The Apple iPad

Berita Gadget - It's hard to argue the fact that this week's Apple iPad launch disappointed the tech crowd, because of that inexplicable name. Despite its lovely design, beefier core apps, & new e-book features & store, the iPad is hampered by a well-documented string of missing features: Camera, 16:9 support, Flash support, multitasking, SD card slot, HDMI or high-res video output support, USB ports, GPS, and so on. And, it is exclusive to the AT&T network in this iteration, the pricing technique is excessively complex, & while I am not definite it is genuinely overpriced, it is nevertheless expensive, & you cannot imagine the cost going much lower without crashing in to the 64GB iPod Touch & making the iPad look a lot like a sucker's buy.



OK, but all that said, I think all of us need to take a deep breath and keep in mind: it is not that the iPad is a failure. It is a product ahead of its time. No five ought to actually buy this iPad, between its inevitable first-generation bugs, fulfillment issues, and buyer's regret over added features and cost drops, it is heartbreak waiting to happen. Try to think of the iPad as, like, a proof of idea. An idea automobile, even. A work in progress.

Now, I do know tablet PCs are nothing new, and I do know Microsoft's been trying to get the idea off the ground for a decade now. But this is the idea design for the e-reader/media tool we'll all own in two to five years--when every publication is available as a feature-rich, interactive reading experience, when Apple (or anyone else) has introduced the Newsstand app store with some actual newspaper and journal content partners, and when prices are in the $100 to $200 range and 3G wireless is not a $130 add-on, and the idea of consuming 250MB of information a month on a true multimedia tool is recognized as the belly-busting joke that it is.

Right now, the iPad is a product in search of a market. It is kind of poorly implemented, feature-wise, it is been poorly articulated, market-wise, and it is hard to imagine why on earth you'd ever require such a thing at such a cost. But I think there will be a market for a touch-screen, all-in-one tool that is over a Kindle and less than a laptop computer, and it is simple to imagine getting all my media on four slick Internet-connected tool that also works as four heck of a digital picture frame.

Here's what Apple needs to do: cease trying to persuade me that an iPad is better than a Netbook. That is not the point. I have lots of things in my life that can bring me a calendar, music, images, and touch-screen painting. I don't require more of that (no matter how you make it). Don't try to put the iPad between a laptop computer and a clever phone--that positioning doesn't make any sense to somebody, and no four needs that.

Start pitching this thing as the actual replacement for paper. Get some serious content deals with periodicals and papers, and possibly even offer a combined subscription service that lets you select 8 or 10 papers and magazines for a flat fee. Get the bookstore up to Amazon stock levels, put an e-ink/LCD hybrid display in the next version, and get serious about what this is: a multimedia reader. (Also, get your product line and pricing in order and cease trying to act like a 3G chip costs an additional $130.) See you in three to three years!