Davison Online

It is abundantly clear that huge advantages accrue to having personal information—email, contacts, calendar, etc.—available anywhere. Apple’s MobileMe (buy the old version and save) syncing service handles most of this wirelessly. If I update a contact on my iPhone, for example, it’s automatically pushed up to Apple’s MobileMe service “in the cloud” and sent to all my other computers and devices. It’s incredibly handy, and if you have more than one device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac laptop or Mac desktop) to keep information on, I highly recommend it.

It doesn’t sync everything, though, and it’s those last bits of informational distribution between devices that I’m struggling with. Specifically, I’ve got issues with email storage and financial recording and record keeping.

I have virtually every email I’ve sent or received since about 1993. I’ve deleted spam, some mailing list stuff, etc., but otherwise I’ve pretty much got everything. That’s a huge and personally meaningful historical record. (And one of the reasons I don’t see myself ever abandoning email for instant messaging, Twitter, or Facebook messages. In fact, I have all Facebook messages emailed to me so that I can archive them.)

I can already pick up new messages from anywhere, but what about accessing these historical emails? The more tech-savvy among you already know what I’m going to say here: I’m putting them online. Not for just anyone, of course, but for me. I’m creating email folders at my IMAP-based email server and I’m moving my tens of thousands of messages into them. I will be able to access them from anywhere. I know I’m late to the party—IMAP has long been capable of doing this and GMail has offered it for years—but I finally now feel the need and see the advantages.

The second issue is recording and accessing financial data, notably Quicken and QuickBooks. I have no solution yet other than to log in remotely to my Mac Pro in the office and record and view things. It’s not intolerable, but it’s wildly inefficient. Here’s the ideal scenario: I get a bill at a restaurant, I enter it in the iPhone and the data is automatically synced back into my main Quicken file at home (or online). Since I don’t have a good solution—I suspect the answer will have to come from somebody like Intuit—I’m not fully mobile.

But I’m getting close, and that’s a very exciting prospect.

Tags: Apple, iPad, iPhone, Travel

Virtually every trip I’ve taken since May 2000 has involved me hauling along a laptop computer. I’m a computer consultant by trade, and I’ve considered in a necessity. Sometimes I need to remotely access their Mac, sometimes it’s useful to have a visual. Either way, I’ve lugged 6 or 7 lbs. (once you count up the charger and other accessories) worth of gear everywhere.

This summer I did something novel. Twice, I left the laptop at home and went with an iPad wi-fi instead. My latest three day trip to Los Angeles, California was the clincher since I was able to do everything I needed to do on it. Future trips may involve a laptop, but it’s not automatic and certainly once I have an iPad 3G + Wi-Fi and the iOS is updated to 4.x, I think the laptop is almost done.

In fact, I’ve got to admit that I came away fairly staggered by the experience, because if I computer nerd like me can survive on an iPad, almost anybody can. Within 5 years, 80% to 90% of portables sold will be tablets like the iPad. I’m convinced of it, because the advantages are so incredibly stark. In no particular order:

1. Enormous battery life. 10 hours or so right now. Longer if you want to dim the screen, not watch videos, etc.
2. Minuscule weight. 1.5 to 1.6 lbs. is nothing to carry.
3. Instant on. No long boot up time or wake from sleep. I never shut my iPad off.
4. No abstraction layer. You touch what you want. There’s no keyboard or mouse or cursor between you and iPad, and it makes for a more intimate, easier-to-use experience. You don’t have to “speak geek” to be able to use this.
5. Best in class experiences. This is strongly related to the lack of an abstraction layer, but I can think of no better way to look at images, play with Google Maps, surf the web or watch video.
6. “Anywhere” Internet. My iPad is wi-fi only, but a 3G model (which my next one will be) gives you the Internet virtually anywhere you have cell coverage.
7. eBook heaven. I carry the equivalent of several hundred pounds of dead tree books on my iPad. I can search any book, annotate it, highlight text, set bookmarks, change the font size, look up words instantly in a built-in dictionary, and more.
8. Social Media nirvana. Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, etc. All the culprits responsible for killing your discretionary time are well-represented on the iPad.
9. App coverage: If there’s something I want to do, the odds are good that I can do it. I do genealogy. There’s an app for that. (Reunion.) I want to watch a movie. There’s an app for that. (Netflix.) The list goes on and on.

