What are iPhone Push Notifications? They are a service that Apple provides for iPhone developers and users. Instead of each application on iPhone having it’s own service running to listen for incoming notification, Apple provides one service to listen for incoming notifications. Apple can this way insure that it is passive on the iPhone’s part, thereby maximizing battery life. And since it is one service running for the entire OS and any application that needs it, and not a background service for each app, it really is the maximum efficient way for apps to receive notifications while “in the background.”

I really do like the concept of a single Push Notification service for the sake of battery life and phone performance. I use Push Notifications primarily for BeejiveIM (Gtalk), Pushmail, Facebook, and Echofon (twitter). I’ll use BeejiveIM as an example of how this works.

In order for me to stay signed in to Gtalk when BeejiveIM is “in the background” (I use quotation marks because the app is actually not running in the background at all, and until iPhone OS 4 comes out, it’s state is not even stored in memory, making it’s launch time a little long to feel like it really is running in the background), BeejiveIM’s servers must maintain my Gtalk account’s connection to the Gtalk server. If someone sends me an instant message, the BeejiveIM server through which my account is signed in, sends a notification to the Apple Push Notification Server (PNS), and the PNS pushes the notification to my phone where I see both a pop-up message, and a badge is placed on the app’s icon.

If you followed that you can see a drawback here in using a 3rd party server through which I am signed in to my Gtalk account, but I’ve never really had a problem with my account being signed in through Beejive’s middleman server. And for the most part it works really well.

But here are the real draw backs. And the kicker is, these could be eliminated by better implementation (isn’t Apple supposed to excel at implementation?). Current implementation is better than nothing (certainly better than the iPhone OS 1 and 2 days where we had NOTHING) but I REALLY hope Apple expands Push Notifications soon.

I would like to see 2 things ASAP:

1. Notification Management (and no more single mode disruptive notification popups)

Push Notifications do not stack, but in it’s current implementation, if they did, it would be even worse! Because they popup over everything, and nothing else is accessible until the notification is dismissed. And if I got 10 notifications while my phone was in my pocket or something, I would have to acknowledge and dismiss each one. And of course, once I have acknowledged and dismissed a notification it is gone, never to be seen again.

So I want Notification Management. The way I want this to work is to have a place where all notifications are collected (push or local, missed calls, ALL notifications) and I can view them at any time, mark some or all as read etc.

And then to replace disruptive popups, how about a double height status bar of a color not yet used by iPhone, say yellow perhaps (green is for active calls when not viewing the call screen, looks like red is for active VOIP calls in iPhone OS 4, blue is for an active tethering session), with text displaying the number of new notifications.

2. I want the push notifications to wake the app in question so it can update with the new information

You see, the push notification system shows me something is new, but the app receiving the push notification does not update with that new information. The only thing the app gets is a badge with a number on the icon. So I have to wait for the app to pull that new info in when I open it. It’s even worse right now than it will be with iPhone OS 4, because right now the app is killed completely when closed so when opening, I must wait for the app to load itself into memory. In iPhone OS 4 this will be somewhat alleviated because OS 4 will save the state of the app in active memory so that when you activate it again, it can pick up right where it left off (Sound familiar Android users?). So you don’t have to wait for it to load itself into memory. But you still have to wait on the app to receive the new information that was already sent to you in a push notification.

So to fix this, how about to go along with the way Apple is approaching multitasking (freezing the app in active memory), let the push notification wake the app up in the background, update with the new information, then if the user hasn’t activated that app, let it go back to sleep. That way it’s ready to go when I open it.

These two things seem simple to implement, and they seem like no brainers to me. And the lack of those two things really hurts the iPhone user experience. But Apple has had a habit of SLOWLY (painfully so) adding much needed features as we go so we will see what develops for iPhone OS 5 I suppose. I can’t imagine Apple won’t expand on their way of approaching multi-tasking…

Let me start with the MacBook Pro. I love the look, feel, battery life, and power of the new MacBook Pros. The unibody design makes it more rugged than the MacBook Pro from the previous era on which I type now. It’s solid, it’s fast, it’s got 8 hours or so of battery life. That’s all great!

