Five Ways Apple Can Fix the iPad

Since there is bluetooth, is there support for a bluetooth mouse? I think it'd be kind of a pain when using the keyboard dock thing and having to use the touch screen features to do something like change font size, spacing, font style, whatever else. Or it would've been a good idea to integrate a touchpad into the keyboard possibly?

Some of these are failures are just Apple gimping it for commercial reasons. It doesn't have flash because hulu hurts itunes revenues, and a SD card slot means they can't charge ridiculous amounts extra for a few GB more memory.

[QUOTE]Even Steve Jobs himself compared it to a laptop, and said that it's suppose to be better than a laptop at doing several key things, and is suppose to be better than an iPod Touch at doing everything.[/QUOTE]

The word you meant to use is "supposed" not "suppose"

All of the above will be paid-for OS updates, or in the next version.

No expandable memory because, as with other devices, Apple will no doubt charge lots for a cripplingly low-memoried basic product and an incongruously large amount more for a few extra gigabytes. And quite a lot of people will pay.

Typical Apple really, style over substance.

And the most important one. Why does a new device still not play movies in their native ratio without black bars? Either the movies need to be shot in a different format or hand-held's and TV's for that matter need to change. At the minute we still have black bars, or we zoom in and miss part of the image.

Not really much style OR substance in the ipad is there?

I cant see the point of making what is purely a blown up ipod touch.
Limited web browsing due to the lack of flash and most of all, limited application functionality.
This device is crying out for a decent Os and had it been produced as a tablet pc then I think it would take off and knock spots off any netbook and possibly be the number one must have gadget of the year.
I own an ipod touch and for music, video and email on the move it cant be beaten but that's about it I still need my notebook for other tasks and productivity and that's where this device will fail.
It's too limited in functionality to be taken seriously and is nothing more than a bloated Nintendo ds.
Shame, but I wont be buying one.

But - it should inspire some really awesome competition. That's what I'll look forward to.

No Flash and no mulit-tasking means it can do less than a netbook. I cannot browse the web with tabs and use MSN/GTalk. I cannot watch online movies/TV via BBC iPlayer. I cannot do anything that I cannot do better on a cheap Asus netbook.

So why release this now and underwhelm everyone, surely they would be better waiting for the OS4 ??

I think a PR disaster.

In addition to the above 5 points, what also bothers me is that they've used a 4:3 aspect screen (1024 x 768) this isn't even capable of rendering full 720p video (1280 x 720). The IPad is touted as a great device for video, but is it...? Really....?

Once upon-a-time people were worried that Windows 7 Starter was going to limit you to 3 applications at once. That was hard enough to contemplate.

No multi-tasking is just stupid. Even my crappy Blackberry 8310 Curve can speak sat-nav directions while composing emails and the opera browser is open in the background...

Also after reading the BBC (shortly to be renamed as Apple Promotions Paid For By The UK Taxpayer inc.) article - you can't change the battery yourself? Doesn't Jobs line his own pockets well enough with the insane upfront price without resorting to Ryan Air gotchas like that still?

No camera - laptops costing half that price usually have a webcam in the bezel - I know the Ibodyform is aimed at casual use, isn't IM a casual use?

Wonder if it will be able to cut n' paste from day one...

I liked steven fry's blog.... not.

His argument is that the iPad is good now, but wait till its got a nano-projector, 1080p, hdmi out, video conferencing etc etc....

So basically like the original iphone, when its got all of the features it should have had from day one (i wonder if the iPads will mysetriously lock up and stop working as well....) it will be a great device....

Well sod that for a lark, apple's ongoing marketing strategy to rape early adopters with pricing and a release strategy that means there's always a little too long to wait for the next version so people buy every version when they know full well they could have incorporated all the features from the start.

Ive been using my Tytn since the original iphone came out - imagine using an original iphone these days GSM data Ugh. I think its a disgrace 3g isnt standard on this and the 'design' if you can call making an exisiting aesthetic bigger design just plain sucks.

Flash is on its way out if Adobe can't make it work with less CPU resources. I think I heard they're trying to make it push some of the work to GPUs. So it is ignorant to complain about no flash. It shows a lack of knowledge of the fact that Flash is a horrible CPU hog which ramps up your CPU badly and can make your devices overheat. The other week there it took out my Core i7 after I left a web page loaded with Flash crap. Flash is dead. Steve Jobs is just leading the way. Get with the program. It's 2010. Flash is over. Move on or get left behind.

Bitching about tabbed browsing... are you kidding me???

The multitasking thing is simply about the battery life. They've prided themselves on setting the bar on battery life but admittedly they get there by cutting corners. It will come eventually, either because of pressure or because of other ways to be more energy efficient.

I think the lack of an SD card slot is a weakness in the product... I wonder though if it added additional cost and was sacrificed at this time. We'll see it in future models I reckon. It's in the MacBook Pro so Apple knows exactly what it costs to include.

What's missing for me was some kind of game-changing revolutionary new features. I didn't see anything new in the iPad. Just reinventions of stuff we already had in one form or another. I'm also disappointed in the price. A little cheaper would have been nicer. I haven't seen the Education pricing yet. I'm hoping their not stupid and take it down a good enough notch to compete with Dell and HP, etc. otherwise they'll lose the UK education market in my opinion. With all the budgets cuts, justifying Apple products is too difficult.

If Flash is killing your PC like that then you've got something seriously wrong with it. My little 3 year old Turion TK-53 laptop loads flash pages without even noticing.

Over all I'm disappointed with this. I was expecting something that just might make me buy an Apple machine again, however it appears not. I used Apple gear for years, including the original Powerbook 100, and and kept buying them right up the EMac. However I moved to Windows and Linux because it gave me enough functionality. What did make me do a double-take with this machine is that it's actually got less functionality then the Fujitsu Stylistic pad I had about 4 years ago from work. The only plus point is that it's light, but that's offset by the fact most people will still have to carry around a laptop as well for doing basic productivity tasks.

It's a toy, an expensive one but still a toy.

I had some more thoughts about this.

Ideal for sofa-surfing - if it could run flash. Even the newspaper site page Jobs showed it running was blank where the flash elements should have been.

Ideal for social networking - if it had a built in webcam.

Ideal for showing off your pics - if it had an SD card slot.

Ideal for listening to music - if it was about a quarter the size. Maybe like an iPod Touch...

Ideal for use in home theatre - if it had an HDMI socket. It would make a lovely remote control though, wouldn't it?

What we really need is for Mr Jobs to tell us why we need the iPad. Then everyone can relax be all self-congratulatory as usual with Apple products.