Frankly – am I missing something? The iPad, as discussed in whytwitter many times cannot multi-task. Yet, the iPad is supposed to be the computing platform of the future even so it is like going back into the early ninties. You explain to your friends your new device has: no USB, no camera, no flash capabilities, optional keyboard and you cannot multi-task. But you paid serious money for it. You can only use it in your own home (or wherever you find a WiFi connection) – and you need another PC to set it up. Hmmm.

You will be looked at rather strangely – unless you talk to a ‘Apple lover’. Who will explain to you in detail that you do not need to listen to music whilst browsing the Internet. And if you really want to- you use your other Apple device. And what a cool experience it is not to have ‘Flash adverts’ – looks a lot better with big white boxes on the page. Not sure about that – in fact – it looks like something is ‘broken’.

Anyway, Apple will add multi-tasking, mobile advertising and an ebook reader to its hugely successful iPhone when it releases the fourth version of the phone’s operating system later this year.

Announcing iPhone OS 4.0 to developers at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters in California earlier, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said the new operating system would allow multi-tasking to the iPhone for the first time. He said: “We weren’t the first to this party but we’re going to be the best.”

The iPhone and iPod touch already allows multi-tasking for certain apps made by Apple but Jobs said his company had been trying to find a way to allow third-party apps to multi-task without slowing the device to a crawl or draining its battery life. The new OS will mean that third-party applications such as Spotify can continue to play music while the user checks email or surfs the web. However, multi-tasking will work only on the iPhone 3GS – older versions of the phone and older models of the iPod touch will not be able to use it.

Other features comprising what Jobs described as seven new “tent pole” features for the OS included the addition of Apple’s bookshop, iBooks, a gaming platform – called Game Centre – that allows people to challenge their friends, and a unified email inbox, allowing users to bring multiple email accounts into one place.

Ernest Doku, of mobile price comparison website, Omio.com, said: “With OS 4.0, Apple has finally addressed the issue that many iPhone users have been clamouring for by unveiling multitasking. Also, the introduction of the iBooks Store and Game Center network turns the iPhone and iPod touch into a portable e-reader and a fully fledged online gaming machine, broadening the appeal of the Apple’s handset beyond mere communications.”

But here comes my real question. Why do I need an iPad? The iPhone does most of the jobs. For the time being, I stick with my iFlop theory.

Comments welcome

Apple started taking early orders yesterday for its tablet, even though no one’s really sure what they’re buying.

Friday morning, the fool’s parade started. Apple is taking online “pre-orders” for its iPad tablet, which is supposed to begin shipping on April 3. Buying a new kind of product sight unseen is foolish. Especially given how mysterious Apple has been on what the iPad can do and what restrictions on capabilities and media access it will place on users and content providers.

Why blow $500 to $830 on a device that may not be what you expect? Just wait a mere three weeks to see for sure what it actually does and what surprises, good and bad, Apple has packed into the iPad.

Don’t get me wrong: The iPad concept is promising in many ways. And I have no doubt that the iPad will appeal to many people even if it’s not perfect. But we’ve all seen promising product demonstrations that resulted in major letdown when we finally got a hold of the real thing. Why take that chance? After all, the first-generation iPad is particularly likely to have disappointments, as it’s the version that will tell us what, after the hoopla dies down, Apple should have done.

Sure, we can expect Apple to make future innovations in the iPhone OS (which the iPad uses) available to the first generation of iPad devices through OS upgrades — as Apple has nicely done for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. But the iPad’s hardware isn’t upgradable, so you’ll be stuck with the iPad’s relatively low amounts of memory and its lack of connectors such as USB that I would expect Apple to remedy inthe future. And you’ll be stuck with whatever iTunes-based content locks Apple decides to place on media content and e-books.

Remember, the same thing happened with the iPod Touch, Apple’s iPhone-based PDA. The first-generation iPod Touch could play only a few sounds and even then only at a whisper, so its calendar alarms and new-email alerts were useless unless you wearing its earphones. You couldn’t change the volume without using the touchscreen — a real issue when driving, jogging, or carrying groceries. There was no microphone, so you couldn’t take voice memos or use services like Skype. (Apple even blocked external microphones from working on it!) Despite Apple making sure each iPhone OS revision has continued to support the first-generation iPod Touch, those hardware limits remain in the actual devices.
You can bet that similar types of issue will be discovered in the first iPad.

Maybe I’m wrong — maybe the iPad will be the full “magic” that Steve Jobs promises. Wonderful! If that’s the case, buy one when you know it really is magic — after people not employed by Apple have had a chance to really use it and put it through its paces. Until then, why send Apple your money until you know for sure? Doing so would be, well, foolish.
One positive sign in all this iPad hoopla: One of my breathless local TV news stations had its tech reporter at an Apple Store Thursday night hoping to find people lined up to camp out so they could be first in line Friday morning (at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, 5:30 a.m. Pacific) to order an iPad — the station was clearly hoping for the kind of lemming-like frenzy we saw for Windows 95 (remember that?), the first iPhone, and for fan-driven movies like the “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” and “Harry Potter” franchises.