But, Apple did something when they went to the unibody design that REALLY ticked me off. They dropped the Express/34 slot off all models but the 17” and replaced it with an SD card slot.

...

SAY WHAT?!?

As a professional in the field of film and video I have NEVER used an SD card. I have on occasion used an SD Card reader for my personal camera. But never in my professional field of work with my laptop have I even considered the need for an SD Card reader. I do however, use the Express/34 card slot every day to connect eSATA drives to my laptop. It is a professional laptop, being a MacBook Pro and all. The MacBook Pro does not have eSATA ports, as most laptops do not. But with that wonderful standard called the Express/34 slot, I can use any number of adapters to connect all manner of gadgets, hard drives etc (including by the way, SD Card reader adapters). I would not be able to use my laptop in this professional setting very well without the Express/34 card slot.

The real kicker here is that putting an SD Card reader on the consumer MacBooks makes sense. But to replace a real professional standard multi purpose slot with an SD Card reader that only serves the one purpose is just a low blow to Apple’s loyal professional users! The position from Apple seems to be, “if you need a Express/34 Card slot, get the 17” MacBook Pro. Well I happen to be a fan of the 15” considering the 17” just too big. One of my colleagues had a 17” for some time. It’s just too darn big. My 15” is perfect and has served me well. I don’t want to be forced to buy the big bulky 17” but that is exactly what I would have to do if I upgraded right now.

Let me now move to the Pro Apps. Apple’s Pro Apps still don’t run in 64 bit. We Pro Apps users are still living in the 32 bit, access to only 4 gigs of RAM past. And the key application, Final Cut Pro, is STILL a mostly carbon app, not Cocoa (the OS X API of choice).

And now today I am seeing disturbing reports from Apple Insider, and Mac Rumors that Apple is planning to scale it’s Pro Apps to fit into a more prosumer model.

Hello? Final Cut PRO!

Does the use of the word “Pro” in these names Apple has bestowed on these products now mean nothing? There is no doubt that I have lots of things I would like to see happen to Final Cut Pro, and it’s bundled apps. I believe there is a number of ways they could be improved and would love to consult with Apple (I’m only slightly kidding, I have lots of ideas I wish Apple would ask me about), but the words “scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers” frightens me. If that means what I think it means, then I’ll be needing to learn to use other editing software soon.

So Apple, I’m pleading with you, remember your Pro users and don’t spit in their collective faces please! Your Pro Apps and Pro computers have been a wonderful thing in my life, but now I’m very worried!

I know I’m just one person, but I have a lot of Professional Apple using friends that feel the same way. Don’t drive us out of the camp!

It can’t have escaped the notice of very many people that Steve Jobs posted an open letter concerning his ”Thoughts on Flash.”

I agree with it for the most part. I despise flash! I have a plugin installed to block flash unless I specially tell it to load. And I CERTAINLY don’t want it draining my mobile phone’s battery. But I digress.

Toward’s the end of his letter, Mr. Jobs notes his beef with Adobe over the fact that Adobe has only just come to fully support OS X’s native programing language of Cocoa even though OS X has been shipping for 10 years now. And I agree, it has been quite irritating that Adobe stuck with the Carbon API for so long when it was obviously an intermediary step in the transition from OS 9 to OS X. And of course the Carbon API in OS X is now no longer being maintained, and will never have support for 64 bit, thus finally forcing Adobe to move to Cocoa with the release of CS5 recently. So yeah, I completely agree with Jobs that Adobe is VERY LATE to this party. And frankly the apps have suffered from having been programed in Carbon. This is a layperson’s perspective, but there is always a difference in feel and responsiveness between an app written in Carbon, and an app written in Cocoa. It’s noticeable to the user. And it was noticeable in apps like Photoshop.