Right now the biggest limitation for me is relates to Quicken and QuickBooks. I use both programs extensively on the Mac, and the iPad doesn’t have a way for me to make entries or sync them back to the master files on the computer. The best I can do on the iPad right now is to remote into my Mac Pro at home, enter the financial data there, and log off again. It’s a decidedly inconvenient workaround, but it does work.

A few years ago, I said I didn’t think I’d buy another desktop machine. (Obviously wrong since I bought a Mac Pro.) Now I don’t think I’ll be another laptop. I think it’ll just be one iPad after another. I don’t expect to be alone on this either.

The good tends to outweigh the bad for me when it comes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). To the extent that they advocate for the free speech and civil liberties on the Internet and in other electronic forms, I’m in their corner. It’s articles like Apple, Give Us a “Freedom of Choice” Button, however, where you’d think EFF isn’t serious in the work they do and which make me want to run away screaming.

The state one of their general philosophies thusly:

The principle is simple: just as you get to choose whatever after-market modification you want to make to your car, whatever disk drive you want to add to your mainframe, and whatever third party add-on you want for your software, you should be able to choose the apps and hardware you want for your iPhone. You should be able to choose your network provider. And you should be able to leave the walled garden and continue to use your device after you’ve moved on.

This utopian vision of rainbows and unicorns fades as soon you do even a basic critique. It starts with a bit of a Straw Man. Who says you’re not free to do whatever you like to your car, mainframe or iPhone? Take the car example. If you want to put an aftermarket accessory (I advise Rockwell Automation’s Retro Encabulator) in your Honda Civic so it can do 200 MPH, you’re free to do so. Similarly, if you want to jailbreak your iPhone, and add all kinds of snazzy, non-approved apps, you can. Isn’t America great? But let’s be clear, EFF: You are out of your nut if you think that Honda or Apple should be on the hook for supporting these modifications.

The “you should be able to choose your network provider” is similarly crazy. Apple’s iPhone is a GSM device, so it literally will not work on Verizon or Sprint. I believe even T-Mobile operates on different GSM frequencies for its 3G. EFF is implicitly calling for Apple to build a different iPhone. Now when the 4G networks arrive we will have a standard Apple can easily support in one phone and I’m willing to bet that we see multiple carriers in the US. (Apple already has multiple carriers in many overseas markets and Apple also tends to sell more phones when they have multiple carriers. I would be surprised if once it’s technologically feasible Apple doesn’t offer the iPhone on multiple carriers in the US.) But the idea that Apple should shoulder the burden and expense of a building a different phone just because EFF thinks they should is ludicrous.

This, says EFF, “is about end-user choice, and Apple doesn’t seem to believe you deserve any.” Are consumers not free to choose any other cell phone? I understand this isn’t the choice EFF is talking about, but it’s worth noting anyway. Consumers (and EFF) are always free to pick from another phone if they’re not happy with Apple’s. It’s not like Apple has a monopoly on cellphones or smartphones.

Here’s what EFF is talking about:

Through its control over the iPhone’s software and its mandatory approval process, Apple is pushing the idea that a manufacturer should be able to dictate how things can interoperate with a product at every layer – from the software, applications, and services that can be developed and sold, to the consumer’s use of the device, to the other devices that can physically plug into it.

Yes, this is exactly what Apple is pushing, only it’s not a problem, it’s part of what makes the iPhone great. When one company insures the interoperability of a product at every layer—no easy task, mind you—things work better. The iPhone is an excellent example of how a device is vastly improved precisely because of this attention to detail.

And in fact the iPhone does run apps that don’t come from the App Store. Apple has long supported on its iPhone web-based apps in a non-curated fashion. In other words, any developer can create a web app for the iPhone and any iPhone user can use that app on his iPhone. Apple has no oversight of this process at all. Nobody needs Apple’s approve to create a web app and nobody needs Apple’s approve to put it on their phone. You don’t even have to jailbreak the thing. The iPhone is built to run these things. Presently, Apple lists some 1700 web apps on its web apps page.

Now that stands in stark contrast to the more than 200,000 apps in Apple App Store, but that’s because there are huge advantages to developers and consumers in using Apple’s so-called “walled garden.” First, developers have an easy way to monetize their work. Second, developers have a set of programming tools and aids that allow them to take full advantage of the iPhone’s capabilities. Third, for consumers, the App Store creates an easy way to find new and interesting software for their phone. That the software has been vetted by Apple—meaning the source code has been checked for viruses and the like, among other things—is enormous advantage compared to other platforms, notably Android, where malware has already made an appearance and been downloaded by unsuspecting end-users.

