With this in mind, it took me talking to be people with some background in CS and hardware to get a good explanation of why Apple would have left off seemingly obvious things like a USB, HDMI and the webcam. Turns out there are very real technical and UX issues with a lot of those things. Which goes to show, for all the blog posts out there, and how smart we all think we are, most of us don’t know a whole lot more about computers than the average person.

Yourself obviously excluded Gary.

Yes, yes, I know, you want it built-in, but you’ll have to wait for the iPad 3V [S]. Besides, you’re going to have a helluva time keeping your thumb out of the way of the dang camera while you’re holding the thing at arm’s length to focus on you.

Isn’t there anything faster than a 12-to-18 month Apple rev cycle?

The thing that is most striking to me is that the device is just as you described – the next generation of computing device. Everyone wants it to be more without comprehending what the “simple” first version we have now entails. Yes, many people (all of us with higher expectations) already have the tablet experience in an iPhone, smaller-scale though it may be. But we are missing the difference that twice the screen size will make, and that was vividly illustrated to me in watching the keynote presentation last night, and looking closely at the demo of the iWork apps.

My first expectation was that they would be simple, since there are too many complex issues to figure out in how to manage all the data & interaction with “just” a touch interface. But in watching the video, the concept of radically changing the way I interact with a computer solidified, and I felt clear about the amount of work that had gone into figuring out the “that’s-just-the-way-it-should-work” methods of moving columns in a spreadsheet, automatically scaling text around an image, and moving objects/pages/slides in a presentation around. Such a new model will immediately frustrate us with what we think it cannot do, but watching the sections that caught my eye again of the demo of apps written *exclusively* for this device started to give me an idea of things it CAN do that I haven’t yet even imagined.

Just as I watched the hands-down success of the iPhone illustrated by my 2-year-old daughter and 65-year-old mother using it without instruction on the same day I received it, I have little doubt that this kind of device will again shift the way we all expect all computers to work. Yes, tablets have always existed (Wacom does good business in 23″ iPad-style connectors to our bigger computers), but not yet have they been matched with an interface and OS that is designed for the new interaction model.

Sorry for the long soap-box. Must be time to dust off my blog and get to pontificating in my own yard.

Thanks for the excellent posts!

John Gruber had a great take on it: This model of computing is akin to automatic transmissions in cars. If someone whats to get 100% involved in the driving experience, than they would want a manual, but for most people, most of the time, an automatic is the right choice.

Thoughts?

This post was mentioned on Twitter by aDogNamedPants: iPad, I love you, Apple, you broke my heart. My hastily written response to todays event: http://bit.ly/936SCw...

Any way, you bring up an interesting point. Yes, they bungled the presentation, and yes, there are aspects of the iPad itself that I think undermine the concept, but is the product itself flawed? I’d say no, but given what I’ve already written, if you take Apple at its word, then possibly.

On the one hand, the device is clearly not an oversized iPhone to me. Yes, it speaks the same interaction language, and yes the form factor is similar, but the way Apple is using this language and this size more significant than just blowing up what they already have. Take the mail app, or the calendar app. Compared to the iPhone it seems clear to me that this is a bespoke solution. On the iPhone these apps are, I think, best described as “great, for a phone.” On the iPod the become simply “great.”

As for photo editing, that is actually where I think actually starts to shine. In addition to any default editing capabilities (and I believe there are some, but I’ll have to double check) it’s hard for me not to get excited to see what iPhone version of Photoshop becomes with the screen and processing of the iPad. Right now that app is a bit of a stretch for the iPhone, but what I love is that does away with 20 years of PhotoShop interaction models and asks what the process should look like now, with totally fresh eyes. This is what I love about the concept of the iPad, it has at least the potential of taking a lot of what makes computers hard for people now and making it very simple. By removing things most people don’t need (a file system) or don’t need often (a keyboard) it allows developers the chance to re-envision how people do things on a computer. Something I think is long over due.

On the other hand, with the narrative of the drop today, and some seemingly simple hardware features missing, a camera being the most obvious (though that dock is no picnic either), I wonder if I’m on the same wavelength as Apple, and the event today left me a little shaken on that front.

You do seem to say, they bungled how to present it, they bungled what to call it, they missed some things that it needed. Maybe the actual product concept from Apple is wrong, and you’re trying to see it how you’d want it to be and to be thought of.

For me it is just a big phone, without the phone, without the camera, with another possible monthly service plan, with another device I have to keep in sync with all of my info/movies/photos. I can’t edit pictures (well), create movies, write long documents. Without the iPhone having existed, I see that having an instant on device to handle email, web and info is great, but the iPhone already exists, it has already shifted the paradigm, so the iPad just does the same but bigger?

If I can get a MacBook for $999 is an iPad for $699 (64gb, just wifi) compelling? I’m losing out a lot for that $300 cheaper. I think another big thing I haven’t seen addressed is that the iPad seems to be stuck in “single user”. No sharing a laptop with different emails, setups, etc.

I know I’m a cynic. Sorry.