Now I come to my beef. Steve states in that latter portion of the letter that, “Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.” And he is correct. The last major third party dev to fully adopt the platform. But here’s a dirty little secret. Apple released an update, not too long ago, to one of it’s major applications that is still written in Carbon, and is still 32 bit. It’s Final Cut Pro! You would think, given that Final Cut really is a major player these days, that Apple would put a little more effort into it’s development. I remember thinking at one time that surely Final Cut 6 would be a native Cocoa app. And here we are at Final Cut 7. No 64 bit, no Cocoa! I mean, speaking of being late to the party…

So uhh, yeah… as much as I hate flash myself, this makes Steve seem rather silly to me! I’m thinking he should get his own house in order before he starts trying to clean Adobe’s!

Did I get what I wanted? I got some of it, there were things I didn’t get that I never expected to get and doubt whether Apple will even ever give me. I’ll go over my list from the previous post.

1. Verizon

Well, I knew there would likely be nothing in the iPhone OS event about opening up to other carriers in the U.S. even if it is going to happen (which I still doubt by the way). This event was about iPhone OS 4, and I think support for other carriers would be announced with a hardware event since the current iPhone hardware only fully works on AT&T’s network. In my book this makes a multi carrier strategy announcement a hardware announcement.

And anyway, much as I would like to see a CDMA/EV-DO iPhone, in my opinion, it will never happen. You see, Apple has stated on many occasions that their business model is to make one iPhone. AT&T’s network operates on the same standard as 80% of the rest of the world. T-Mobile uses weird 3G frequencies, and Verizon and Sprint run CDMA/EV-DO networks (we’re not even going to talk about Sprint’s weird iDEN network left over from their Nextel merger, and their affinity WiMax). So the point here is that AT&T is the only network I see the iPhone running on for now, inept though AT&T may be compared to Verizon. However, as we move to 4G this may change. Verizon is going to have the first commercial LTE network (4G). LTE is the 4G technology of choice throughout most of the world so we may well see a Verizon iPhone when Verizon has deployed LTE across their entire footprint with full voice support (in other words they can’t be relying on CDMA for voice or it still won’t work for Apple).

So that’s a long explanation for my opinion that we won’t see a Verizon iPhone for a few years to come, and it STINKS!

2. Multi-Tasking

Yes, we got it. At least we got it in ways that count and make sense. I was blown away. Summer can’t come fast enough. Apple will be providing 7 OS integrated services to reduce the processor strain and battery life issues of having each app do it’s own thing when in the background, but the result will be the same to the end user. And state saving (freezing) apps will be huge! For those apps that don’t need to run background services, state saving will be the same as multi tasking without the battery drain or CPU cycles.

So yeah, I think I’m happy with the way Apple is implementing this. Still, took them long enough!

3. Better Notifications

Yeah… didn’t get it. We still have single mode pop ups that obliterate previous notifications if there are any, and stop you doing whatever it is you are in the middle of. STUPID! But I can deal… for now.

4. Release the App store shackles

I knew this would never happen. And it didn’t. I doubt that Apple will ever give up their current app model. I’ll have to evaluate whether I can deal with this at the end of my current AT&T contract.

5. Better Lock Screen

Oh Apple how you disappoint! Such a wasted opportunity!

6. Customization

Oooo, looky, pretty wallpaper behind my icons! Seriously, it seems small, but it is a baby step in the right direction.

7. Widgets

You know, I’m not the only one that wants them. And in the Q&A after the event, one of the media people asked why Apple wasn’t giving any love to widgets, glancable info, or better lock screen info. The answer was a sidestep. That either means it’s coming in future builds of the OS, or they didn’t want to draw any more attention to this glaring omission. In any event, we didn’t get it (yet, he says hopefully).