The downside for developers (and, by extension, consumers) is that you have to play by Apple’s rules to be in App Store, and Apple has done a poor job codifying exactly what those rules are. Sure 95% of apps are approved and available for purchase within two weeks. And sure, most of the rejected apps have coding errors, don’t do what their description indicates or are in clear violation of Apple’s guidelines. There is no question, however, that some apps fall into a grey area and Apple has done a relatively poor job in clarifying things when this happens.

That said, developers and consumers all want a cellphone that works easily and well. EFF’s misguided arguments are an attack on the very things that Apple does to make that so on the iPhone. As I say, EFF does some fine work. This is not it.

Tags: Apple, iPhone

Despite a lovely collaboration in the early years of personal computing, Adobe and Apple have been something other than best friends in the years since they applied their talents to the Postscript page description language and the Apple LaserWriter.

This animosity has grown rather public in recent weeks with each side publishing open letters to explain their position and to rally public support. Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ missive laid out a fairly compelling rationale for the exclusion of Adobe Flash technology from the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Adobe’s response from Messrs. Chuck Geschke and John Warnock presented a different vision but fundamentally ignored most of the points Jobs raised (because, really, there’s no good answer).

Jobs’ first point was that Adobe Flash is 100% proprietary. Adobe chose to focus its response on the notion that the Flash specification is open, which is to say that anyone can write a Flash player. Despite this, no other Flash player has achieved notable market penetration. Because Adobe has sole authority over the Flash standard, it is unlikely that any other significant player will be developed.

As Jobs’ rightly points out, Flash has reliability, security and performance issues. Adobe has chosen to focus on the last of these and to blame Apple for it. Even if Flash’s terrible performance on Macs is an Apple-created issue, one has a hard time seeing the reliability and security issues—which also exist with Flash for Windows—as Apple’s fault.

Jobs’ contention that Flash sucks battery life out of devices also goes unchallenged by Adobe for the very good reason that he’s right. Most tests show about a 50% drop in the battery level for Flash video versus pure H.264 video, and while Adobe engineers will undoubtedly improve this at some indeterminate point, Apple—who shifted their entire desktop architecture from PowerPC to Intel because of “performance per watt” and related energy issues—surely would never tolerate something so power hungry on their mobile devices.

The ultimately reason, the one that matters most and the one that Adobe is fighting tooth and nail against in the court of public opinion, is that Apple does not want to let a third-party layer of software come between themselves and the end user. As Jobs put it:

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Adobe fights, I think, an uphill battle against this argument. Apple created and owns the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and if they don’t want to play Adobe’s game, they’re well within rights to take their ball and go home. Admittedly, it would have been nicer if Apple hadn’t waited until a few days before Adobe’s CS5 release to spit in the Flash soup, but as I noted these two companies haven’t been best buds for some time.

I’m not the first to say so, but if Adobe wants Flash on Apple products, all they need to do is create a compelling version that runs on Google’s Android phone and they’ll see Apple become much more receptive. Frankly, I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, and I say that as a fan of Adobe software in general and as one who expects to upgrade to CS5.

I’ve just received the iPad Keyboard Dock. This entry is being typed on it using the iPad’s WordPress app. What I’ve discovered so far is that the Dock has a feel very much like the standard Mac keyboard. (I’ve also found that using the Tab key in WordPress crashes the app, but I’m guessing that’s a short-term WordPress issue, not a Dock issue. In these early days of the iPad, developers need to be cut some slack with minor bugs like this. They didn’t get an iPad to do QA testing on any sooner than the rest of us did to play with it.)

I have liked typing on the iPad’s virtual keyboard. For me, a 60 wpm touch typist (who remembers when he used to be able to do 80-85 wpm and still occasionally hits those highs) the virtual keyboard was a significant step forward compared to the iPhone’s puny type with thumbs arrangement. Of course the iPhone’s virtual keyboard was in turn significantly better than almost every other cellphone typing system, Blackberry being the notable exception, so it’s not like I’m complaining on that account.

