Noel Rappin Writes Here

iPad, iPad, iPad. Five Random Thoughts

• Given that Apple’s business model for most of the past 30 years has been not to compete on feature lists, but rather to pare down features in the name of user experience, that a tech analyst would at least pause before proclaiming the iPad to be a failure because it doesn’t have feature X.

• I don’t think the iWork stuff got enough attention. In particular, I could see Keynote being a big deal. It has less text entry and more object manipulation than Pages, and with video out, it turns the iPad into a pretty nice presentation tool.

• A lot, though, will depend on whether the soft keyboard is something that a touch typist can reasonably use – I wouldn’t expect it to be as fast as a full keyboard, but if I can get in the ballpark, then this becomes useful for a wide range of tasks. Just to throw a couple names at random, Scrivener and MarsEdit become plausible iPad apps if typing is reasonable.

• Do I need one? Which is a different question from do I want one. Right now, the WiFi only seems too restrictive, and the 3G version seems too expensive. Some mechanism by which the iPad could use an iPhones 3G connection (outright tethering, or possibly a connection using the local bluetooth to share files) would be very nice.

• I don’t have any special insight, but I wouldn’t be surprised if leaving off a front-facing camera was a pure human factors play. It seems highly likely that getting a camera in place to do video chat on this thing would be a pain.