aeonic productions

Why all of you are terribly wrong about the iPad Apple Tablet

Let me start by saying these two things:  One, I will never call this thing the iPad, I’m sorry – iSlate was such a better rumor I refuse to call it the Fujitsu encroaching, feminine hygiene product related name.  Two, I have no idea whether or not I want an Apple Tablet.  I’m pretty damned sure I do not want version 1, however I don’t think it is a complete failure, and I think a lot of ideas out there about why this device is terrible are absolutely wrong.  I’ll start with the one that pisses me off the most:

Flash.  Listen, people, and listen carefully.  Adobe and Apple?  They’re not friends anymore.  They haven’t been friends since Adobe gave Apple the finger on the PowerPC -> Intel shift and Adobe took an entire year to develop a Creative Suite for the new processor.  If you think Adobe was caught off guard by this Intel chip change, you’re dead wrong.  That wonderful new A4 chip that’s appearing for the first time in the Apple Tablet?  It was developed from the P.A. Semi company purchased by Apple in April, 2008.  That’s nearly a year and a half before the first development from that acquisition saw the light of day.  This breaks down into two primary arguments – Adobe vs. Apple, and sheer technological differences.

1. Jobs and Co. may not be inviting Adobe to the party anymore, but seriously, when companies get in a fight like this you don’t just send a dozen roses to make up the differences.  Steve doesn’t make a whole lot of mistakes here, folks, and if he showed you a broken Flash input, I’m inclined to say that this man who headed the revolution of music sales, phones, and micro-purchases – well, he probably knows more than you, dear commenter, just deal with it.  I’m fairly sure that The Jobs showed you that broken Flash input just so you could see it was still broken.  We all know that HTML5 is where the future lies, do you really think that Apple is not playing a game, here?  They still don’t even sell a Mac with Blu-Ray!  Every move is coordinated!
2. This thing is – for now – absolutely nothing more than an intensely glorified iPhone.  There’s not a Flash plugin developed (appropriately and through the proper channels – see point 1) for the iPhone/iPod Touch – what makes you think there’s one for the product that I’m 99% sure Adobe never got to lay their hands on before it was announced?  Even IF the Apple Tablet does eventually support Flash, it will be after some serious modifications.  Flash is very easy to exploit and a varies in it’s implementation from version to version dramatically.  This variance takes away from a “perfect” solution that these products intend to enforce:  A uniform web experience – the same for you as it is for me, no matter what.

Now that we’ve covered flash (and I managed to almost entierely ignore HTML5) , I’ll touch on a few of the other issues I see here.

• Exchange support.  Everyone I talk to says, “Well, it’s basically just a glorified iPhone.”  - Let’s do a little compare and contrast here.  There’s an entire page for the iPhone and Enterprise support.  Tablet?  Here’s the quote:

And iPad works with all the most popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.

• Handwriting input / Design.  I know nobody wants a stylus (yuck.), Steve, but seriously – your device is going to miss a pretty critical aspect of life here by skipping on the Doctors and Professionals that don’t WANT to type things.  Everyone knows that Text-to-Speech isn’t a valid option in a meeting, but EVERYONE takes notes – why do I need to waste my time dragging around my antiquated netbook or laptop to type a note to myself when I have your Tablet?  Lord knows I’m not going to drop my Apple Tablet down on the desk and start virtually typing while I try to eye-contact my boss.  They already hate it enough if we even dare to check our iPhones – looking up and down at them because we have no homerow is not going to help us – fix this shit.
• Pressure Sensitivity.  Dear Apple – I know you don’t like Adobe, but seriously, you’re giving people a 10″ screen they can carry around and you’re not going to let artists have pressure sensitivity?  You’re going to force them to pop out their underpowered Macbook Air’s and their Cintiq’s just to draw something?  The whole idea of a Tablet is to accomplish simple tasks quickly, effectively, and on the go – that which my Phone cannot.  You have emasculated an entire level of professional – one which is still a market that should be critical to you given the amount of people switching to digital art and OSX as their ONLY form of interaction with their corporate environment.

Now, I could go on and on about what is wrong with this device, but I want to tell you all a little why you’re absolutely wrong in thinking this device (or it’s product line) are going to fail:

• iBookStore – Napster and the iTunes Music store both launched in 2003 – iTunes in April and Napster in October.  As of August, 2009 – Napster is not even in the contention.  Now, I’m aware that Napster’s business model is dramatically different these days than when it launched, but let’s face it, not even Rhapsody is up there on that list, and even Amazon – The undisputed internet sales website – can’t compete appropriately.  Just because Apple missed the eBook revolution from the Kindle, etc does NOT rule them out of the game.  The Audiobook revolution is high – something the Kindle can’t do – so even if folks aren’t interested in reading their books, the new Tablet can read it to them.  Hell, they might even use Audible to do this, which is owned by Amazon!
• Truly perfect applications.  While multitasking and it’s apparent lack-of is the bane of apparently every single person on the internet (trust me – I disagree, too), the idea that an application is going to be able to do one thing PERFECTLY (theoretically) for me is exciting.  Gone are the days when a Mail client pretends to be a calender because there’s a calender app that can do it better.  The same goes for all of those independent apps from the App store.  Convertbot is better than anything I own when it comes down to conversion and that’s because it’s been designed – from the ground up – to be perfect as a conversion program.  Dashboard as an Operating System.  Simultaneously terrifying and awesome, this is a product line I am excited for (read:  Google Wave) and terrified about (read:  Microsoft Office).  Hopefully it forms the best of both worlds.
• Finally – Apple Tablet v. 2.0 – Let’s face it.  Anyone reading this post is really looking forward to version 2.  Just like version 1 of the iPhone sported the most amazing revolution to Phones in quite some time, I think this device provides a very quantifiable leap in portable computing.  However – it was not until the App Store that the iPhone made a difference.  While that might have been a software release – I’m pretty sure that this first (max)iPad will be a Proof-of-Concept for the Second Generation unit.  While this might not count as why THIS version is great – saying that the iPhone wasn’t exciting when it came out would have been a flat lie.  Just because you expect more from a company doesn’t mean they’re not going to be cautious stepping into a very very very underrated market.  Introduce a product that grandma can get used to because she managed to figure out how to use your iPhone?  Yes, absolutely.  Specialize that product to do more than just one thing at a time?  This is how you learn and train

This list is just a start.  I could go on and on about how much I absolutely !@#$ing hate this guy, but I won’t for now.  Let me know what you think, kind reader.

***UPDATE*** – According to this article, Steve Jobs has apparently told his loyal Apple employees very much the same thing I said:

Jobs also singled out Adobe, calling the company “lazy” because, in his opinion, “they have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it.” Jobs also criticized Flash for being buggy. When a Mac crashes, it’s usually because of Flash, he reportedly told the crowd. “The world is moving to HTML5,” he said.