I got a lot right, I didn't get the multi-tasking, or hardware
keyboard, and thought it might have force feedback, but other than
that I got the screen size, the iPhone apps, the input, the features,
and the wi-fi with optional 3G connectivity. So not too bad.

Having watched the keynote and read the specifications online, I do
want one. I don't think I could 100% justify why, but I do want one.
Apple ship lots of products I don't want too, like the Mac Pro, or
their monitors, or their hi-fi, or any of their mice. They get it
wrong, and I can see that. But for the iPad, I can see so much that's
right. Reading the comments online however, mostly on mainstream sites
like the BBC, few seem to agree.

The complaints are essentially that it's nothing but a big iPod touch,
that it doesn't have USB, no multi-tasking, no flash, no GPS (it does,
in the 3G versions), no camera and in some cases, even that it doesn't
have an upgradeable battery, memory, hard disk, etc. I've even seen
people get so picky as to complain that the bevel around the screen is
too big. I'm assuming those are people without hands, and therefore
won't need somewhere to put them when holding the device.

Some of these complaints have merit, such as the lack of multi-tasking
(although I still expect a free OS upgrade to bring that in the Expose
style I mentioned), but most of these complaints are comparing this
directly against a PC and expecting all it's features to be the same.
I think it's quite clear that this isn't meant to be a full computer,
it's not meant to replace their existing Mac Book line, it's a new
product line, and therefore shouldn't be held to the same standard as
what came before. Traditional news sites are still calling this a
Tablet PC, which shows an immediate misunderstanding of what this is.
The lack of camera is also a big cause of complaint for many, but can
you imagine taking a photo with this thing? It's not exactly the most
elegantly shaped device for that. And as for a front-facing camera for
video-conferencing, the next time you're doing one of those on Skype,
try to hold the camera in front of you the whole time and keep it
pointed at your face. I don't think you'll find that too easy.

I come back to what I originally wrote, which is that for a lot of
people, computers are hard. They're complicated, they take a long time
to start up and shut down, they're a festering hole for viruses,
spyware, and often require to be wiped every year to cure the system
bloat. Older people need their kids and grandkids on standby to talk
them through how to do things. People buy laptops loaded with
advertising crud, and have poor experiences after just 6 months of
buying a new machine. I had somebody today with a year old laptop
wishing they could use it for target practice, so frustrating was the
fact it just seemed so slow.

With the iPad, say goodbye to all of that. It's as simple as a big
single screen that you touch. It's immediately tactile, immediately
understandable. It switches on instantly, it's there when you need it.
No more waiting for the computer to shut down. There's no viruses, no
spyware. Every one of them is the same, which means no compatibility
issues. Yes, it doesn't run multiple processes, but in return, that
means you're not going to have something that's starting in the
background and making everything slow down. The app store means
everything you can install on it has been checked over by Apple
beforehand, so it works, it's safe. No USB? No drivers to manage and
install.

These are trade-off's. What you get in return for having less control
and no user-installable apps is a system that simply works. It's an
appliance. Like a TV, or your washing machine. And if you're a power
user, and you want to run IRC, and IM, and a browser and listen to
music from Pandora all at the same time as browsing the web and
writing a blog post - then buy a laptop. This isn't for you. But if
you're an average user, and you do some browsing, and a little bit of
email, listen to a bit of music and work with an occasional
spreadsheet - this could be the thing for you. It's likely to redefine
how you think about a computer, and we should think of that as a good
thing.

Finally, I must mention Flash. The number one complaint I've seen is
the lack of it. Flash is the number one cause of browser crashes on OS
X, it's a proprietary Adobe technology with an expensive creative
suite and often does nothing more than slow things down. The two main
reasons for it - games, and video playback. For the games, the best
ones are likely to be converted for the App Store anyway (and many
already have been for the iPhone). For video, there's HTML5.

In existing HTML4, which is what browsers have been supporting until
now, video is not natively supported. That's why there's Flash, to
fill that missing hole. In HTML5 however, completely supported by
Safari, there is both now native support for video and audio. So if
you're a designer that wants to put video on your site, you can put it
right on the page without the need for Flash. That means faster
loading pages, less crashes, and more design control for the designer.
It's going to take a little time for sites to start swapping out their
Flash players for native HTML5 versions, but YouTube already announced
they were testing it last week, and many others will follow over the
coming months. So if you were Apple, and you knew Flash caused so many
crashes and problems, and you'd created all the hardware and software
in your new device yourself, would you want to include the proprietary
technology from another company in every box, or simply wait a few
months while the open standards of HTML5 took their rightful place?