get my fingers all over it when holding the iPad in portrait or landscape mode, depending where the camera was placed.
It wouldn't look aesthetically pleasing anymore either, it'd have this ugly camera on the front. A camera on the back would also be uncomfortable when holding the device, depending where the camera was placed.
It would also add probably an additional $100 at least, if not more to the cost. They could have made the 3rd iPad model (64GB) with the camera for more, but I'm not paying for that when I could slip in a SD micro card from my camera with my $30 accessory from Apple, or use my iPhone.
Don't get me wrong, the ability to take photos from the iPad would be fantastic, and also video chat would be great and they are features I really want. But not if it sacrifices the aesthetic look of the iPad and also causes a price increase.
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)
I believe the WiFi model has the assisted (like the iPod Touch) GPS, but the 3G model has the same found in the iPhone (3G/S).
This is a software issue and can be addressed by Apple without us needing to buy another device, probably for free, otherwise a $10 fee for iPad OS 4.0 or whatnot.
No Wireless Syncing or File Transfers
Wireless syncing would be pretty cool, but it's not a deal breaker. Also a software issue, this could be changed at a later time.
File transfers? I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. But the iPad will mount a drive to the computer so you can add files to it.
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
No Ability to download files from online
No ability to connect to an external hdd, or even to directly pop in an SDCard to expand storage
I think you will be able to manage the files on your iPad that are in the drive that's mounted to the computer, in some shape or form.
I'm not sure about this but I think you can probably download PDFs from the web? Photos can be downloaded, and you can copy and paste text into a note. I don't know what other kind of documents you're thinking of.
Apple will never add a USB port, a SD card slot, or a way to use an Ext. HD, USB port is unnecessary and would look bad and the SD card and Ext HD would allow you to expand your device beyond what they want, and also add unnecessary actions to transfer files to and from the SD card / Ext HD.
If you don't have room for all your movies on your iPad, they expect you to keep them on your hard drive and sync only the ones you want to watch.
I think it would get confusing have Ext. HD's (or one, if it's large enough) and SD cards and managing what I have on iTunes as well? iTunes can't sync all the media to the iPad and then overflow it to the ext hd / SD card that's connected to the iPad, and then what happens when you take them out? seems confusing to me.
An extremely disappointing 256 MB of RAM when even many cellphones have 1 gig of RAM
Does it really only have 256MB of RAM? that does surprise me, however Apple would include it if it's necessary. The iPad is lightning quick, as seen in demos, it may not need much RAM, graphics memory and processor speed would probably be what's required most by games.
Other devices may have 1GB of RAM, even smart phones, but can they use it?
No Additional Touch Gestures (Here's the kinds of gestures we were hoping for...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnavI57gyQ)
That video was like a dance flick... I'm pretty sure Apple offers some of those gestures, a lot of the others looked ridiculous and was more like dancing, I can't see them serving any valid function on the device lol.
No Java or Flash support (no hulu.com)
This is also a software issue, and can be addressed by Apple. But I really don't want flash on the iPad, HTML5 should take care of this, although I know little of it.
I'm not sure about the situation with Java, but what uses Java that we'd use on the iPad? I can think of nothing.
Only 16-64 gbs of HDD space when most tablets offer 250 gbs minimum
Most tablets failed, and some of those tablets are "PC" tablets, more like a computer than what Apple have created. 256GB of flash nand solid state storage? if that amount even exists in a size that can fit into the iPad properly, it'd add well over $400 if not more!
I do think having a 16GB model is too low, but Apple want everyone to have one. So it makes sense. I'd have preferred it start at $50 more and have only the 32/64GB models.
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)
USB isn't necessary, you put the files from your computer onto the mounted drive... if you're out and about, what would you really put over that you can use on the iPad that can't be e-mailed to you over WiFi or 3G? or Transferred over via Bluetooth (I think Apple will enable this, if they have a mounted drive setup).
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
I thought it looked odd at first, it's grown on me and I actually really like it, having seen it in use it makes sense. You need to be able to hold this device without touching the touch screen.
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.
