I've always liked the idea of a tablet PC. Something I could stuff in my briefcase or backpack and use for work or entertainment purposes but without all the extra overhead that a bulky operating system like Windows requires. Ideally, this tablet would surf the web without losing much of the formatting seen on a normal PC. It would have a stylus so I could write on the screen to take notes or pretend to be artsy. Handwriting recognition would be nice, but ultimately not completely necessary. It would also have the ability to output to a monitor or HDTV of my choosing as well as allow for expandable memory and a couple interface ports for those necessary evils that we call peripherals. A line in might be nice if there isn't a built in mic and a headphone output for more crowded area friendly interaction.
The iPad, however, has only a few of these: a nice speedy operating system thanks to the Apple A4 processor (no doubt ARM based), line in and headphone out and well...that's about it. Early reports have me believing that this first gen iPad is just a regular egg painted gold. The big glaring white hot bolt of lightening that has me very much concerned is the lack of non-proprietary interfaces. It appears that Apple is taking a couple chapters out of Nintendo's book and having so many ridiculous peripherals than you can shake a stick at in hopes that people will shell out the extra money for these necessary (and most likely overpriced) accessories and pad the bottom line. Want a USB port? Buy the add-on. Want an external keyboard? Buy the add-on. HDMI? We'll have an add-on for that eventually. How about an SD card interface? Nope. Gotta buy the add on. Eventually, there'll be as many add-ons as there are apps (130k and rising) and it make me sick.
Why couldn't Apple integrate some of the interfaces we all know and love into this beast that's supposed to bridge the gap between mobile phone and mobile computer. You can't really argue that the interfaces are too large anymore. There are standardized versions of mini-HDMI and micro-USB that everyone has access to (although mini-HDMI hasn't really started to be integrated in much yet but believe me, it's on its way) and if Apple believes that regular SD is too big, there's micro-SD as well. Its not really all that surprising that they stuck with the iPhone/iPod Touch interface because they've always seemed to prefer that to every other standard out there and it is somewhat convenient as far as functionality goes, but c'mon Apple. Get with the picture. Maybe you'll pull your heads out of your asses in gen 2 or gen 3 and I'll admit that gen 1 of the iPad is a good effort, but its still a bit lacking.
For now, though, I'll just keep my eyes on Apple. They have some great ideas and hopefully one of these days they'll deliver a real golden egg for the masses.
Until then always remember,
It is the Geeks that will inherit the Earth.
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