The iPad

With all the hullaballoo surrounding the announcement of the new iPad, I thought I would add to all the noise by putting my own thoughts out there. By the way, if you haven't heard about the iPad yet, then just think of it as the next piece of fancy technology that everyone will be surprised that I don't have...

That's right - just to make my position clear up front - I have no intention of getting the iPad. Frankly, at this moment in time, it looks like a giant iPod Touch (which I had no interest in either). Don't get me wrong - I think it looks like a really nice piece of kit and, judging from comments by techgeek friends that they couldn't wait to buy one despite not actually knowing what they would use it for, I'm guessing that it will probably be a commercial success.

The problem for me is nicely outlined in this article (which I found via Techdirt - luv that site!). In brief, like some of Apple's other products, the iPad is a closed system - which for me is a major deal killer. Bear in mind, I didn't like that the iPhone used a closed system either but that was just a smartphone. It seems like the iPad is being pitched as a possible alternative to PCs, in particular netbooks, and there is no way in hell that I am going to accept a closed platform for something like that. If nothing else, the whole issue with Google Voice on the iPhone convinces me that using a closed system is just not consumer friendly.

And when you factor in that the initial iPad won't be able to multi-task? Seriously? Considering that the basic price point is US$499 (and that only gives you a wifi enabled iPad), I might as well just get a netbook.

One last point. I found this article to be really entertaining. The guy seems to believe that the iPad will end up killing off the PC. Yeah. Lets just say that I suspect the PC will still be around in 5 years whereas the iPad will be dead in its second (killed off by the second generation iPad to be released next year!!!).

All joking aside, the author in that article is trying to say that the tablet computer as an idea means the death of PCs and the iPad is worth singling out due to the popularity surrounding it (and for which other tablets haven't managed to gain). In my opinion, if you want to use this argument, you may as well say that the Star Trek franchise killed off the PC when it introduced the PADD and got people thinking about tablet PCs in the first place.

Here's a prediction for you.

Tablet PCs (and stuff like the iPad if you don't want to think of it as a Tablet) won't ever kill off the PC - it will just change the way we interact with it. The problem is that by trading in the small form factor of the Tablet, you give up the major processing power which the desk based PC gives you. Even as technology improves and we miniaturize more powerful chips, this only means that the desk based PC will either be even more powerful still or, if it has the same power, more budget friendly (due to it not needing such advanced manufacturing techniques). The only way that I can see you getting around this is if processing power eventually gets to the stage where we no longer need more of it (although I will be the first to admit that I'm no expert on this and am probably way off base).

In my opinion, what is more likely is that we will eventually get to a stage where bandwidth won't be an issue and everyone is permanently online via some kind of wireless system. By then, Tablets will just become dumb terminals which are used to wirelessly access your PC regardless of where it is physically stored (that or some form of cloud processing). This gives you the small form factor of a Tablet while still having major processing power.

And that is something I would love to see!

Update: Scott Adams nailed it in terms of my reaction to the iPad.