8. Notes and to-dos

Still no word on to-dos. And I have a feeling that Apple is going to do nothing about my “Die Marker Felt, die” sentiment in Notes. However, though not directly talked about, according to some sleuthing of the iPhone geeks around the interwebz, it does seem as if over the air note sync is a part of iPhone OS 4

9. Unified Inbox View

We got that and more. There are some major updates for Mail on the way. I am a very happy camper in this department! See Apple, I know you can impress, you still have it in you! Go Apple! Now give me my other stuff!

10. Better Home screen icon management

Folders for the home screen have been long in coming! But it is going to be awesome! And it is going to help a LOT!

So, I got some stuff, and I didn’t get some stuff. I’ll have to see if I’m satisfied when this update comes out in the summer.

Apple is holding a special event tomorrow to show the world what iPhone OS 4 holds, let’s see what they need to do to keep me happy.

It’s no secret that the iPhone has changed the landscape of smart-phones forever. In 2007, most of the smart phones on the market were not very good. Palm was a stagnating platform, and yes Blackberry seemed to be taking over the space, but even they seemed to have a problem tapping the potential of mobile devices. Then Apple waltzed right in and changed everything.

Even before Apple announced the iPhone I knew my next phone was going to be a smartphone. I had quite outgrown dumb phones, I needed to be able to get my email, and access my calendar, notes, todos and internet on the fly. So when Apple held their special iPhone announcement event I watched with rapt attention. I saw so much potential in this new platform that I ignored any shortcomings I saw. And towards the end of the event, when Apple announced that the only U.S. carrier for the iPhone would be Cingular (now AT&T), I thought, “well how bad can Cingular be, really? I mean, they are the number 2 carrier in the nation, and I have known people who really like Cingular, so I’ll bet I can live with them for the iPhone.” And of course, 3G coverage was a non-issue since the first iPhone was stupidly, 2G GSM (EDGE/GPRS) only (and yes I even thought it was stupid at the time but chose to overlook that as well).

So my first week with the iPhone was both a dismal nightmare, and a happy joyous time. Happy, because the phone was wonderful on many fronts, not the least of which was the seamless syncing with my Mac. But dismal nightmare in that AT&T’s network was so overloaded that first week that over half of the calls I tried to place would fail to go through, or would drop after a couple minutes if they did go through. And I discovered that AT&T’s in building coverage was abysmal compared to Verizon. I never really thought about it much with Verizon, I only remember a handful of times where a structure affected my ability to get signal with Verizon. AT&T on the other hand was (and is) quite different. It seemed that a good 80% of the buildings I walked into would not get good signal at all, and quite often would cause me to loose signal altogether (Yes, I am aware there are areas where AT&T does not hold a license in the 850 MHz spectrum and Verizon does, but that is not the issue in my home area so it’s not that at all). The worst part was, that I would constantly miss calls in the office where I work in downtown Franklin, TN. because the building in question was one of the places where AT&T in-building coverage was quite abysmal (I did finally learn where the sweet spot was that would at least allow my phone to ring so I could pick it up and run out of the office toward the edge of the building and talk).

Eventually AT&T did clear up the network congestion problem on their 2G network so that at least I stopped experiencing dropped calls and calls failing to go through after a couple weeks. But I discovered when I got my 3GS that the 3G network drops calls all the time, and still does. Oh yeah, and AT&T 3G footprint is garbage!

But these aren’t the end of my disappointments with the iPhone. I waited software release after software release for that untapped potential of the platform I spoke of earlier to be tapped. And yes, Apple finally did give us 3rd party applications, which opened the door for IM clients (I was sorely wanting a mobile IM client), but I was in for a nasty shock! 3rd party apps were, and are not allowed to continue running in the background. This effectively shot the whole idea of an IM client in the foot, and listening to my favorite Pandora station while reading my email, that’s out too. Yes, Apple finally gave us push notifications, which works okay for IM clients, but what about full on multi-tasking? Still no go!

