2 Years of Apple's iPad

As much as the iPad has changed the face of portable computing and e-reading, it's hard to believe that it was introduced just two years ago.

It was a big difficult to categorize at first. It was like an oversized iPhone without the mobile phone. It was like an oversized iPod touch with 3G networking as an option. With it 9.7" 1024 x 768 pixel display, it was a high-resolution platform compared to smartphones and even many netbooks. And it was utterly unlike the tablets of the day, most of which were bulky Windows devices.

At a glance, it's not easy to distinguish the original iPad from today's iPad 2, and it's very likely the same will go for the iPad 3. The size and shape are just right, and the only improvements to date have been moving to a dual-core processor and adding cameras for FaceTime.

Of course, with its larger display, we saw a whole new category of apps designed to use all that extra space, helping to create a distinct iPad platform that runs the same OS as the iPhone and iPod touch but gives you more room to work.

Alan Zisman (Zis Mac): I was an elementary school computer lab teacher at the time the iPad was announced - and the announcement created a huge buzz amongst my students. When the iPad was released in the US but not (at the time) in Canada, there was disappointment but even more buzz - I helped a group of students print out a paper cut-out iPad - glued onto cardboard, they got to parade around with their own (faux) iPads prior to availability in Canada.

When they were finally released in Canada, I didn't line up on release day, but I did pick one up from a local Apple retailer later that weekend. By then (48 hours after release) they only had stock of the most expensive model - 64 GB storage, WiFi + 3G - but's the model that I wanted anyway.

I took it to my elementary school and let students line up to get 3-5 minutes hands-on time with it. For a while, I suspect I was the most popular teacher in the school.

For me, one of the best features of the iPad (though an optional one) has been little commented on - and that's that (at least for the 3G models) Apple was able to get the various mobile providers - in the US, Canada, and other countries - to offer data packages without contracts and with starting prices lower than for most other devices.

As a result, while I am mostly able to go online using WiFi - at home and out and about - I have a $15/month data package that ensures that I'm connected everywhere else as well. When I need it, it's an incredible convenience. I don't have a mobile phone, but with Skype on my iPad, I'm able to make calls wherever I am as needed, for instance.

I've chatted with mobile provider folks (up to vice-president level executives), and they all deny that Apple put any pressure on them, but they still don't match iPad data prices for any other devices - whether subsidized by a fixed contract or purchased by the end-user. There's a story here, but I don't know what it is!

Jason Schrader (Maximize Your Mac): I just want to say that I cannot wait to buy an iPad 3!  My daughter (who is 3) is an absolute wiz with an iPod touch and I cannot wait to see what an iPad brings for her.

Austin Leeds (Apple Everywhere): My iPad has been quite possibly the best investment I've ever made (I hope my newly-acquired 1987 Buick LeSabre T-Type can at least stand somewhere in the shadow of my iPad's usefulness). For two years, it's been everything from tuba to email machine to photo editing platform (I still see the iPad's intuitive and surprisingly natural interface taking over a lot of photo editing from traditional desktops once its graphics capabilities reach a higher state of evolution) to oversized portable gaming console to digital picture frame.

I plan on buying an iPad 3 once they are released, regardless of whatever new features are added, whatever advancements are made, and whatever the critics say. But I'm still keeping my iPad 1. Two iPads are always better than one!

Alan Zisman: I'm also an iPad 1 owner who's thinking seriously of buying an iPad 3 when they're released. That said:

1. I found the iPad 2 less compelling - a not particularly good camera (in a form factor that's awkward for taking pictures) along with a faster processor and more RAM. A faster processor and more RAM are always welcome, but I still haven't found either processor speed or the amount of RAM (a relatively paltry 256 MB!) in the original iPad to be constraints in anything I'm doing.
2. At the same time, if the rumoured 2048 x 1436 pixel Retina Display comes to pass on the iPad 3, I wonder whether that will work well. The current 1024 x 762 is workable on the 10" screen - quadrupling the number of pixels risks making things like web pages unreadable due to tiny type. Yes, screen magnification is just a gesture away, but having to do that routinely on every new web page could - I suspect - get tedious fast.

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see on that one!

Brian Gray (Fruitful Editing): Last year my wife purchased an iPad 2 for herself to use instead of her aging 12" PowerBook. I tried to convince her that this would not be an adequate replacement for a regular computer, but she went ahead anyway. I was sure the iPad would fail to meet her needs.

...this is the computing device she was destined to use all along.

Well, I can admit when I'm wrong. It turns out this is the computing device she was destined to use all along. I've also been evaluating my own computing needs and am starting to question if an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard is all I need for 80% of the time.

Product names aside, does anyone else think the iPad is destined to become the ultimate low-end "Mac" ?

Austin Leeds: I think ultimately, the iPad will indeed become the ultimate low-end "Mac". As far as price goes, it's a lot less expensive than its laptop brethren of similar capabilities, and it has the advantage of current support and good parts availability. I plan to add a new battery to my iPad 1 when the time comes.

I'm fairly certain the iPad just kicked the 12" PowerBook G4 off its coveted "best portable low-end Mac" throne. Sure, the 12" PB G4 can still do some things the iPad can't, but they can go toe-to-toe in price, the iPad's battery lasts a lot longer, and it seems substantially easier to repair, if you know what you're doing.

