The iPad fails to be as revolutionary as Apple say it is
For all the flash and hyperbole, Apple’s new darling, the iPad, is essentially useless.
This column is being written on an Acer Aspire One netbook that retails for $250. While using a word processor, it also is running two chat clients, an Internet browser with multiple tabs open, including a tab with a Hulu.com video, and a music player. There is a USB flash drive plugged into it as well. This description is necessary, because these are all things that cannot be done on the high-end, $500-plus iPad. All the iPad can do that the above-described netbook cannot is respond when it is poked. Apple’s new “innovation” runs one program at a time. It does not support Flash and, save for the docking bay by which to charge it, has no external ports.
Even the iPhone could take pictures and make calls, which this blunder cannot. Apple is saying it is the “perfect” way to view photos but, save for loading them onto another computer and uploading them onto the Internet, there is no way to get photos onto an iPad.
Of course, the most damning argument against the iPad is that there are other tablet computers that do more, better and sell for cheaper. Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are trying to carve out a niche in the book universe, but the real story comes from a company called Archos.
The Archos 9 tablet computer functions as an actual computer rather than a big cell phone that does not make calls. It runs a full version of Windows 7 without any weird restrictions, with an 80-gigabyte hard drive for $550, whereas an iPad with 64 GB of storage will run you $829. The Archos does not sacrifice any of the gee-whiz touch functions, and whether you are a “Mac” or a “PC,” the fact that it runs an actual computer operating system rather than a polished-up cell phone OS makes it infinitely more useful in any number of situations.
Granted, if any company can pull off selling a large tablet computer with less functionality than its own cell phone, it’s Apple. Marketing and branding are their bread and butter.
After all, this is the company that’s been selling overpriced computers running basic Unix operating systems on the selling points of fashion and not-being-Microsoft for years and years.