And while I’m talking about notifications, the iPhone’s notification system is also abysmal! No worse, it’s beyond abysmal… I don’t have a word bad enough to describe the current state of iPhone notifications. Get a second notification before having a chance to look at the first? Too bad, the new notification pushed the old one into oblivion! GONE! No chance to see what it was. Now you have to go hunting for badged apps on the home screen.

Oh, and speaking of the home screen, I’m reminded of the lock screen. Talk about a wasted opportunity. Why can’t I get a glimpse of my email on the lock screen? Maybe a glance would tell me if it’s important or not. Know what the lock screen is good for? Telling the time, and seeing the last notification. Oh, and I suppose you can see how good your cellular signal is That’s IT!

To cap this all off, my brother-in-law was here last week with his Android device. It galloped circles around my iPhone in terms of features and abilities. Yes, it was a tad clunkier, a tad rougher around the edges but so what? And yes, his particular model was a “bit” under powered in the processor department but there are Android phones out there with bigger processors. I was impressed with Android. I suddenly realized this was not at all like Apple against Microsoft because Google has a fine mobile OS in Android while Windows just stinks!

So that is a VERY brief overview of how I am feeling about the platform. There’s more, but you are probably already wondering what Apple is going to have to do to get me excited about the platform again. So let’s get started on that list. In order of importance.

1. VERIZON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the love of smart phones let me have the stupid phone on a REAL carrier with a REAL 3G footprint and a reliable network. Need I say more?

2. Multi-Tasking!!!!!!!!!!

Give me the option of running apps in the background! I can’t stand the fact that I can’t listen to Pandora in the background while I do other things, or keep Google Latitude updated, or whatever. Android can do it! And Android devices don’t seem to have worse battery life than iPhone, possibly even better.

3. BETTER NOTIFICATIONS!!!

I want a unified notification system 2 years ago. Enough said.

4. Release the App Store Shackles

I’m sick of apps I want getting denied by Apple. Apple decided they didn’t like google and so denied their Latitude app. In fact, while I’m fine with Apple running the App store, I shouldn’t be limited to the apps that Apple decides I can and can’t have. I should be able to download and install any app I want on MY device.

5. Better Lock Screen

I’ve already talked about this, just make it useful instead of stupid waste of space. And let me CUSTOMIZE it.

6. Customization in general!

This is another area where Apple gets and F minus on the iPhone. There is almost nothing I can customize about it. I don’t want my icons to be limited to Apple’s grid system of left to right icons. I want to decide the info I see on my lock screen, and my home screen for that matter.

7. WIDGETS

Android home screen widgets really are awesome and Apple had better get on that train!

8. Notes and to-dos

You know, I really like that fact that my contacts, calendars, and mail all sync wirelessly over the internet. Now make my notes sync over the air as well! It’s a no brainer. Oh, and get rid of that STUPID, non customizable Marker Felt font in the notes app!

And to-dos don’t even exist natively on the iPhone even though the calendar apps that iPhone syncs with (such as Apple’s own iCal) have to-dos. It’s embarrassing that iPhone doesn’t have to-dos!

9. Unified Inbox view

I love Mail on the iPhone, don’t get me wrong, but not being able to view email from all my accounts in one view like in the full grown version of Mail on OS X drives me crazy.

10. Better home screen icon management.

It’s currently horrendous trying to organize icons on the home screens.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I consider all of these fairly important. Frankly, Android has passed the iPhone OS as if it was sitting still. And I’m tired of defending Apple for their lagging behind. I will still defend their computers, and Mac OS X. I think Apple still has the best computer platform in the world, but they better impress me tomorrow on their mobile platform front or they are going to loose me!

So you may or may not be wondering, how does TJ, professional Macintosh user (film and design), causal Macintosh user (Mac Mini as a media center, personal computing like email, web browsing, personal information management), iPhone user (for personal and professional use), feel about the iPad?

