The ultimate iPad?

I have owned my iPad (first gen 32Gb wifi) for over a year now. By coincidence I just happened to be in San Francisco on launch day and just couldn’t resist getting one. I predicted that they would be a massive hit and so far they have been.

How is it bearing up? Well to be honest it has been a mixed bag. Part of the original justification for purchasing the device was for my wife to use it surfing the web and to avoid scalding her lap but also the long battery life would be a distinct advantage. In reality this benefit was never realised because she still prefers to use the laptop for web surfing. I have to say that I agree with her.

Browsing the web - Don’t tell Steve Jobs but the truth is that surfing the web on an iPad is a bit of a disappointment. I often hit links by mistake or whilst trying to pinch or scroll. This tells that either the device, or my finger, isn’t optimal or precise enough for web surfing. Roughly translated I imagine Cupertino speak for this would be ‘website design has some way to go to be great on a touchscreen device’ but that’s another point. And don’t get me started on Flash because in this case I’m with Jobsy here. The fact that RIM is heavily promoting Flash compatibility on the Playbook just shows how far off the mark they are. Anyway, here’s a rundown feature by feature.

Battery life – is outstanding. Nothing more to say.

Perfromance – I’ve never had any CPU or memory related issues so again all is good. Wifi performance has been poor compared to my laptop on the same network though.

Screen – Despite not matching the ‘retina display’ resolution of the iPhone 4 it is still great. The colours are vibrant for watching movies and playing games. The retina display is rumoured for the iPad3.

Camera - I bought my iPad with my eyes wide open knowing that a camara equipped version (iPad2) would be waiting in the wings. In fact I could never understand at the time why the original iPad didn’t have one. We now know that it was because of graphics limitations with the A4 chip which are now resolved with the A5 successor. Anyway, this is now resolved.

USB/SD Card – Being locked down by iOS to iTunes is part and parcel of the new paradigm of mobile operating systems. This will change to the new iCloud services later. Should we need a file explorer in the 21st Century. I would like to see an inbuilt SD card reader though in the next device.

Keyboard – The iPad’s virtual keyboard is surprisingly decent for typing but I remain confused as to the position of some of the more obscure keys every now and again. The lack of a numbers on the front screen is painful as they are often required for passwords. I ended up purchasing a Bluetooth keyboard which I use when typing on the iPad for any duration.

Design – Both the original iPad and the successor, iPad2 look a cut above any other tablet out there. Top marks to Jonny and the team.

Case – My official Apple rubber/neoprene case hasn’t aged well. It still does the job but looks tatty and I have to remove it when placing the iPad in a dock stand. All resolved with iPad2 and smartcovers.

Apps – Like the iPhone I’m still a bit perplexed by hundreds of thousands of iOS apps. Yes I have a few dozen but as ever these appear to be more about marketing than actual use.

Conclusion – so what more is there to say. The original iPad has been a runaway hit and the iPad2 fixes some of the first gen issues. The inclusion of a USB/SD card port might be my only bugbear but I could fix that if I forked out for the adapter.

The fact that we still prefer to use a laptop at home for web surfing and the fact that I often use a keyboard with my iPad however leads me to think that perhaps the ultimate iPad won’t be the iPad3. If Steve can lower the pricepoint of the next Macbook Air it might just be that.