It’s a Big iPod Touch.

The iPad has a few things I am very excited about. Not only does it do web, video, music, email, documents, calendar, contacts, and a wide variety of apps, it is a nice sized ebook reader as well. My favorite feature, however, is the 3G connectivity that comes at a decent rate without a contract. This means you can take all this fun with you when you leave the house or wifi enabled areas.

When it comes down to it though, this thing is just a big ipod touch that can (if you buy the 3g enabled model) constantly access the internet. The only difference will be that the apps developed for the iPad specifically will probably make the device feel more like a Mac. That being said, it is a far cry from a Macbook. One of the biggest problems with the iPad is that it, like an iPod touch or iPhone, can only run one application at a time it seems and I am definitely someone who has multiple applications running on my Macbook at a time, so why can’t I do this on the iPad?

This also brings up a few connectivity issues I have been thinking about in regard to the iPad. I am a little disappointed that there is not an SD card port for importing photo’s. Since this is such a portable device, I would think they would include one so that you can add photo’s to the device while you are away from your computer. There is always importing from email or the web, but if you wanted to take this on a family vacation for instance, and you just took a bunch of photos you want to email to friends and family, you won’t be able to. The lack of flash built in to the device also concerns me especially with viewing webpages, you think Apple would have been able to build this in somehow by now. Also, there is no video output which I think is odd since this is a media device. {I know Apple is making a whole variety of cables you can buy to do some of these things, but that seriously takes away from the fact that this is supposed to be a very wireless device.}

So, those are my main complaints for now. I am thinking that perhaps maybe this device isn’t for me. Although that could change as I begin to see all the amazing apps that are sure to be developed for this thing that would perhaps make living with the few issues I have worth it.