If you are not wondering, please feel free to read anyway… Oh, you were expecting me to say “please feel free to skip this post?” Of course not, I don’t want you clicking away from my website!

I know you are thinking, there’s already a multitude of reviews and opinions about the iPad, why would I add to that instead of point you to some article or other that I mostly agree with or like in some way, or pointing out the stupid ones? Because this is my website silly and I can post anything I want on it!

So, the iPad

There is no doubt that the iPad is a gorgeous device. It’s thin, lightweight and beautiful. And it’s full of multi touch goodness with an evolved (from the iPhone and iPod touch) multi touch UI. There are so many things about this device that make my mouth water, and I even went into the iPad announcement with the mindset that I could not see how I would even want such a device. And yet Apple has done it again. They have made me want, seemingly against my very will. I went into this product announcement pretty sure that Apple was going to announce some sort of tablet device, and pretty sure I would not like it and certainly would not want it. And yet after it was all said and done, and despite any arguments I have against it, I wouldn’t mind having one (on at least some level).

The good

Where do I begin?
Like almost (and note the use of the word “almost") everything Apple does, it looks like the iPad follows suite. iPad is (or looks to be) easy to use, fun to use, and still manages to bring power to the hands of the user (don’t flame me iPad dissenters, I’ll get to the bad in a bit).

Horsepower!
The iPad has it. At least from the demo and the accounts I have read of the hands on experience, there is no sluggishness in iPad’s performance. It looks like a very smooth experience. Webpages render quickly, scrolling is silky smooth, pinch zooming is a breeze, all the little animations never stutter, and so on. This is in contrast to the first iPhone. I still have a first generation iPhone in my house, it’s my wife’s phone. As break through as that device was, by comparison to my 3GS, and now especially in comparison to the iPad, the original iPhone is seriously flawed in that it is underpowered. Nothing is snappy on the original iPhone!

The interface
iPad excels at bringing the multi touch experience from the iPhone to the larger screen in a way that makes sense and builds on the ease of use that the iPhone has. You see something on the screen you want to get to, you touch it. Anyone can use this device. I mean really. Gone are the days of, “do I click or double click?” “Oh, you meant right click not left click?” or “What do you mean by control click?” It’s all gone because now! See it, want it, touch it. It’s (mostly) that simple. And at least from what I could see, pretty much every thing built on the iPhone’s interface and made sense, as well as looks beautiful. This should be no surprise, this is Apple’s strength. Great aesthetic design and ease of use.

It does real stuff
Yeah, it carries over all the functionality of the iPhone; Mail, Safari, iPod, Calendar, Contacts, Photos, Notes, not to mention all the applications in the App Store that are already available for the iPhone and will run natively right on the iPad (iPad will even pixel double iPhone apps so that they will run full screen). And there is an SDK for developers to develop apps specific to iPad. Yeah, it’s got all that, but Apple has also done something else that’s interesting…

iWork
Those of you on PCs may not realize it, but Apple’s iWork suite is amazing and quite compatible with Microsoft Office in terms of importing documents created by MS Office, and exporting documents to MS Office format. And most importantly to me, it’s easier and more fun to use. Apple has created a version of iWork just for the iPad. And this is interesting. combine iWork for iPad with the really cool keyboard Dock Steve Jobs also announce for the iPad, like for when you need to do some serious typing, and this device really does become almost the only device “many users” will need to take with them almost anywhere. And don’t underestimate how powerful this could be for presentations. And it brings the “See it, want it, touch it” interface I mentioned earlier to iWork. People are forever asking me how to do stuff in iWork or MS Office. And it looks to me like this could eliminate a lot of that.

I do think multi touch is the future, and Apple is pioneering a lot of things the right way in this area. It seems to me that the multi touch UI is a far more natural feeling interface and does not require me to “learn” anything. No more, “do I click, double click, right click?” That’s just gone, and replaced with, there’s a button that I want so I just touch it. There’s an email I want, so I just touch it.

