One Week After the Storm...

One week after Apple announced the iPad, and have you seen the debates? There are those who love it, those who hate it, those to love to hate it and hate to love it... you get my drift. Is there an overall consensus? It's hard to say. But here's what a few top-notches are saying these days:



PC Magazine seems to look down on the iPad in general. John Dvorak over there thinks it is an overall underwhelming project, and recommends the following changes in his response:

1. Put a camera and a real phone on the thing. It would be a great teleconferencing machine.
2. Make it multi-task. Cripes, why is this so hard?
3. Add a stylus so people can draw and take notes on the thing. This is actually the strength of tablets. Why was this ignored?
4. Make it cheaper (yeah, right).
5. Give it a handle. Why not?
6. Do something magical. What? I don't know…

Also at PCMag, Michael Miller argues that as cool as the iPad is (well, maybe is), it won't kill the Kindle as an e-reader, due in large part to the Kindle's use of e-ink versus the iPad's use of a backlit screen (which long-time readers claim, not unfairly, hurts their eyes). Lance Ulanoff, who was at the Apple announcement event, might want an iPad... but he clamors for a camera, access to the Verizon network (at this rate, AT&T and Apple are going to take each other down from the inside), and - the first I've heard of this - some sort of molding on the back to make the large device easier to hold. Although I'm sure someone will make a sleeve for that (I have an awesome hand-molded case from Belkin for my iPod).

This San Fransisco Chronicle article describes the iPad's four biggest "whiffs," all of which stem from the iPad's attempt to go in too many directions at one time: the screen is wrong for an e-reader, it doesn't have a camera, the screen doesn't have a very strong resolution output (making video and pictures and text less clear), and it doesn't support Flash. Adobe actually released a statement on their blog condemning Apple's continuing decision not to support the Flash Player, which greatly limits access to many interactive websites.

Then there's the name... but that's enough for another post.

Any reactions I've missed?