January 2010 (Not the) Product of the Month – Apple iPad

Having been anticipated for over a year, in order to live up to its fevered expectation the ‘Apple Tablet’ would have to have solved global warming, unfortunately it has received a torrent of poor reviews online, with one commenter noting;

“Honestly it's like Jobs' promised the future of transport, something that's going to make all cars, bikes and even shoes irrelevant and then comes on stage on a bloody unicycle!

Sure, it looks fun and is impressive but only bloody clowns will want to buy one.”

It does have a few saving graces, and if you love your Apple and have just found £500 down back of the sofa it may be worth a look.

Both El Reg and Trusted Reviews gave it below average reviews and it’s even attracted a very funny Hilter spoof and comments on its name.

What don’t people like about it?
Trusted Reviews did a great list

• Irregular (unspecified) widescreen aspect ratio for video playback
• 1024 x 768 aspect ratio not widescreen video friendly
• No integrated USB ports
• No card reader
• Non-removable battery
• Non-expandable memory
• No GPS in the WiFi only model!
• Unlocked iPad not great when network's don't use the micro SIM
• Mono audio speakers
• Prolonged typing on glass?
• No integrated camera
• No HDMI/Displayport
• No Ethernet Port
• Still no Adobe Flash support
• Limited codec support (AAC, MP3, H.264)
• Proprietary iBook eBook format
• No breakdown of 'up to' 10 hours battery life
• No mains power cable included
• Source iPad review Trusted Reviews

Other than for Apple developers, these shortcomings seem a little too much for most people. The device fits awkwardly in many ways, firstly is there a market for this device; it’s not a fully-fledged Mac (being able to only run iPhone apps rather than Photoshop or Office), nor is it cheap enough to replace your music player. Secondly its size is awkward, how will you type on it and hold it at the same time, it’s too big for the pocket yet too small to place on the desk and type.
Omissions like a power cable seem just bizarre, and the lack of a stylus means you can’t draw on it thus using it for illustrations.

However…
Apple has a tendency to create markets rather than pander to them (who’d have thought that people would be happy with phones as big as the iPhone when until it came along smaller was better). While the iPad doesn’t have a place at the moment it could well carve out a new market and in 18 months’ time Acer et al will be following suit.
It can also use all your Apps from your iPhone, so it has a huge market base to tap into, it just has to coax them onto the bigger screen, and this is the crux, if you are an iPhone user and want a device to watch YouTube on and read your email and can afford to have this device as an extra then it may be for you.

It’s a big gamble though, the fact that the eBooks are not going to be universally available, the fact that the device can’t surf the entire web and is going to be ‘closed’ by Apple means that it’s shortcomings are going to be difficult to overcome

 

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