I believe there are third party products (so I have read from these forums), that can do this. And taking notes I'd be typing with the virtual keyboard or the Wireless keyboard from Apple.
No Ability to run custom Apps not preapproved by Apple (Google Voice, uTorrent etc)
Once again it's a software issue, and actually very good, this will never change and is no fault of the iPad itself, the iPhone and iPod Touch can't do this either.
I don't want to download an app that Apple haven't approved, it could be malicious doing all kinds of things, you can download any App from the App store knowing full well Apple have checked it and that it isn't malicious.
No OLED Screen (forgivable) but the screen is incapable of displaying 1080p resolution, and is not even the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the iPhone (much less 16:9), 4:3 is such a huge step backwards
The iPad is a media device, not a movie device. It will be great for movies, photos, web browsing, eBooks, 16:9 aspect ratio would ruin that, probably 1.5:1 would do it also. It's not an OLED screen, it's a high quality IPS display with a 1024x768 resolution, that sounds pretty amazing to me. You try find a tablet PC that's reasonably priced that can play 1080p resolution videos, and do everything else so well.
A Very Low Resolution Display with 25% fewer PPPs than the iPhone or iPod Touch, the display should have a higher resolution
A very low resolution display compared to what? I've got a 23" 1920x1200 monitor, I'd say 1024x768 is very good for a 9.7" device, particularly tablet.
The higher the resolution, the more battery life we lose. This thing lasts 10 HOURS with the screen on, video, (apps?), music, eBooks, and 140 hours of music with the screen off. That's quite amazing.
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)
TV Antenna? we can stream TV from WiFi or 3G from an App right? Radio? there's an app for that, FM Transmitter? nah, it's unnecessary and it's more money.
No TV/Video Out (HDMI out like many netbooks)
HDMI out to a TV would be nice, but we can still output movies on the iPad to a TV at 480/576 p/i, I've watched it on my 32" (I think) TV and it looks pretty good (from an iPod Touch).
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)
I noticed that, but it's still pretty close and relatively good quality. I'm not sure why.
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)
Yeah, but it's not a notebook, it's much more, much easier to use, and much better. Lighter, thinner, better battery life.
No OTA Sync With Apple TV or Servers To Stream Video
I don't really know what that is, doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
No Low Reflective Screen Mode for high contrast Ebook Reading that doesn't hurt your eyes
I've looked at a book in the demos, the text looks really easy to read and quite easy on the eyes, you can't really stop your eyes from getting sore if you're looking at an LCD screen for a long period of time (at least I don't think).
No Gamepad attachment for Gaming With Physical Buttons/Tactile Feedback
It's about touch not about having gamepad attachments, I don't think this will ever happen.
No ability to connect to a bluetooth mouse/keyboard
There is for the keyboard, at least.. for the Apple keyboard.
No RFID/IR to use it as a remote, or to tag it to yourself
I don't think that really matters.
No Replacable/Removable Batteries
That's not a desirable thing for Apple or most people that use Apple products, I think I can recharge my iPad at least once every 10 hours.
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?
I can certainly say that, your $250 notebook wouldn't have a high quality IPS display, the 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive isn't great compared to a 16GB SSD, you can manage what content you need from iTunes.. do you really need every movie you have ever owned + music on the device? I keep only my favourite movies and my best music on my iPhone and I still have a 1GB left over.
I don't think your notebook will give you a beautiful movie watching experience and everything else the iPad offers, with 10 hours of battery life.
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.
I'd have paid $1000 for what it offers right now, I'll only have to pay $830 for the MAX model. I'm quite thrilled. No doubt some great games and apps will be released for the iPad.
Some people are saying that it'll take some revisions to get this product really going, but I don't think so. The first gen iPhone lacked important features that other phones offered. This tablet offers so much more at such a great price, there aren't really any thriving tablets out there ATM, when Apple brought out the iPod Touch, the most improvements they made to it was the bevel so it felt nicer, and the volume rocker!
I'd also point out, the tablets out there are very expensive and offer less hardware wise and extremely less software wise.
I see the same kind of improvements for the iPad if that's even necessary, since Apple have experience creating a similar product they know what needs to be done. But we'll see once it's released eh?