The Bad

Multi What?
That’s right, a carry over from the iPhone (and this limitation I also hate on the iPhone). NO MULTI-TASKING! This really does kill me and it really is pretty much a deal breaker. On the one hand, I really do hate to keep harping on this subject, it has after all been hotly debated. And Apple will tell you that this is a feature and not a flaw, because look at what multi-tasking would do to battery life. And yet, this concept is so old to computing, and so essential that one wonders how Apple can (KEEP) glazing right over this and glibly pretending that it doesn’t matter, and even pretends it is better to not multi-task. They are completely missing the point here. Sure the push notifications they introduced is a really good idea for things like IM where keeping the whole application open in the background and constantly communicating with the server would really unnecessarily drain the battery fairly quickly on a portable device (and we all certainly know that on the iPhone anyway, battery life REALLY stinks!). But what if, as I’m working on an iWork document I want to have Pandora playing in the background? Sorry, that’s not allowed because you can’t run more than one app at a time! Do you know how UTTERLY RETARDED THIS IS? Sorry, I felt like using all caps… I’m over it now… Yeah so, I’m even willing to compromise with Apple. Let us have some interface whereby we choose 1 or 2 applications we would like to keep backgrounded (such as pandora). I mean, I have my iPhone hacked to allow me to run as many apps in the background as I want. Do you know how often I background more than one app at a time? Not very. It’s usually Pandora, or if on a trip, my GPS navigation app so that I don’t loose my place or miss a direction while checking my email from the passenger seat while my wife drives. I really do find that apps open so quickly that switching back and forth between apps isn’t a problem for the most part and it’s really only 2 or 3 apps at most that need to stay open in the background. Push Notifications really are a good way to handle IM clients and the like. It just wouldn’t take much to satisfy me here.

I Can’t see you
Do you realize how AWESOME the iPad would be for video chats? And yet though Apple builds cameras into their laptops, right at the top of the screen, and builds them into their new cinema displays, and though there’s plenty of room somewhere on the iPad’s bezel (some people have even complained about how stinking big that bezel is), there is no camera to be found on the iPad! This really is a shame and a HUGE missed opportunity on Apple’s part.

Connect stuff? Kidding right? That would make iPad too useful!
Related to “I Can’t see you” is the fact that you can’t just buy a webcam for the iPad either because guess what, the only access you are going to get to the iPad is through the standard iPod connecter. And thats great, I love the iPod connector, I just wish it at least had a USB port or two on it as well. They’re thin little ports and would be easy enough to hide in the design of the iPad. Why? Why? Why? can’t we have more connectivity? This is actually a gripe I have even with Apple’s full grown computers (You know, like removing the Express/34 Card slot from the “professional” laptops). The iPhone isn’t a problem just having the iPod connector. But this is a little different. I may want to connect devices to this thing if I’m really going to use it like a computer.

I need my mommy!
And still related is the fact that this cannot be a standalone device. It is pretty much going to be necessary to connect it to a full grown computer at some point. It is designed to be a device that syncs with a computer. It can’t even do over the air updates! So if nothing else than for updates it is going to have to be connected to a computer running Windows or OS X. I think Apple has again missed an opportunity.

What’s a widescreen?
The iPad has what’s essentially a 4x3 screen in a widescreen world. Enough said.

