IPAD AND IPAD2 REVIEW

Yes, you're reading a first for the Ostrich Killer's blog. A techno-review of a popular product type. Why? Let me tell you a story.

My kids gave my wife and me an iPad for Christmas. Naturally, we were impressed and pleased. But once we got it home we discovered the truth about this gadget. Here's what we found:

1. No USB port into which to plug anything useful - unless you went to an Apple store and bought one of their items. The port is of a proprietary sort, and can only fit Apple things.

2. No additional memory card slot.

3. No productivity programs - not even if you could use the non-standard keyboard displayed on the screen.

4. Anything you wanted to load into the iPad had to come from or through iTunes. We would have to open an iTunes account.

5. There was nothing of any value in iTunes when I went looking for productivity software. There were simple, micro-versions of word processors and spreadsheets that required using the useless, klutzy non-standard keyboard on the screen, but that's it. There were hundreds of apps that were mostly novelties and games, and that wouldn't work in an environment where one was not connected to the internet.

6. To do anything - even games - one had to download - and usually pay for - them from iTunes. To send a file to yourself, you first had to send it from your laptop to your iTunes email, where you could then get it for the iPad.

7. There was plenty of memory for a full-fledged operating system, but instead they had a non-compatible, minuscule reduced instruction set type of OS. There was plenty of RAM for installing actual programs, but there was no provision for that.

I suppose that, in the interest of full disclosure, I should report that I have little respect for Apple zombies. You know what an Apple zombie is - the guy who stands in line overnight to be sure of getting a new Apple gadget on the first day it's released. They're living proof that P.T. Barnum, or whoever, was right about there being a sucker born every minute. So far only Panasonic (Toughbook) and Itronix have come close to creating a useful tablet-type PC.

An iPad and other current generation tablet devices, such as the Motorola Xoom, have a long way to go yet. They won't be there, from the Ostrich Killer's perspective, until they:

1. Allow for the plug and play connection of standard peripherals (keyboards, mice, speakers, ethernet, etc.) through standard ports;

2. Allow for loading actual programs, not just cute little apps (why not an Apps window, all by itself, available through an icon click on the desktop, while the rest of the desktop is used for 'traditional' computing stuff?)

3. Enough environment headroom to allow for running real programs and storing their resulting files;

4. Built-in G4 or better cell connectivity;

5. Built-in GPS;

6. Grey scale option switch in lieu of color to free up RAM and prolong battery life;

7. Ability to switch OFF wifi and cell connectivity and operate in true stand-alone mode;

8. Weatherproofing, or at least the option of buying a true weatherproof case that will still allow operating the device.

Your Ostrich Killer says that Apple could give the iPads away and make money on everything people have to pay for from iTunes in order to make the iPad do anything fun or even marginally useful. Realizing that, the logical definition of an iPad is: a hand-held portal to the iTunes store. That's all it really is.

Nope. Tablet devices aren't there yet. Who'll be first to make something useful? Apple? I truly doubt it. They're into toys. And so are their customer, who delude themselves that they're 'cutting edge' or some other euphemism meaning they're visionaries among the blind.