Still, there’s nothing like typing on a real keyboard and the text entry here is so much faster than I fear it will be painful to go back to the iPad’s virtual system. Time will tell. I do think, however, that if I were buying an iPad 3G, I would also buy a Bluetooth wireless keyboard to go with it.

The Dock’s keyboard has some specialized function keys, which made me wonder at first if Apple would create a special Bluetooth keyboard for iPad. A closer look leaves me doubtful. The song forward/back/play/pause group is there as is the volume up/down/mute set. Ditto the brightness up/down. One new key, a magnifying glass, takes you to the Search screen. Handier than double-clicking the Home button? I dunno. The button next to that (where Escape would be on the top left) literally is a second Home button. Utility again dubious. There’s an instant slideshow start button which is all right. The Virtual Keyboard button is, I suppose, required in case you must use the thing, but again I’m not sure how much real world use it will get. The top right button is a lock of some kind—I assume it turns off the iPad since it appears to shut off the screen. On the whole, none of these strike me as essential.

The Dock itself holds the iPad in a vertical manner and seems adequate to the task. There’s a dock connector port out the back so you can power the iPad while you type. It all seems perfectly practical for a guy like me who will be keeping his iPad near the bedside for daily use. For those getting the iPad 3G, look at the non-keyboard Dock and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard instead.

UPDATE: It didn’t take more than 4 months for the Dock part of the Keyboard/Dock to break like so much kindling. I’ve talked with other Apple techs and this is not an isolated problem. Avoid the Keyboard/Dock device, I think. Opt for an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and maybe one of these.

Tags: iPad

After what seemed an interminable wait, the UPS truck finally pulled in and delivered my 32 GB wi-fi only iPad this afternoon. I have played with it for a couple of hours now and have a report.

First, it is every bit as gorgeous as the PR photos make it look. The hardware fit and finish are exactly what you’ve come to expect from Apple which is to say that it is superb. The battery life is exceptional in my limited testing. I am used to running my iPhone down to near empty after a hard day’s work but I don’t think that will be the case here. I will also say that the thing is fast—considerable so versus the iPhone 3GS and light years versus the original iPhone. Thus far the hardware is almost everything I could have wanted which is a very good thing because software deficiencies can be fixed through the update process. Hardware you’re stuck with.

And there are some software deficiencies. The virtual keyboard, though much faster and easier than the iPhone and frankly than I expected, suffers from the omission of the apostrophe on the main typing screen. Apple attempts to make up for this be autocorrecting any abbreviated word that uses an apostrophe, but it’s going to take some getting used to. That’s a statement that’s true of the virtual keyboard as well. Much to my surprise, it is quite useable for touch typists—I’m in the 60 wpm range myself on a standard keyboard—but long form documents (like is one, haha) would be better entered on a Bluetooth wireless keyboard or, once it ships, the iPad keyboard dock.

Another temporary issue is the dearth of iPad software. The iPad runs iPhone software in a emulated mode that centers the app on the screen and gives the user the option of pixel doubling the screen to fill the larger iPad display. For most iPhone apps this is a horribly ugly alternative, though admittedly a few pull it off nicely. By and large, be prepared to get new iPad apps.

Most of the Apple apps are fantastic. Mail, Safari, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, etc. are all very well done. Google gets special praise for their Maps app which is, much like Photos, a visual and experiential treat. Additional third-party apps worth mentioning: WordPress, USA Today, Netflix, AOL’s AIM, Dragon Dictation, and Zillow. I am certain I will discover more as I have more time to play with the device. Despite the great hardware, the iPad is nothing without software like this, so I’m thrilled to find developers turning out great stuff.

The biggest disappointments so far have been crash-prone apps like ABC’s video player and, sadly, Apple’s own iBooks app. Third-parties can be forgiven since they didn’t get advanced iPad prototypes to test their software on, but Apple can hardly put up the same excuse.

Indeed, though the iBooks app looks spectacular, it’s the biggest disappointment of the lot at this point. One of the books I downloaded from the store seemed to get frozen (for lack of a better term—I couldn’t read, delete or re-download it) and now iBooks crashes on launch. Further, iBooks lacks an ability to annotate the text and it’s unclear to me whether other epub formatted books can be copied into iTunes and thus onto the iPad, or if readers are simply stuck with Apple’s limited selection. I would love, love, love to see the iPhone app Stanza on the iPad, but as Stanza was bought out by Amazon, I’m not holding my breath. (Yeah, I know the Kindle app with its onerous DRM is available. That’s not what I want.)

