Apple iPad Unveiled: Initial Reactions Mixed

January 27, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke

Today, Apple officially debuted its latest touch product, the iPad. While hardcore Apple junkies were obviously excited, after monitoring two websites and posting approximately 82 Tweets in two hours, we were left feeling less than satisfied. Why? Several key features seem to be absent.

Lest we be accused of being hopeless cynics, we’ll start off with the good. What are the Pros we can derive from our virtual tour?

Pros: WiFi ready, multiple storage options, supports direct downloads from iTunes and App Stores, desktop ready when used with dock and optional keyboard, iBook allows for real digital reading, game graphics were excellent quality, iWork applications provide real productivity possibilities, photo albums and calendars appear easy to use, drop-down menus and soft keyboard appear to make data input and navigation easy

There is a lot of good in the Pros list. So why are we still disappointed? Well, with the exception of iWork and iBook, we could pretty much get the same functionality in an iPhone or iPod Touch. We had Apps. We had Stanza for eBooks. We had a calendar and photos. We even had a soft keyboard. For that matter, we even had WiFi.

Despite the fact that most of these things were on a smaller scale, it doesn’t detract from the fact that we had them. All we’re really gaining in iPad is inches. Add on top of that, the fact that there is no camera, and it feels like Apple actually took functionality away from us. We may have never had it on the iPhone or iPod Touch, but the holy grail for many has been (and continues to be) support for Adobe Flash, which is crucial for those who lime to watch streaming televison shows on sites like Hulu, ABC, and NBC. Having Steve Jobs first page view on the iPad resolve into a Flash plug-in error only served to rub salt in the wound. Having said all of that, here is the list of Cons you knew was coming:

Cons: Overpriced for storage capacity (beginning at $499 for 64GB and WiFi only), no camera, no support for flash, seems to have too much iPhone/iPod operating system design and not enough OS X design, giving it 3G capabilities and not including cellular voice capability seems downright stingy

As you can discern, our initial impression is not the best. That is not to say, though, that a hands-on benchmarking might not make it feel like a really big iPod Touch. For the price of the base model, you can by a Netbook with a full OS (even if it is Windows), a camera, support for USB, and, lest we forget, Adobe Flash. Only time…and sales…will tell if the Apple iPad will be as big a hit as its smaller siblings.