iPad. Think Undifferent.

We’ve given Steve his chance to wow us with his latest love child. We’ve read all the big bloggers opinions. We’ve discussed it around the proverbial water cooler at work. Now it’s my turn to weigh in an the oversaturated topic.

Let’s Giddyup

Initial Opinion

Disappointment. With all the hype that this device got I realize that it is was going to be very hard for the actual device to meet it. Apart from the eBook reader angle, the iPad just feels like a bloated iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I think it will be a device worthy of replacing a coffee table book, but it’s not going to be replacing anybody’s laptop for things beyond reading e-mail.

Since the eBook aspect doesn’t appeal to me (I’m an audio book kinda guy) the only ‘feature’ that surprised me was the price.

The Price

The announcement of a $500 price tag was very surprising to all. And it wasn’t just surprising from people like me who pull opinions about Apple out of their hindquarters, most all of the Apple ‘experts’ were shocked by the low price as well.

I see the price though as brilliant for two reasons.

1. At having an iPad model at $500 they don’t get the bad press for charging $830 for the only model that qualifies as being the perfect balance of laptop power with smartphone mobility. Personally I think they should have taken it further and made an 8GB model for $399. That low priced model isn’t there to make a profit or even really be sold, it’s there to counter the high price argument.

2. Another reason for the $500 model is to make potential Kindle owners scratch their heads a bit and weigh their options. For $260 I can get a 6” screen that is only for reading books. For $500 I can get a 10” screen that is mainly for reading books. Or, for $500 I can get a 10” screen that can read books, browse the web, play games, check e-mail and play video. Hmmm.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall in Jeff Bezos’ office this week. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Amazon execs decide to switch up the Kindle to start following the razorblade model around April.

The Size

Another surprise to me was not only the size of the disk space but also the number of options for it. For the tablet device that is sitting between an iPhone and a MacBook I expected the hard drive space to sit in between them. I expected a 64GB and 128GB version.

But instead of the two options I expected, we got three lower spaced options. And not only are there three different hard drive space options to choose from you can also choose to pay extra for a 3G capable iPad.

Having six iPad model options is too many and is what UX types like to call choice paralyzation. If you give people too many choices they often don’t choose either for fear of picking the wrong one.

If were up to me, there would be three iPads, a 64GB, a 64GB 3G and 128GB 3G. You’re welcome, Steve.

Where’s the Innovation

Apples ability to innovate on computing is the main reason I was hesitant to bet against them. Steve Jobs has an ability to predict what the market needs before they realized it was ever a problem to begin with. He gives us a product that makes us say, “How did I live without this before?”

I was looking forward to what the Apple engineers were going to show us. I expected at least one killer feature to be revealed that truly validated this device’s existence in the not as mobile as a smartphone, but not as big as a laptop spectrum. But instead of innovation we got a very obvious device with actually a step back in a few areas.

What happened to this great American company that gave us such wonderful devices as the iPod, iPhone, iMac and MacBook Pro?

Here’s why I believe they iPad seems to lack that Apple innovation: Apple is good at redefining how we think of current computing devices.

They took a music industry that was in shambles with different music player makers pushing different formats on bland hardware and used that industry’s failures to craft exactly what the industry needed.

Rinse and repeat with the smart phone industry.

Apple’s innovation comes through when it has to introduce a product into an already saturated and mature market. Which is why I’m eager to see them bring a video game console to fruition.

This tablet, tweener computer, industry is basically nonexistent. Apple is the company that has to start this middleman computer market. Instead of getting to be the fashionable late, party crasher, they now are the host.

Playing it Safe

Perhaps Apple has lost its small company vibe and feel like it can no longer be the loose cannon, take big risk company it was of yesteryear. Now it tries to make the safe decisions and only make incremental increases to hardware. They’ve got this phenomenal success with the app store, so why not just release a product that can generate more app sales and get developers cranking out more apps. Just sit back and take the 30% off the sales to the bank.

I’m really hoping this isn’t so.

Final Thoughts

It appears as though the same thing that kept me from switching to the iPhone in the first two versions of it is going to be the same thing that keeps me from being an early iPad adopter: It has obvious hardware needs.

• No camera. Front or Back.
• No USB. How can you hope to get people to justify this thing as a possible laptop replacement when there’s no USB port?
• Hard drive space. This device looks as though it could be the best movie player of all. It’s small, it’s lightweight and it’s screen is just the right size. Parent will eat this up to avoid changing Dora DVDs every 20 minutes. But if it only holds 16GB, then space will become issue quickly when we’re talking video.
• 4:3 aspect ratio. Again back to the perfect movie player image getting blown up and the backwards step in innovation. The 4:3 aspect ration was so 2003. Going back to it is synonymous with putting my Chariots of Fire cassette into my Walkman before going on a run.
• HDMI Out. Again with the movie thing, I know! The iPad should let me plug it into my home theater HDTV and play the HD movies I got from iTunes.

Until the obvious hardware things are changed in the iPad I can’t justify owning one. I’m fine with owning it with obvious software issues (like the lack of multi-tasking) because they can always be fixed later and added via updated. I am not fine with buying this device to have some hardware shortcoming upgraded 2 months later, leaving my device obsolete.

So you’ve heard my ranting, what’s your opinion of the iPad. Are you going to get one? I would love to hear your opinion.

Also, I’m still not done talking about the iPad, but decided to cut short to not make this post monstrous. If you’d rather strike up a conversation via e-mail feel free to.