By Ben Salter

Apple has finally announced one of the worst kept secrets in the industry, the iPad. For all the specs and promotional information check out their website. I'll start with a question: Anyone else not happy with that name? Apple are normally pretty good at this stuff, and "i" is a fashion statement in contemporary society, but it sounds like a technological breakthrough in womens' hygiene, rather than a portable media device. It's also too close to iPod in my opinion.

We’ve been waiting for Apple to announce a tablet Mac for months, but instead they’ve come up with the iPad; it's not really a Mac version of the tablet PC at all. Steve Jobs says it’s for the market that wants something between the Macbook and the iPhone. But does this audience really exist? First impressions suggest that the iPad is nothing more than an oversized iPod Touch. We can listen to music, watch videos, use the internet and check our email. All of these are features on the iTouch and iPhone. iBooks makes a little more sense, as the screen is actually big enough to realistically read an entire book. I like getting all of my news, and reading magazine-type articles on the Internet. I’m part of the so called digital revolution and the reason magazines and newspaper are beginning to struggle and slowly fade away. However, e-books have never interested me in the slightest. There’s something about a physical novel, the feel of the pages and the smell of a fresh book, that makes reading a quality story meaningful. It’s more exciting to read an actual book and you feel you’ve accomplished something when you’re finished. That feeling isn’t there on the completion of an e-book. Furthermore, is the iPad really going to save print publications? Tech-savvy consumers have forgone magazines in favour of the faster, cheaper, internet. Gaming publications have been hit the hardest, and I don't see gamers all of a sudden paying to read magazines on their iPad when they can get all of that information for free online.

This brings me to my biggest problem with the iPad. Why won’t it let us multitask? Rumour has it a future operating system will include support to use multiple apps at once, like iTunes while browsing the web, but why isn’t it included from the onset?

There’s also no camera, perhaps it’s a little too big for that so I’m willing to let it slide, but with the popularity of the iPhone as a camera for everyday use, it seems a little odd to leave it out. But where is flash?! It's hardly a modern media device if it doesn't support flash.

What about gaming? No doubt that’s what most of you here actually care about. It’s no secret that Apple has been lagging behind Microsoft for, well forever, in the games department on their Mac line-up. It’s steadily improving, but it’s never going to rival Windows as a gaming platform, at least, not in this decade. So, being the geniuses that they are, Apple decided to focus on the iPod Touch (and iPhone) of late in an attempt to rival the Nintendo DS as the king of the handheld realm. The fact of the matter is they’re never going to beat Nintendo at their own game. Nintendo has been in control of the handheld arena for many years now, and I doubt that’ll change any time soon. Taking that into consideration, the iPad seems destined to fail as a possible gaming device. Before the announcement we heard a lot more about the possibility of games than the device itself, but today we haven’t heard all the much in terms of new content. It appears to be an oversized iPod Touch with no genuine additional control methods and, besides the bigger screen, it doesn’t seem to be better suited to gaming.

Sure, it’ll be more powerful than the Nintendo DS or PSP, but is it really a portable system? It seems too big for that and yet too weak to compete against PCs, so maybe Apple truly has created something in the middle; something that does not yet have a rival. The thing is, do I really want one of these if I already have a computer (or console) and an iPod? Not really. It’s great that it’ll play iPod Touch games, but they were designed for a smaller screen. It’s not until iPad specific games are made that we’ll truly see its potential as a gaming platform. The touch and tilt controls certainly haven’t sold me yet. The DS is doing just fine, but it also has face buttons, and touch screen controls seem better suited to a smaller surface.

I can buy a Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iPod Touch, iPhone, Nintendo DS, or a PSP cheaper than the iPad. That, at this stage, is the real killer from a gaming perspective. If the iPad was meant to inject Apple as a serious contender in the gaming industry, it is along way from doing so.

Now’s probably a good time to tell you that I actually quite like Apple. But with my MacBook, iPod, phone and gaming consoles, I just don’t see the point in the iPad at this point in time. I’m going to hold off 6 months, when they come out and inevitably announce the cheaper, smaller, iPad Nano.

Tags:

apple apps ds games iBooks ICC iPad iphone iPod Jobs psp Steve touch

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