The iPad

Everybody else and their dog is writing about this, so why not me?

I have a Sony Reader (think Kindle, but Sony) and I have a netbook (because I wanted something small, cheap, and light to drag around to do my writing). The iPad has a software keyboard (or dock) which isn’t useful to me since I use my netbook to type rather than to web-browse.. That said, my netbook is small enough that I can hold it in one hand comfortably and read full-color stuff on it if I want (like comics or PDFs) so the iPad doesn’t even fulfill the colour eReader job better than what I already have. My Reader deals with B&W in a much better way than the iPad will without hurting my eyes.

I can see it being awesome for people who don’t have my needs (or my existing equipment), but for someone who reads a lot and writes a lot (and draws a lot but I have a Cintiq and a desktop for that), it’s effectively useless to me. I fully expect people to love it, but I can’t imagine something that I do that isn’t much better served by what I already have.

With all that said, I’ve heard a number of complaints about it running the same OS as the iPhone rather than Mac OSX.  I have to say, I don’t get these people.  I have a Cintiq so I can use MacOS as a pseudo-touchscreen system.  And you know what?  It sucks.  Desktop OSes aren’t made for touch, period.  Sure, you can get by, but it’s nowhere near as straightforward as a keyboard and mouse.  So think about the touchscreen-based systems you’re used to.  PDAs and Smartphones jump to mind, and those games and registers at bars and restaurants as well.  Each of those systems is based around reasonably large icons to click on, keep buttons and icons to a minimum, and the good applications run really quickly.  Why?  So that you know that the thing is actually working.

So, if OSX won’t work well and Apple thinks this is a big enough deal to use a specifically touch-based OS, they obviously care more about the user experience than how much so-called “power users” can hack the software to bits (PUN!).  If they care that much about the user experience — the iPad as a platform, not as a computer that you put whatever you want on — obviously they’re going to want to have some sort of assurances about apps in place.  It’s not rocket surgery.  The first thing many people do when getting a new PC is to reformat it and reinstall the OS to get away from all of the add-ons.  These add-ons reflect poorly on the manufacturer (my computer is too slow!) or on the OS (this OS is so buggy!).  If Apple is marketing this as a platform — not as an OS or hardware but both — it needs to make sure that the applications going onto it meet quality control criteria (security issues, speed issues, memory issues).  It’s the only way to make the thing a success.  Get full control and let those people who really want to tweak things find a way around it, but make them go out of their way to do so.  It’s the only way to keep the reputation of the platform as quick, functional, stable, and secure.

And to any who disagrees, have you actually tried to use a tablet-based Windows device?  Sure, OneNote works well, but nothing else does.

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