Charles Moore (several columns): I agree that the iPad seems as if it's been around longer than two years. It's one of those innovations, like, I guess, the Internet itself, that becomes part of the backdrop of day-to-day life.

I resisted the iPad for more than a year. I didn't like touchscreens, and I still don't after seven months of iPad usership, but the 'Pad has become so integrated into my diurnal routines that usually the first thing I do upon awakening is to grab the slab to check the weather, my main email accounts, and the morning news. Likewise, a similar routine before I retire.

That said, I am far from being an unalloyed iPad aficionado. There's the aforenoted aversion to touchscreens, but my biggest beef with the iPad is the iOS's boneheadedly lame facility for working with text, which is my stock in trade. Actually, both objections are different facets of the same issue. Without the positive electromechanical precison of mouse and cursor input, I feel like I'm trying to play the piano while wearing wooly mittens. Photo editing on a touchscreen? Not my cup of tea. I want my mouse!

All that would be bad enough if it was all I found uncongenial about iPad computing, but unhappily it isn't. I also profoundly miss multitasking, and what's purported to pass for it in iOS newspeak is a bad joke (see How iOS Multitasking Really Works on Macworld for details on how it does - or doesn't - work). I also detest full screen application interfaces, find the incapacity to have multiple document and/or application windows open simultaneously a horribly constipating workflow bottleneck, and loath losing the degree of control one has with a document- and folder-based directory file system interface. And don't get me going about Apple's perverse refusal to equip the iPad with a real USB port, and preferably a card reader. PC tablet makers do it, so don't say it's physically impractical. The iPad is also hamstrung from becoming a satisfactory laptop substitute due to the iOS's non-support of Flash. Say what you will about Flash's shortcomings, there is still a lot of Flash-based content out there on the Web, and some of it is mission critical for me at times.

While some of these angularities and deficiencies can be worked around (not Flash support, alas), I like Cnet's Scott Stein's analogy: "I could go grocery shopping on a bicycle, but it doesn't mean it's as easy as using a car."

Touchscreen input vagueness evidently doesn't bother a lot of iPad users, including some of my esteemed Low End Mac colleagues, but it infuriates me, and indications of not only Apple, but Microsoft as well, being both seemly bent on importing touchscreen-oriented user interface conventions to their respective desktop operating systems is making me apprehensive.

ZDNet's David Morgenstern is likewise concerned, observing in a column this week that many longtime professional users of the Mac are worried - very worried - by the smoke signals coming out of Cupertino and what appears to be Apple's wavering commitment to technology that supports its creative professional market. He cites several worrying signs, including the iOS-ification of the Mac OS, which he says (and I agree) is dumbing things down way too far. He cites a a rumor floating around the developer community that Apple wanted even more iOS integration in Lion, the objective being a single OS that will run on handheld, tablet, and portable/desktop. "This would be a disaster," he contends. I couldn't agree more. As Morgenstern observes, not everyone is a consumer market or enterprise customer.

Oddly, one iPad aspect I don't dislike as much as I thought I would is the virtual keyboard. I'm certainly not in love with it, but I find it relatively tolerable compared with the aggravations and frustrations previously listed. I've experimented with pairing a Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad, but doing that eliminates one of the slab's cardinal advantages - its comfortable and relatively effortless portability. For example, I'm typing this column right now relaxed in a comfortable chair beside the wood stove, instead of in my task chair in front of the Mac in my office.

Has the iPad changed my life? Yes. I have to admit that I would miss it, a lot, if it were gone. However, it hasn't uncomplicated my life, arguably the contrary in adding another layer of complexity, to say nothing of more expense, and another machine to sync with my three production Macs. I will definitely be skipping the iPad 3, even though the expected higher-res camera would be nice to have. I have no complaint about my iPad 2's liveliness, and I'm not at all sure that a higher-resolution display would benefit my 60-year old eyes.

So, despite its admitted virtues, the iPad is definitely not "the answer" for me - at least not at its current stage of development. The ideal for me would be a machine that combined the lightweight easy portability and instant wakeup of the iPad along with its admirable battery life, with the power, versatility, precision input, full multitasking capability, connectivity, and data storage capacity of a laptop computer.

Is the iPad worth the stiff cost of entry? At least not for me and my needs, compared with the value of, say, an Apple Certified Refurbished (ACR) MacBook Air, or even a new one, despite the fact that the latter sells for twice as much as my 16 GB WiFi iPad. For example, an ACR 11.6" Core 2 Duo Air with a 128 GB SSD can be had for $799, or $100 more than the price of a 64 GB WiFi iPad. In my estimation you're getting way more machine and much more than $100 greater value in the Air than you would with the iPad.

The more expensive iPad models make even less economic sense to me, unless, for example, you really need 3G connectivity (Dan Bashur makes a good point about economical 3G data service, but there's no 3G at all available in my neck of the woods) or more storage capacity, but even the base MacBook Air has the same room on its SSD than the most capacious iPad.

MacBook Air? The 11.6" Air probably comes closer to an ideal compromise than anything else available at the moment, although not perfectly. You're still limited to a maximum of 256 GB of storage, and that at a stiff price, and RAM maxes out at a likewise expensive 4 GB.

I consider iPad is more of a convenience and a toy than a serious work tool, at least for content producers. I enjoy having mine, but I could certainly get along without it, especially if I had a MacBook Air. What worries me these days is that I might discover that I still want both!