For and Against Apple iPad and Anticipating the Google Response

Gizmodo has complaints about the Apple iPad.

* the large bezel
* no cameras builtin – there is the camera connection system
* on screen keyboard – there is a docking station and keyboard accessory

* as previously noted at this site – no flash, no HDMI out, no multi-tasking

NPD Group complaint via Forbes
* no changes yet to the purchase model of TV shows or movies through the iTunes store

Not a Total Kindle (e-reader) Killer

IEEE Spectrum indicates that the iPad is not a Kindle Killer and feels that the iPad display will prevent it from dominating the e-reader category.

However, the iPad is probably a good enough e-reader. Being able to read for a couple of hours on the iPad and being able to use all of the other uses will probably limit the market potential of the dedicated e-reader. As the price of color e-ink or OLED comes down will mean that in a few years the dedicated e-reader will have a smaller and smaller niche.

Apple’s choice to go with LCD technology isn’t particularly surprising; the iPad will be used to display photos and videos, and to do that needs a full-color, full-motion display. So e-ink and its monochrome brethren are out. OLED technology, right now, is just too expensive. And Pixel Qi is a compromise; it gives up a bit in color saturation to pick up that visibility in sunlight. Steve Jobs isn’t one to compromise.

But the choice of LCD technology means that, in spite of the library of e-books that will be available for the iPad, this device no e-book reader.

Over at the Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory, a group of scientists looking at how best to read and navigate electronic documents on portable devices is also encouraged by the iPad. While the current reading applications don’t go beyond the state of the art, says researcher Scott Carter, “the form factor coupled with the screen capabilities should facilitate new media-rich reader applications as well as interactive collection browsing apps” that will make all our lives easier.

It’s not a printed book killer—or a Kindle killer. But, to be fair, it doesn’t have to be to succeed, it’s a sweet computer, certainly more appealing than a netbook

Apple iPad Kool-aid from the Designer and Executives who Developed it

Ten minute video-

Google and the iPad

Even through there are complaints about the iPad, it does open up the tablet category to far more competition and innovation.

Eric Schmidt has talked openly of creating a powerful and cheap netbook computer by late 2010. Judging from his words, the Google netbook (or, given the way fashions are trending, perhaps now a tablet) will be priced far below Apple’s range of $499 to $829.

Apple, long a seller of hardware, is thinking in terms of something cheaper than a laptop, or better than a netbook. Google sees its device as a means to accessing its main businesses of Internet search and, increasingly, Internet-based office applications like word processing. The Google machine might even be subsidized like a cellphone, thrown on at a deep discount for a subscriber to Google Apps.