Have you seen the commercials for the iPad? If you have, you may have thought to yourself, “Man, that just looks cool.” You probably also thought, like most people, “That looks just like a big iPhone.”
Well, in more than a few ways, it is a big iPhone (or iPod Touch, depending on whether or not you have the 3G model). And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; the iPhone OS is extremely intuitive—so intuitive, in fact, that most people who have never owned an iPhone can just pick one up and start using it. And not only is using the iPad as fun and easy as using the iPhone (it runs the same OS), it’s also a better overall experience for a lot of tasks quite simply because the screen is, well, bigger. And that’s a beautiful thing when it comes to watching movies, looking at photos, running iPhone apps, etc.
BUT (you knew it was coming), it’s not as “magical” as Apple says it is—and yes, they did use that word. It’s not a robust enough device to replace the personal computer, and it lacks several features that have quite a few people in the tech world scratching their heads.
This is where being simply a “big iPhone” hurts the device. One of the biggest gripes with the iPhone is that it doesn’t multitask; you can’t run more than one app at a time. With the iPad, a larger device that carries with it larger expectations, you’d think this obvious flaw would be fixed. Well, it isn’t. Also like the iPhone, albeit unsurprisingly given Apple’s rigid position on the subject, the iPad does not support Flash. This means that even though the iPad is practically the perfect device for web browsing, it doesn’t recognize one of the industry standards for presenting media-rich content to web browsers.
So, when it comes down to it, the question all tech lovers are asking themselves is, “Is the iPad worth buying?” And as always, that depends on what you want to be able to do with it. If you are an iPhone app fanatic and want a platform for reading ebooks, web browsing, and watching movies you download from iTunes, the iPad may be worthwhile for you. At the same time, it is a first-generation device with several obvious flaws that will probably be fixed in subsequent releases (with the exception of Flash support, probably). So if you could just hold on for a year—or less—you might get a lot more for your money.
Of course, we would be remiss if we failed to at least acknowledge the feeling of many in the tech community that the iPad could be the frontrunner of the “next wave” in personal computing. The speculation is that the intuitive touch-screen interface might overtake the “oldschool” mouse-and-keyboard interface we’ve been using since the 80’s. And who knows; maybe the iPad is the wave of the future. But we’re fine waiting till the future gets here. If history is any guide, Apple will continue to perfect the iPad and develop new uses for its brilliant interface.