But as I say these are software issues of a version 1.0 device. Like e original iPhone I expect the iPad to get better and better as time goes by. In the meantime, there is more an enough to like for me to highly recommend Apple’s latest gadget. I named mine Harmony.

UPDATE: The ABC app has been updated after but a day so I’m taking them off my bad app list. Indeed, such a quick update is rather impressive.

I’m happy to report that the iBooks app is also working again after resyncing to the Mac and I’ve successfully added a raft of third-party ePub-based books to the app via iTunes. The future looks very bright indeed.

Tags: Apple, iPad

In short, the Wi-fi only, 32 GB model. I strongly considered the 16 GB version, but since we’re not certain how big apps will be or just how many one can install, I wanted to give myself a little breathing room. I don’t see putting music on it and any movies I watch will probably be streamed. eBooks are famously small—can’t wait to start unloading physical books as frankly my house is overloaded with them—so I think 32 GB will be initially perfect.

Now I say “initially” for a reason. I’m already sold on getting the iPad mark 2. That’s the iPad I’m more likely to spend heavily on, though I think the 3G option remains speculative. At this moment I don’t see the iPad as a device that travels. Maybe I’m wrong about the whole thing but I’m really picturing the iPad sitting bedside.

I’m sure to post more on the topic on or shortly after the iPad’s April 3 delivery date.

Tags: Apple, iPad

Having just concluded three days of Macworld SF 2010 after taking part in various user conferences and walking the show floor, I remain somewhat skeptical of Macworld SF 2011.

No user conference I attended was even close to room capacity, with numbers ranging from 17 to 35 attendees in rooms that by my estimate hold around 160. You could’ve shot a cannonball through these things and not hit anyone or anything. (The content was wildly variable as well: My first day conferences were mediocre at best, while the second day’s were quite good and in one case excellent.) While access to the presenter has its benefits for attendees, one has to wonder if the conferences were at all worthwhile financially for the organizers given these numbers.

My experience on the Expo floor was similar, though I will note that several of the vendors I spoke with were ecstatic about the numbers they were seeing. I don’t know if this had to do with managed expectations on the part of show organizers or simply the limited space and number of vendors—less than half of last year’s—making for a constant stream of visitors. The overall attendance figure bandied about for this year was 28,000 which compares poorly with last year’s 90,000. It certainly felt like a much smaller show this year, taking up a section of Moscone North whereas last year’s show took both North and the larger South facility. Still, if the vendors are happy, presumably there will be more of them next year which should bode well despite my experience and my misgivings.

Organizers have optimistically set January 25-29, 2011 as the dates for next year’s show. I’m not going to prejudge anything—although I was sure willing to after the lousy first day this year—and say that I’m not going next or that Macworld won’t survive. But I am taking a wait-and-see attitude. My attendance depends greatly on what the Apple Consultants Network does, because their meetings are the main reason I go. (In fact the ACN business meeting down the street from Moscone was the only official Apple presence in the area.) Other attendees, who lack that specific draw, are likely to be hard-pressed unless Macworld signs up a lot more vendors. I hope that they do.

A few thoughts:

• It’ll be hit, OK? When the iPod first came out everybody—me included— thought, “It’s just another MP3 player. It’ll never be a big thing.” Apple improved the product until they’d sold 250 million, which does seem like a big thing after all. With the iPhone—and this is a better comparison since there are more feature similarities—Apple had a hit from day one but kept improving the product, particularly via the software, to the point that my original iPhone was a significantly better device two years after I’d purchased it. The iPad will undoubtedly be the same: Good at the start, great two years from now. (I don’t think it will take two years to get to “great.”)

• As others have noted, the $499 iPad kills the $489 Kindle DX dead, dead, dead. Especially when you can run the Kindle app on the iPad and have much of the same functionality—I suspect Amazon doesn’t care so long as they’re selling you books—the Kindle DX does not compare well. Other dedicated eReaders and most of the nascent market of underpowered netbooks are also in trouble.

• Apple’s iBooks Store will take some time to get off the ground, but if they do it well, it could revolutionize publishing as pundits have said. So far we’ve not seen anything that makes me say it will, but if Apple sells 4-5 million of these in the first year, I’m guessing a lot of publishers will jump on board, particularly as traditional publishing continues to decline.

