There has been a considerable amount of crap being flung about the relevance of the iPad, it's name, it being yet another device that refuses Flash, etc. I'm getting tired of repeating myself, so here in somewhat of a nutshell, is my take on it.

"It's gonna FAIL!"

For starters, the people who are proclaiming the iPad to be an iFlop, iFail or iDud without having even touched one yet are, well, imbeciles. They remind me a great deal of the imbeciles who proclaimed the iPhone a failure upon announcement without having used one. All I can really see to these folks is, "Just because it doesn't do/act/look like YOU wanted it to doesn't mean it isn't exactly what some others wanted, or even exceed their desires." I believe people making this kind of statement don't really "get it". The iPad does indeed have its place, and it will thrive there. I mostly hear this line of crap from tech savvy people who believe all computerized products should allow them to do whatever they want. Someday they should crack open their microwaves, look at the computer inside there and explain to me why they own such a thing when they can't even browse the web on it.

What's in a name

So the name... I'm not fond of it at all, mostly for the same reason John Gruber outlined when first asked about it. The name actually fits well, but by itself is just, well, terrible. That being said, I'm glad it's not the iTablet or, worse, the iSlate. For those lamenting all of the feminine hygiene jokes and worried about the eventual maxiPad: Apple goes smaller, not bigger. NanoPad yes, maxiPad, never. Get over it.

Apple vs. Flash

Let's get the Flash bit out of the way before hitting the major point of this post. Flash sucks. It always has. I've been decrying it's use since it appeared on the scene, something many people find at odds since I penned the WebFlare article and asked my fellow web developers to join me in making the web as media rich as possible. (Search on Google. You'll probably find it somewhere in the wayback machine.) The difference, though, is at the time I penned that piece (circa 1995) web pages were a kludge of text with the occasional graphic. Flash was too far to the extreme in the opposite direction. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, but it did two things in particular that go against my entire point of WebFlare: it requires a plugin and it is single-handedly responsible for more web page crashes than any other technology. People are figuring it out. Developers are figuring it out. Flash is dying, and thank goodness for that!

I've been amused by the people saying blocking Flash is the wrong answer. "Don't prevent me from doing what I want while the war is waged!" SPoken like someone who doesn't understand life, the human condition, or most importantly how a war is waged. You see, change occurs when critical mass is achieved. The problem is getting to that critical mass. To do so, someone has to take a stand. Well, several someones really. Flash can be a big timesaver for a web developer. It allows them to do some things that are difficult and time consuming to create otherwise. People don't give up easy just because it's the right thing to do. They must be shown, and how is that done? In this instance, you take it away from a group of people who will in turn let the developers know they get errors everywhere on the page. Most users don't care why they can't see something, they just want to see it and it's the developers job to allow that in whatever way is necessary.

Apple removing Flash from the iPhone (given its success) and now the iPad, sure to be right on the iPhone's heels, is a big step in creating critical mass. If you're unwilling to take a stand, and I'm looking squarely at those idiots who say things like "Yes Flash is bad and it needs to go, but don't take it away from me until the war is over!", how can you ever expect what is right to overcome what is wrong? Stop being lazy! Put up with some inconvenience to get said inconvenience corrected and removed indefinitely.

Where does the iPad fit in?

So this, then, is the real question. The iPad is NOT meant to take netbooks head on. There is no need to do so. At best, the iPad will just prove to most how worthless and silly netbooks really are. (I mean seriously, have you ever really used one? Frustratingly inhibited) Those who say the iPad doesn't do anything a netbook can't do but doesn't do nearly as much as a netbooks can do, need to look again. I have yet to find a netbook with full capacitive multi-touch, a context enabled soft keyboard, built-in 3G with a semi-reasonable plan without a contract, and excellent built-in sound output and input with a screen resolution that matches most modern projectors in business.

The iPad is also NOT a big iPod Touch. Saying so just proves how shortsighted and dense you truly are. There are application possibilities for this device that simply cannot exist on any other currently available device. I have had an idea for a kick-ass social media app. It wasn't possible until the iPad. It needed the multi-touch interface of the iPhone, but a screen big enough to show a lot of content like a laptop. This device is the first to meet these requirements. I'm jazzed because now we can make an app that will fix a frustrating problem in my life and do it in an elegant manner.

Even if the iPad were just a big iPod Touch, it would provide a fix to a shortcoming many people are frustrated with: screen real estate. I love Amazon's Kindle app. I don't buy physical books any more. I read them on my iPhone. What is frustrating about this method, however, is the frequent turning of pages because the screen size simply doesn't allow that much text on the screen. You also kind of lose the feeling of reading a book. Apple's new reader on the iPad cures that. I can even read looking at two pages at once, just I always did with a physical book.

There is opportunity here for Amazon. I would never own a Kindle. I've used them, and they annoy me. Lots of useless buttons, it feels just plain wrong in my hands, and the price point is ridiculous. Provide a souped-up Kindle Reader for the iPad gives me the features of the iPhone Kindle reader, but updated to take advantage of the iPad's screen real estate, and they will retain me as an eCustomer. Customer retention is ALWAYS the number one goal of any retail company. Amazon and Barnes & Noble should focus their energies there instead of whining that Apple just bullied a takeover of their playground.

I think the iPad is going to be a huge success, for the reasons I have outlined above and for several more I don't want to get into right now. Why? Because I haven't touched an iPad yet so I can't say for certain that my other thoughts are indeed accurate. I certainly hope they are.