Apple’s iPad is not an evolution.
Panagiotis Atmatzidis’ article on Convalesco.

Steve Jobs claims that Apple’s new jewel is more useful than a NetBook. I doubt it is. Steve Jobs, also claimed that this is the most important and – so far – advanced device that he ever created. Well considering the iPod, MacOSX and the iPhone, I doubt that also.
Yes, I’m very tempted to buy one of these toys, just to keep up my Apple-ware collection with the times, but in no way this thing can be compared to my NetBook. It has too many limitations. We have to buy apps in order to do things. How will Microsoft office, Open Offices or Pages run to this thing. I still prefer my physical keyboard for large text to the iPhones touchpad writing style. I like when keyboard keys are smooth and you don’t have to push 0,3 mm down in order to make the character of choice appear to the screen, but still feels much better than a touch-only with nothing to push at all. Not to mention that it’s way faster, at least nowadays.
I never thought that I was really going to make an argument about this, but running Linux, Windows or any other (Solaris???) operating system on this machine is plain impossible. The question, why would you want to install another OS??? Well, we are compering this thing to a laptop, aren’t we? I’ve always stated that running Linux on a mac-intel laptop is retarded, but you actually… can do that.
Then again, this device looks much more suitable for people who don’t want to know about networks, computers and complicated little devices. So, I can picture my entire family – except my cousin maybe – and most of the people I know. They would enjoy a device that reads e-mails and browses the web with one click. Then again, according to engadget’s review, the iPad is heavy, impressive yes, but heavy. How will my sister or any non-tech guy spend more than 15 minutes with it? You have to keep it “up” after all!
I don’t want to comment on the 3G capability. Sounds very interesting, but confuses a bit the scope of the device. Is this an in-house simple device? Should it replace the iPhone? A bit of both?
The NetBooks found their way through the market, because they were like laptops but smaller. I still can’t use mine heavily, because although it runs Ubuntu Remix, the lack of power makes it hard to do any work that requires a little more cpu and time. My eyes go wild on that screen. I’m not sure which group of people Apple is going to target with the iPad, but on a first glance seems a bit vague.
A very positive note was the immediate release of the SDK. It was the reasonable thing to do, I know, but Apple has not been reasonable many times in the past with developers.
Time will tell if this commercial move is going to be good or bad. But in no way this is a groundbreaking device as advertised. If you ask me, this is closer to Apple-TV Story, a correctly thought device that should be much more open, but it was not, delivered at a very high price in order to compete. And yes, renting movies over the internet costs almost 0 $ to companies and too much to consumers. That’s why the Apple-TV/iTunes Store bundle had a hard time and will have in the future too. Let’s hope for Apple’s sake that the iPad will face a different faith.

• Ο Παναγιώτης Ατματζίδης, ή atma, είναι υπέρμαχος του ανοικτού λογισμικού και γνώριμος από το ξεκίνημα του wwag. Δημοσιεύει στη δική του ιστοσελίδα Convalesco άρθρα που αφορούν την καθημερινότητα αλλά και την πολιτική, την τεχνολογία, τη μουσική και πολλά άλλα. Αν και αυτή τη στιγμή βρίσκεται στην Κίνα για δουλειές, μας έδωσε την άδεια για να την αναδημοσίευση του άρθρου του και τον ευχαριστούμε θερμά.