No Flash support
Now, I have to tell you I have mixed feelings about this one. I HATE Adobe Flash, I despise it. I think it represents everything that is wrong with web-design today. In fact, for a long time I have tried to keep flash off my website, and you currently have to look hard in the archives to find any flash on this website. And any flash you find on my website will be when I posted a YouTube video. And I hate doing it. Flash is such a heavy technology. In fact, I have an add-on installed on my computer that prevents flash from loading unless I specifically tell it to load. Flash video will peg my processor at anywhere from 50 to 70 percent. And my computer is not too shabby. And this is not just the flash browser plugin for the Mac. I have observed this phenomenon on Windows too. Flash just chews up CPU cycles in a bad way, and boy do I hate flash when I’m running my laptop on battery power. Using that much CPU cycles not only makes a little heater out of my laptop but kills that battery in a hurry! That being said, Flash is sometimes essential at this stage in the internet game. There are times when you simply have to have the flash browser plugin installed to make some websites work. Which is why I like my “clicktoflash” plugin. If I really need flash to load on a website, all I have to do is click it. I think this is the way it should work on the iPad. I don’t mind that it doesn’t load flash by default. To me that is a feature! But at least give me the option to load it if I really want to!

Saved from the evil apps!
This closed app ecosystem is really getting tiresome! It’s the same app ecosystem that is being used on the iPhone. I’m okay with Apple being a gate keeper to some degree, I’m okay with the apps being completely sandboxed. What I’m not okay with is the way Apple has gone about this. Apple sometimes rejects apps without explanation, or sometimes with an explanation that doesn’t make sense. Take the Google Latitude app for iPhone as an example. Apple rejected it because it “duplicated functionality” and “confuses the user.” I’m sorry but while Latitude may have some of the same functionality of the stock maps application, it is not the same thing. And frankly, I’m not okay with Apple being my app gate keeper in this sense! I’m okay with them making sure it doesn’t destabilize the system. I’m okay with them making sure it plays within the app sandbox. But no application should be rejected unless it violates these two things. And I’m using Latitude just as an example. I was so severely disappointed and enraged at Apple when they rejected the Latitude app that I wanted to punch Steve Jobs right in the chops (well almost at least). But to me this demonstrates a very real problem/flaw with the iPhone OS app ecosystem! You see on my computer, I install any app I want, but on my Phone and now Tablet computer? Forget it. Apple tells me if I can or can’t install Google’s Latitude app and that’s just the way it is! And frankly, it’s disturbing and disgusting!

We love the small footprint and cruddy 3G service!
Yeah, the cellular data version of the iPad is effectively saddled to AT&T… again (sigh, sigh, sigh). Sure it’s an “unlocked” device, but it only supports the 3G bands that AT&T uses (let’s not even talk about the stupid micro sim!) How hard would it be to make a version that supports T-Mobile’s 3G band, and a version that supports Verizon and Sprint’s 3G? Or at least Verizon and Sprint, seeing how Verizon only has 5 TIMES MORE 3G COVERAGE than AT&T. Even Sprint has more 3G coverage than AT&T. And though AT&T’s 3G (UMTS with HSDPA being rolled out) may be technically faster than Verizon’s, Verizon consistently has a better 3G experience. And even if the problem is that AT&T’s network is just overloaded by all the iPhones and other data hungry devices, isn’t the answer to spread the load out among the other networks? Have I mentioned that I don’t live in a AT&T 3G area. But Verizon has 3G in my area… sigh!

Why do I need an iPad?

Now, I do think the iPad would probably be great for my wife. In fact, though it will be a couple years, when her laptop needs replaced, we may well get her an iPad. She can sync it to the Mac Mini Media center we have when it does need to sync with a big computer, or needs a software update. And for the things she does it would be perfect and inexpensive.

But why would I get one? Given the cons of this device, and the fact that anything I would do with the iPad I can do just as well on my iPhone. And when I need more horsepower than my iPhone, I need a full grown OS, I need OS X. So why would I get one?

So it looks like I’m just not in Apple’s target audience anyway. But I really can’t see why if you have a laptop and a good smartphone (like the iPhone), why would you need the iPad? It’s too limited at this time! I know I said toward the beginning of this article that I wouldn’t mind having one. And I wouldn’t. From the aspect that it’s a cool flashy device, and it’s beautiful, I wouldn’t mind having one. But it would have to be free or dirt cheap as you can see from my conclusion. Because really, it’s not worth spending the money on! I think Apple missed the boat!