IPad

Theres been a lot of hype lately about an Apple Tablet. They finally released the details of this new product yesterday. It is called the IPad. I have no idea what the marketing team was thinking when they named this. I was relieved to see the general population had the same thoughts I did when they heard the news. Nintendo had a hard time when they called their new console the Wii, but the name caught on and most of the grumbling went away.

I personally don't believe Apple will have the same luck as Nintendo. Twitter has been a buzz with names like the IMaxi and the IPeriod. Women seem to consider the name insensitive or disgusting. I can only begin to imagine the jokes the first time someone accidentally sits on one. Putting the name aside for a moment I watched a few of the videos to get a better of idea of what this new thing really is. A lot of people have been billing it as a tablet PC. It is definitely not.

The IPad is essentially a bigger IPod. The design is the same but larger and so is the OS. The device itself seems to offer no functionality that was not already available on the the IPod and in some cases even less. The videos constantly touch on "the best browsing experience" and "the best email experience". The problem is this is no more true than it was on the IPod. Yes you can read a newspaper online and surf basic sites. So can the IPod, and just like the IPod the IPad does NOT support Flash or Silverlight. Hopefully you weren't planning on visiting Facebook, Hulu, Netflix or any other non basic site.

The larger screen is nice to watch videos on until you remember that the only comfortable way to get those videos is from ITunes. You have a DVD you want to watch on your IPad / IPod? Sorry. You'll need to buy or rent it from ITunes or buy some extra software to try to Rip your DVD to a special Apple supported format. Another feature they have introduced is the new IBookstore. The feature itself is not specific to the IPad as much as it is ITunes. It will allow you to rent, buy, and read books. Weee...

From reading this you might think I'm not a fan of Apple's products. In reality I am. I really loved the IPod and I own a Nano and a Touch. The problem I keep running into the ways in which Apple wants to control the use. When thousands of people routinely buy your product and immediately seek a "hack" or "jailbreak" to unlock it so that it will do what they are wanting to do, you have a problem. I understand why they don't want to allow Flash or Silverlight. The fear is that this will cut into the App Store market share, but even though I understand this it doesn't make it any better. I'm still left holding a product that I essentially have to "break" to use the way I want to.

The biggest reason I support and favor the Android over the IPod is that I have more control and options both as a consumer and as a developer. If you ask an Apple Zealot about these issues the response will usually boil down to: "If Apple says it should work this way then it must be so. Question not the ways of the Apple and the prophet Jobs." Well that's what it seems like anyway. In the end the consumers will decide.