My First of Many Impressions of the Apple iPad

My very first impression while listening to Apple's presenation yesterday was "Version 2 will definitely be better". In terms of the V1 release, the approach of this int the market is at best, like the release of the original iPhone. Meaning: there is room for improvement. Problem is, in 2007 there was nothing like the iPhone and it was clearly something different. Now comes the iPad and it is essentially a big iPod Touch and many people own an iPhone and could say, "Ok: this is a big iPod".

Lots of people I know (techies) are complaining about things like multi-tasking but most techies can't help but think like techies and Apple thinks about physical and software design and along with the techie stuff. When I think about a device I want, or I speculate on the future of a certain piece of technology, I try and think of how I would explain it to my mom (or yours, maybe over dinner... maybe a nice bottle of wine). If I don't think she'd understand the problem, or the feature, or the point, then I multiply that by 80% (Apple's market) and think, "Ok, maybe thats why they did this, and maybe it makes sense".

I'm staunchly anti-drm and very much pro open standards, but when it comes to consumer devices and bringing technology understanding to the masses, I appreciate Apple's design aesthetic and approach.

There is definitely room for improvement and I'm sure next year they'll carefully select a few more features to sell in a new version. That is my first impression and I've had many more since then but instead of trying to write them all now I'll be posting snippets too big for twitter over the next few days. People love to argue with me even though they know I'm right: What do you think is the biggest miss (or hit) with the new iPad (besides the damn name)?

And, yes, I'll buy one, probably non 3G with 32g storage.

John Haro's Blahg

posts from a technologist and ne'er-do-well

My First of Many Impressions of the Apple iPad