Author
Cody Sharp
By now you have likely read many things about Apple’s new iPad. I imagine some were good, some were bad. I wanted to do an old Ben Franklin style list, listing its pros on one side and its cons on the other side. Please let me know if I am missing something on either side. The end result of this list should be able to tell us whether or not the device makes sense to buy.
Pros:
- Interface is extremely similar to the iPhone/iPod Touch. This means that most of the 50 million odd owners of one of these devices should be able to pick it up and go.
- The App Store is the iPad’s single biggest strength. No company has a finer base of programs (or nearly as many) available to its end users. Apparently 140,000 or so of those App Store programs will be able to be loaded up right away on the upcoming iPad.
- Large screen. In fact, its 10 inches makes it larger than most netbook screens, portable DVD players and mobile video game players
- 10 hour battery life is pretty decent.
- Big developer buy-in – It was good to see both Gameloft and EA demo their stuff during today’s presentation
- Ability to read books, newspapers and magazines in a simple format.
- Built in speaker and microphone
Cons:
- No multitasking. In fact, its Safari browser seemingly doesn’t support multiple websites being pulled up
- No flash. Flash is a major part of the web. Without it being included, you will likely be missing a lot.
- No removable battery. When it dies completely, so does the iPad.
- It’s too big to easily carry in one hand. 1.5 pounds can weigh you down after an hour or so of reading.
- Questionable endurance. How long can a device that only weighs 1.5 pounds take abuse? One of its selling points is that kids could use this for their textbooks in school. I don’t think I am going to allow Little Bobby Butterfingers near this $500 piece of technology.
- No HDMI port, no camera, no built in phone
- Screen does not use 16:9 aspect ratio (as many videos now are) resulting in a black box on each side when they are played.
Where does that leave us? On the ropes I think. Personally I think I’ll hold off for a while and see what happens. What are you going to do?