The iPad is Bad for the Consumer

I’m really confused about why so many people are fawning over the Apple iPad.  I really don’t get it.  It’s an oversized and stunted iPod Touch.  I read silly things like “I’d buy one just to watch movies when I travel.“  Excuse me:  what????  The darn thing has a 4:3 aspect ratio!  We’ve come so far in getting to 16:9 and suddenly we go backwards?  And there’s no HDMI out on it either!  So you cannot plug it into a bigger screen at home and then pop it into your backpack to finish your show as you leave the house.  Did Apple do *any* use cases for this device?  Before you comment that it *can* do video out, yeah, I know that.  You can buy an expensive dock and then get 480p.  Woo hoo.  Come on, really?  Not even HD out?  Really?  What century is Apple in?

Then there’s the “Apple’s iPad Tablet Could Slay eBooks and Netbooks.”  Steve Jobs slammed netbooks as “slow” and sporting “low-quality displays”. The problem with them, he said, is that ” netbooks aren’t better than anything”. So let’s look at this for a moment.  The iPad has a 1024×768 display that’s not wide screen.  Sure, it uses a nice newer oleophobic, LED-backlit, 9.7-inch screen that uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology.  Newer netbooks will use something similar but will be wide screen.   The nVidia Tegra/Intel Atom chip is incredible at media encoding/decoding.  I don’t know if Apple’s A4 CPU will be much different, but it won’t be radically better.  But the real killer is that the iPad runs the iPhone OS.  It’s single tasking for goodness sakes.  Apple will sell iWork applications for $10 each – but can you image the use case for that?  You cannot switch from your word processor to your spreadsheet and back?  We’ve been able to work like that for what, 25 years or so?  One of the smartest moves Apple ever did was base OS X on the unix-like BSD operating system.  They got great networking and multi-tasking out of the gate.  But on the iPad?  No way.  Did I already ask what century Apple is in?  Oh, and did I mention that there’s no USB ports on the iPad either?  So you cannot just pull out your thumb drive to move some data between machines.   Golly.  I use that all the time.  I carry a thumb drive on my key chain I use it so often.

The biggest thing about this is how simple it would have been for Apple to just hit a grand slam.  Widescreen.  A real multi-tasking OS.  The A4 can decode HD video the way the new Atom/Nvidia chips can – imagine if they’d put an HDMI port in!   And Bluetooth for a wireless keyboard/mouse when at a desk.   Then you’d have a netbook killer *and* a Kindle/Nook killer.  Then the only real issue would be their Evil policies around application acceptance.  I’ve blogged on that before so I won’t again… but it’s even worse that a new platform – a real tablet – will live in such a controlled ecosystem.  If someone really comes up with an amazing new application that is the killer application for tablets (maybe one we have not imagined yet) Apple can just kill the competition out of the App Store.  You cannot buy software from anyone else.  This device that is now clearly more than a phone but less than a general purpose PC, but the fact that you can buy iWork for it indicates it’s more general purpose than not… and now Apple controls the software distribution channel?  Smart business move, but very bad for the consumer.  Restricting the open market is never good for the consumer.

Of course some people (some of whom I really respect) seem to express an attitude that since the software on the device is so easy to use, so polished, that they don’t mind all the other problems.  Kudos to Apple for working so hard on the interfaces and doing such a good job in general on their software.  Other software vendors should aspire to that.  Of course, they cannot use the ‘private APIs’ that Apple can use.  They will never have the access to the in-depth knowledge base of how the inside of the machine/OS runs so that you can optimize your code.  But hell, folks had those disadvantages against Microsoft too and they… oh, wait.   A lot of categories Microsoft now controls dominant market share in.  Gee, how’d they do that?  Apple’s playing the same game.  Smart for them, but bad for the consumer in the long run.

There’s a lot of foo about Flash support.  Frankly, I admire Apple for taking a stand.  I don’t like Flash.  It’s a completely proprietary, close ecosystem controlled by Adobe.  A lot of what I don’t like about APple I don’t like about Adobe (though there are things I do like about Adobe).   I think that Flex is silly and needlessly complex.  I think that Flash video has been a very big detriment overall to what video COULD BE on the net.  Having spent the last 7 years working with IPTV technology, I actually know what is possible.  And Flash video ain’t it!    But since so many of today’s web sites are flash based (including PRN, where I work – where we just launched our new website that is SO much better than our old one) then it’s pretty shocking that you cannot do flash on the iPad.   Just think about it – major companies web sites you cannot see with an iPad.  But then again, if you consider that Apple really wants you to consume media through their channel…  maybe it’s not to strange.  But is it good for the consumer?

Personally, I want a tablet.  I have several use cases for one in my life.  I like to read in bed, but part of what my daily word consumption is the web.  I read RSS feeds, web pages, great articles I pick up from tweets… and then I read a book.  I ride the San Francisco Muni to work a lot, and I won’t pull out a notebook there.  I would a tablet.   In meetings I don’t like to put the screen up and block peoples faces.  But I do like having a computer there so that I can either look something up fast, or more likely, respond to an urgent IM with enough of a reply to let them know I grok the problem and will get back to them as soon as possible.  I want to be able to use the tablet to watch movies too – only in HD and wide screen.    I think there’s a LOT of things you can do with a computer that is with me pervasively like I’d use a tablet.  But I want to be able to install software from an open ecosystem where the best offerings compete for my dollars.  Yes, I do want to develop software for it myself – or at least be able to if the demands of my job and kids ever give me more time.  And I most certainly don’t want to spend $500+ on a device only to then become a captive customer to Apple.

The biggest thing I see is that Apple is using this as a play to control even more of the media puzzle.  This is how Apple will control more of the casual use market (folks who just basically email and simple surfing).  This is how Apple will challenge Amazon for the eBook market.  This is how Apple will try to control the distribution market for eMagazines and eNews.   It’s not about being a good tablet, it’s about being a good content delivery device.  And maybe it will be that for a large market segment.   I’m sure the iPad will  sell like hot cakes.  And I’m sure that as the price drops many more will buy it.

But not me.  No thanks Apple.  I’ll wait for the MSI Android Tablet, or something like it.   What about you?