I know everyone and their mother will be doing a blog post about the iPad, but I’d just like to share my ideas about why the iPad would be right for me, and for a lot of other people too.

At the moment, James & I share a MacBook (which is primarily mine) and an iMac. We use the iMac for development & design work because of the larger screen, and my MacBook is the ‘sofa device’. I basically use it just to catch up with news feeds, check & edit my numbers documents, chat to people on IM & browse the net. Yes, my laptop is capable of much more than this, and occasionally I use Photoshop or coda to do some design work, but when it comes down to it I really just use it for web browsing and so on. I don’t play games on it because the graphics chip isn’t the best, and the puzzle games on my iPhone are more fun to play.

A lot of geeks are complaining about the iPad. I just want to point out that the iPad is not really for geeks… or at least it’s not aimed as a work device for geeks. It is not a power user device, or a content provider device; it’s a device for people who want to check their emails quickly while they relax on the sofa or in bed – content consumers. A laptop is unwieldy to use when you are curled up, and so the iPad is perfect for browsing the web to check something quickly, or reading an ebook.

The main issues that geeks are complaining about seem to be:

• It doesn’t have flash - um, flash games are crappy¹ & YouTube has a dedicated app. I don’t use flash for anything else. Oh no, I won’t see flash adverts. I’ll live.
• No multitasking, which basically means you can’t stream music and read email at the same time - I buy all the music I love, which means it’s in my iTunes library – I don’t bother with streaming services because I don’t like ads. That means I can listen to as much music as I like while I browse the web, or write a quick blog post. And thanks, but I love the way apple have used push notifications on my iPhone as a workaround to preserve battery life. I’m fine with that trade off. I really don’t see the big deal about this – push notifications will let me know if someone talks to be on IM, or if I get mentioned on twitter.
• The 3G model is too expensive – I don’t want 3G. I have an iPhone to keep tabs on my email on the move & free wi-fi is prolific these days anyway. I don’t see myself walking down the street and pulling it out to read emails, it’s just not that sort of thing. If I’m going anywhere I’ll prefer to use that over my iPhone for a quick google search on the move. I just want a new sofa/bed device.
• It’s got a big bezel – how did you expect to hold it? You need to be able to hold it in portrait and landscape. This means a thumb sized bezel all the way around.
• It’s not 16:9 - neither are books. Widescreen is too awkward to look at for portrait view, which is obviously what Apple are expecting to be the primary orientation of this thing. I can live with a black bar top and bottom of a video, if it means getting the best reading experience possible. The only thing that is best in widescreen are videos; almost everything else will look great on that screen.
• No camera on the back – I use my iPhone to take spur-of-the-moment, whip-it-out-of-my-pocket photos, and so do a hell of a lot of people. For an event or trip where I know I’m going to want a camera, I take my Sony cybershot. Can you really see yourself holding up a tablet device to take a photo?
• No front facing camera – this is not primarily a business device²; video conferencing is just not that important. As for non businesses, how many people do you know who have webcams on their laptops that actually use them for more than taking silly photos of themselves? Everyone I know who has a skype account never logs into it, or if they do they use text or audio chat more than video chat. My sister and I IM when we both have the capability to video chat, and so do a lot of my friends. It’s just a pain in the arse – it’s a fun gimmick but no one I know actually bothers with it. Especially if they have the tv or music on. Who would I talk to even if I did have a front facing camera? I don’t talk to anyone with my laptop, and that has one.

As you can see, these ‘major flaws’ just aren’t issues for me. I understand that they might be for other people, but I don’t think those people are who Apple are aiming this at.

I want an ebook reader that has a bigger screen than my iPhone, which is what I read on a lot of the time. I’d say that I my reading time is now split about 50% paper, 50% iPhone screen. I want something I can pick up to check and update my budgeting numbers doc on without having to faff around. To all you uber-geeks complaining that it’s not just a touch screen MacBook pro³ – it’s not for you, and it’s got great specs for the low price.

How many people with an iPhone have got into the habit of checking their email or reading news feeds in bed?! Just think how much more pleasurable an experience that will be with a larger screen. Using a laptop in bed is doable, but uncomfortable. The iPad seems to me to be the perfect compromise between the power of a laptop and the convenience of an iPhone. Have you seen the reviews written by people who have actually handled this thing? It’s fast, and it’s intuitive. It’s easy. ‘Normal’ internet users are going to go mad over this thing, just like they did with the iPhone and iPod Touch. If people don’t do a lot of computer work, but instead just need something to check emails & browse the web, why do these people even need a laptop anymore? This is apple’s answer, and it’s at a hell of a competitive price. Other companies have released netbooks… which are really just cheap, small, slower laptops.

Of course, I won’t be able to afford one for yonks and yonks. But before this week, I was planning to save for a small 13″ or 15″ MacBook Pro to replace my aging MacBook – something I could use on the sofa still, and play some games on. Now, I just want an iPad instead… it does everything I want, and it’s a beautiful device to boot. I’ll take one please, and I suspect James will too.

1. A lot of the games available for the iPhone OS are awesome so who needs flash games anyway! I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the iPad with that lovely big screen. [↩]
2. that’s not to say businesses won’t use them – it could be used as a great keynote display device, hooked up to a projector… or to refer to things quickly, or for travelling, but no one would use an iPad as their primary computer in a business environment. [↩]
3. On a side note: I can’t believe that there are so many people complaining that it doesn’t live up to the hype… I understand this complaint when it comes to devices that have prototypes shown off at computing expos and such, that don’t live up to the manufacturer’s promises, but apple has never hyped this product once. It’s all made up by the rumour mill – so how can it possibly let people down when it didn’t promise anything? [↩]