iPad Review

The Apple iPad has been available in Canada for a week now but I have had one to try out for about three weeks.  I have had a lot of people ask me if I would buy one and No, I would not. For the following reasons:

• Too expensive - for the low end price of $550, you could get a real pretty computer real computer. Or get an iPod Touch for less than half of that. 
• I have an iPod Touch which I use all the time. The iPad is too much like it and doesn't fit into my pocket. 
• The iPad lacks several key functions that I need in a computer:
• Flash player - it sounds like it never will support this. 
• Multitasking - I never realized how I have taken this for granted until I don't have it. 
• Web cam - even $300 netbooks have this. 
• Can't edit Google Docs docs probably.  I use Google Docs a lot. 
• VERY Limited file sharing between applications. I can live with this on my iPod but this is one thing  that keeps the iPad from being a computer. 
• Better alternatives on their way.  Thanks to Google Android OS, there are several Android Tablets that are about to enter the market and some of them look very good.  Dell even has one coming out this summer. And they have all of the missing functions that I need for less money. 

Who would like to own an iPad?  I do think there is market for these, it just doesn't include me. If you are looking for a personal e-book reader combination media player and you need the larger screen than you will love this.  It plays movies, audio, music wonderfully.  You can read books, newspapers, magazines it very well, but not websites with Flash objects so makes it poor for students. 

The applications for iPad are similar as those for iPhone which can give you some very productive tools but you are still limited by the limited file sharing between applications.  One way that App producing get around this is a Wifi network connection to your primary computer but if you work in an environment where this is blocks, this doesn't help.