The iPad is supposed to deliver everything people love about the iPhone/iPod touch to a bigger screen and thats exactly what it is. A less portable, iPod touch. Now, i have an iPhone 3GS, a MacBook 13-inch and a Time Capsule. I'm an apple nerd but when i saw the iPad, i was like "Is that it?" the answer is yes. While it may be better for watching movies due to the bigger screen and with the new iBooks, possibly good for reading books but these are the only things that it has going for it.
There are several e-readers out there and whilst they can't surf the web, play movies, music and games on them or even have colour pictures, most of the e-readers today are paper like i.e. they are not back-lit so they don't strain the eyes and you can read them in bright sunlight. They are just easier to read.
As for the video player, well its as good as the iPhone and iPod touch and can play almost HD movies/tv shows. I don't tend to watch movies on my iPhone and i'm wondering where i might watch it, at a friends house, on the train/tube/bus/plane. The one drawback for the video player is that the iPad doesn't have an HDMI outlet for hooking it up to the TV, usb or firewire for watching or storing videos from an external drive. I have an external hard drive with loads of videos on and to be able to watch them on the move i'll have to hook the hard drive up to my MacBook, import to iTunes and if they are not mp4 i'll have to convert them and then download them onto my iPad. Yeah, thats real user-friendly. Even my videos on my time capsule even though they both have wifi i'm guessing that the iPad won't like anything other than mp4 just like the iPhone and iPod touch because its the same OS. Again, i'll have to do it the long way round.
I have no idea what apple thinks the market for the iPad is, presumably the same as the iPod touch/iPhone market but to anyone considering an iPad, i'd either suggest the iPod touch/iPhone for the portability or a MacBook but if you want a 10-inch screen go for a netbook, its more powerful than the iPad. If you want an e-reader i'd go for kindle or the Sony. Kindle 2 is half the price of the iPad.
Another thing the iPad is lacking is a camera, even the iPod Nano's have camera's. So you can't do a video conference call or for all the vloggers out there - you can't do a vlog on the fly. If you love your home movies you can't make a movie on the go but you have to remember your camera whether it be on any one of the other portable Apple devices or one of those small camera's like the flip.
The iPad is sitting in the middle of digital nowhere land. Its not quite as good as a computer, not quite as easy to read as the kindle/sony e-readers, not quite as portable as the iPhone/iPod touch where you can have the internet in your pocket. Not quite as user-friendly as Apple likes to think it is.
Will i be getting an iPad? No, thanks. I'll stick to my MacBook, iPhone & Books thanks.
I just wonder how this got passed Apple's cooldar.
