There has been a lot of disappointment around the launch of the Apple iPad. I believe the iPad isn’t the product everyone was hoping for, because it is actually a different product. It’s not an iTablet at all, it’s an iReader. I believe that the iTablet is still in development, and I’ll attempt to rationalise this in this post.

The first big thing, is that the co-founder of Apple (Steve Wozniak) has, himself, described it as an eReader:

I believe that the iPad development was started just after the iPhone was released; there are a few reasons why I think this.

• It looks like an iPhone.
• It’s running iPhone software.
• It syncs the same way the iPhone does.
• There has been minimal software development in making it.
• There has been minimal hardware development in making it.

This is the reason why the iPad is cheaper than expected, there is nothing new here. There are new iWork Apps, but these are charged for separately. Other than that, all the software has to do is double the size of everything. This is not a revolutionary product.

The processor which they claimed was revolutionary, appears to be just a collection of 4 other pre-made components (which have all been used before), with an Apple logo stuck on the top of it.

To top it all off, it look like the books can only be purchased in the US at launch.

In fact, I dont think its even a very good product; the UI at times is comical.

• The orphaned ‘slide to unlock’ button
• The icons with huge gaps between each one
• You still can’t have more than 4 apps in the bottom dock
• You have to scroll between pages of Apps, even though there is more empty space than used space on the screen
• The iBook UI appears to have been “stolen”

I fail to believe that this is the tablet product which Apple has been working on for years, when its based on a product which is only a few years old.  My prediction is that we will see a tablet based Mac from Apple late this year, or early next year.  I also think that the iPhone 2 will use the new processor that is in the iPad.

I’ll leave you with Hitlers opinion of the iPad.