But guess what: There was no line. Sure, it looked like a few people were willing to go online first thing in the morning to order their iPads sight unseen, or even head to an Apple Store before work today to order one. But only a few. Maybe the infamous Jobs reality distortion field does have limits after all. (Yes, I know you can’t pre-order an iPad at the Apple Store. Clearly the TV station’s anchorwoman didn’t know when she asked the on-the-scene reporter if people were lining up already. And I doubt she’s alone in that misimpression.)

A fool and his money are soon parted, the saying goes. Let’s hope most Apple fans are as smart as they claim to be.

The post is riddled with choice words and phrases like “concept UI,” “subject to change,” and how the device “might look,” which also came paired with the rumour igniting phrase “under development.” Those two magical words have our brains pondering the possibilities, but beyond our flights of fantasy, here is what Google’s official tablet experiments have entailed.

Have a look here:

According to the post, the Chromium team is testing a touchscreen user interface that includes these key points:

• Keyboard interaction with the screen: anchored, split, attached to focus.
• Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.
• Contextual actions triggered via dwell.
• Zooming UI for multiple tabs
• Tabs presented along the side of the screen
• Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

For those unfamiliar with Chrome OS, it is Google’s new web-centric mobile platform for laptops and netbooks. Chrome OS is unique in that unlike Windows or Mac operating systems, it is designed specifically for web applications, reducing the emphasis on localized software and replacing it with cloud-based programs. In other words, Chrome accesses programs and user data that reside on a web server, alleviating strains on internal processors and making accessing said information on a wider breadth of devices.

More important, there are more than 7 Mill netbooks out there, waiting to be upgraded. And the solution is around the corner. Netbook Pack – a slick version with the same functionality, available today. Maybe 2010 becomes a different OS race altogether. But – tablet PC or whatever you want to call it- Can you see any student reading a book without listening to music? So we are back to Chromes OS, the fast emerging market of the netbook and the software which makes best use of it. Like Netbook Pack, a Chrome OS version ready for your netbook today.

Comments welcome.

Are you planning on purchasing an iPad? Please comment below!

1.) The Name
Numerous names were being thrown around in the months/weeks leading up to the release (iTablet, iSlate, iPad) but which name was Apple going to choose? We had grown accustomed to referring to the device as the iTablet, could even see calling it the iSlate… but iPad never seemed quite right. Why would Apple want to name their new product something that sounds so familiar to the iPod? Some people are objecting to the name referring to it as the “iTampon“.

Talk about foresight, this Mad TV iPad skit aired several years ago… and easily became 10x funnier.

2.) No Multitasking
Are you serious…? Who thought this was a good idea? How can the iPad even compete with Netbooks if you can’t multitask? This means that if you’re writing a document you can’t listen to music, you can’t have TweetDeck open if you want to check your email, you can only do one thing at a time, which has always been a complaint with the iPhone.

3.) No Camera
Why is there no camera on the iPad, front or back? It’s got a microphone… but no camera. Look at the size of the case that surrounds the screen, there is ample space for a camera. The iPad should’ve at least came with a 3-megapixel camera built in. As it stands, this means no iChat/Skype chat for you. Good move Apple, good move.

4.) Huge Ridiculous Adapters
Want to access your camera or plug in something USB… well there’s an adapter for that, actually 2 separate adapters both excessively huge.

5.) Same Touch Keyboard
The iPad needed to re-revolutionize the keypad for touchscreen devices, make it easier to use. So what did we get… just a larger version of what we already had. It’ll be incredibly hard to type on, unless you’re lying flat with your knees holding the device up, or you buy the iPad Case (essentially a book cover).

BONUS: No Flash (We just couldn’t stop at 5)
Most of us are probably accustomed to Apple devices not being Flash compatible, but if Apple is truly wanting to compete with other Netbooks they need to remedy this. With a larger screen comes more responsibilities, i.e. you can’t just leave gigantic holes in the middle of webpages if you claim it to be “the best web experience you’ve ever had“.

The iPad is still in its infancy, so we’re sure that it’ll get better with time. Only time will tell if Apple’s iPad will be a success or an iFlop.

Now read on… BBC’s ‘clicks’ made a good comment, too. It’s the netbook, the smartbook, people don’t want to buy a keyboard as an accessory. Can you see any student reading a book without listening to music? So we are back to Chromes OS, the fast emerging market of the netbook and the software which makes best use of it. Like Netbook Pack, a Chrome OS version ready for your Netbook today.

Comments welcome!

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