And the backlash begins, from Matt Hickey at CNET....
It's not that it isn't cool—it is, technically. But I was underwhelmed. And it's not because of the rampant rumors flying around the Internet in the last few weeks but rather because there are some simple things I had hoped—and a couple I had assumed—would be featured that aren't.
... to Gizmodo.
Ordinarily, I'd care a bit less about the latest hyped device from Apple. But, I really do want a decent tablet computing device. The idea of a computing device focused more on consuming media and information, rather than producing content, is intriguing. The conceptual space between handheld devices (ala iPhone) and netbooks is a large one. With all this hype, my mind has started to wander to what such a space could be filled with.
An ideal slate would, to my mind, be a sort of monitor on steroids. When one is next to a full-fledged laptop or desktop, it could act as an adjunct—a bit of (self-capable) extra screen and computational real estate. For everything from programming to writing to collaborative work in groups, it would be nice to be able to spread out onto such a device—throwing open web pages, PDF documents, images and even other word processing or image documents off to the side—while focusing on creating on the main computer.
(One of the lovely aspects of Mac OS X is it's ability to seamlessly multitask, juggling many open windows. When assembling figures, writing scientific manuscripts, analyzing genomic information or even assembling a patient record, the ability to dig through layer after layer of open program windows is invaluable. Windows 7 is finally catching up to Expose, but Mac OS X is still the king.)
The advantage something like an iPad could offer (over a typical additional monitor) is when one packs up to go home for the day. All those open supporting documents, information and windows, could then be taken on the go, allowing one to continue to read or study on the commute home, at a coffee shop or when docked to the next full-power computer. As a device supporting creativity, there would be something wonderful about being able to pick up and take a set of ideas, of sources, of evidence, in your satchel where one goes, having an entire train of thought in your bag—accessible at a whim for revisiting.
The iPad (from the perspective of aa somewhat mixed-feeling iPhone owner) is it's a surprising disappointment as a concept—truly a sort of overgrown iPod touch, even by Apple's description. It's tethered to desktop or laptop computers in a pure punitive way—merely as a means of acquiring DRMed content and syncing in the more mundane ways we're accustomed to. The lack of wireless syncing is somewhat bizarre, as is the inability to use it as an additional monitor. The lack of multitasking is nothing less than an embarrassment. It really has no unique computational abilities, or even interactive features, that distinguish it from the smaller form factor cousins.
And, I'm with Matt Hickey on one major point. The aspect ratio is wrong at 4:3. I'm my humble, nerdy, opinion, it should be 1: sqrt(2)—about the size of A4 paper. Why? For the same reason metric paper is awesome. Tablet computers of that ratio could be placed next to one another, creating a split screen twice as large and with the same aspect ratio as a single device. Back to my vision of pad computers as a sort of monitor with brains, this would allow groups of people to interact in all sorts of interesting ways when working on collaborative projects.
Who knows. I'm no design engineer. Still, I had higher hopes that the iPad would offer some unique and novel ways of interacting with information, filling this potential space with some new ideas about how computers can fit into our lives. For now, it's an iPod touch with a bigger screen. Whee. I suspect it'll still crash daily.