I remain hopeful that the iPad will allow me to finally create an eBook collection that allows me to dump many of my real world books. It’s not that I don’t like books (quite the opposite), but ownership has a psychological cost (care, maintenance, storage, etc.) by which I would prefer to be unburdened. If I had no books in my home, I would have an incredible amount of free space to use in other ways. So, as content continues to be divorced from media, the question readers begin to face is this: Do you love books (and other printed materials like magazines) or do you love reading? Because they’re no longer necessarily the same thing.

If it’s the former, then your world will change a bit because ultimately I think print-on-demand will be the predominant publishing mechanism within the next few years. You will also have to reconcile yourself to the notion that most bookstores will not survive this economic transition any more than the record stores did or video rental chains are. Though tax-payer supported, libraries face a similarly interesting future.

On the other hand, for those who love reading and can part with printed matter, the future has never looked more bright. Virtually any book you want to read is immediately accessible. You can search text, set bookmarks, annotate the text and more. When you think of the trees and the carbon footprint of shipping, the environmental savings alone might make this compelling for some people.

• There’s a looming unease for some tech consultants like me with both the iPhone and the iPad in that these are products which radically simplify the traditional computing experience. Do I provide tech support for the iPhone? Sure, and I’ll provide it for the iPad, too, but they’re both closed-architecture devices which require a lot less end-user assistance. I’ve had very few iPhone calls. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it is part of a longer term sea change that I have to be aware of as an Apple consultant because if Apple really does make most computing tasks easy enough—and using a computer really is far from easy despite the best efforts of programmers and designers—then my business model is not sustainable.

• I already have at least one client for whom the iPad is perfect. They’re upgrading from an aged and declining iMac G3 and were looking at a MacBook Pro 15″ as their main machine since they like to travel every week or so to their second home at the coast. Instead, we’re now looking at the 21.5″ iMac and a 16 GB iPad with 3G, an interesting alternative for a couple whose primarily (and almost exclusive) uses are word processing, email and web surfing.

• I was ready to purchase an iPad while reading the live-blogs of the keynote presentation. Initially, I thought I would get the most expensive ($829) iPad with 64 GB and 3G, but I’m reconsidering since it’s a first generation device and I’m not sure I need 64 GB. It’s not like I’m going to carry my music collection on it (unlike my iPhone where I would jump at a 64 GB model). Will I store movies on it or can I stream them? Other than those items, I’m not sure there’s a need for 64 GB. So I’m already backing off my original thinking.

I do think the 3G is important and the ability to prepay 3G month-to-month without a contract is awesome. For many people, the occasional 3G connection is all that’s needed, and $15 a month is an affordable price. For me, though, I wonder when it is that I would use the iPad for 3G. If I’m on a trip I’ll be using my laptop via wi-fi or my iPhone’s 3G. Will I even take the iPad out of the house? I’m not convinced I will. Surely I want the option, though, so I can’t see myself not getting a 3G model.

• Most of the negative reviews I’ve read focus on the iPad’s shortcomings, mainly no multitasking, no camera, no Adobe Flash support.

If Apple can figure out a way to give the user multitasking without killing battery life, they’ll do it. It’s worth remembering that the Palm Pre said, “Yes, multitask away dear friends!” and watched the complaints roll in after the phone very quickly slowed to a crawl. If Apple can’t offer a great user experience, they won’t even if you said you’d like it otherwise. (Despite the above, I’ve played briefly with a Palm Pre and love much of its Apple-like design.)

I agree about the camera in the sense that I think it would have opened up a lot of possibilities for the iPad, but I hardly consider its absence show-stopping. I think we’ll see a camera in the 2nd or 3rd generation iPad.

Finally, let me heartily applaud the lack of Adobe Flash support. While Flash allows for neat user interactivity, it’s insecure, unstable, and proprietary. It’s also a memory- and energy-hog. I use the free Click to Flash plug-in to block Flash when I’m running Safari on my Mac and you should see how much faster the pages load (not to mention how nice it is to not have video adverts in my face). Trust me on the Flash thing: It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

If you do much listening to music via iTunes, SRS makes a really cool and relatively inexpensive plug-in called iWow Premium that radically improves the sound. There’s a free 14-day trial, and trust me, you will be amazed at the sonic difference.