Thursday, March 03, 2011

iPad 2 - why I'm disappointed

iPad 2 is out. It's a wonderful bit of tech. I have no problems with the device hardware and software decisions.

I'm still disappointed. Maybe because I was wrong.

I was confident than iPad 2 would not require a companion computer. I expected full Cloud integration, including device backup. I expected the base device would provide 3G access and come with affordable (capped) data plans that would allow basic email and net use (but not media consumption).

A year ago I expected that iPad 2 would be (net) "computing for the rest of us". I thought it would return to the lost promise of the original Mac vision, updated for the net world. I thought I'd buy one for my sister, and connect her to a world she's increasingly divorced from.

That didn't happen.

I'm disappointed.

2 comments:

Charlie Stross said...

Maybe it's because the big MobileMe revamp isn't ready yet. That big data centre Apple are building in South Carolina isn't yeady -- ISTR hearing that the network architect in charge of it died suddenly last November, which has put their plans back.

At the very least, I expect iPad 3 to be capable of eating its own dogfood. This is more like iPad 1.5 ...

JGF said...

I was thinking the same thing -- that their MobileMe strategy was derailed. I'd forgotten the details of that setback though.

We often hear that nobody is irreplaceable. My own experience doesn't agree. There are quite a few employees, at all levels of an enterprise or organization, whose absence can have big implications. I suspect, but can't prove, that most organizations don't know who those people are.