I recently received my IPAD 2 and immediately starting playing on it. I added all of the standard apps, Netflix, DropBox, Kindle, and began adding a few new ones. I have to say that the power of the IPAD lies in its apps. There really are apps for everything out there.

But Apps alone don’t make a tablet. The device itself is really quite amazing. Operating it is really a dream. It’s fast, smooth and pops between apps quickly. Though I can’t use Flash, I’m really not missing it. Those sites that have upgraded to HTML 5 work quite fine and those that don’t probably have an App. Fora.tv, one of my favorite websites, has an app for that. I can watch Fora programming on my Ipad, and though its built for the iPhone, it works quite well.

I don’t think the iPad 2 will replace my PC, as I do programming and gaming that require me to install things, but for everything else I do on the net, I’d rather do it with an Ipad.

Now, let me stress, I am no Apple fanboy. In fact, I hated Apple’s computers for years. I am a PC guy by nature and experience. OSX sucks balls, just try getting three macs to work in an office full of PC”s with issue, and the machines themselves used to burn your hand if you touched them as they ran hotter than a frying pan.

But where Apple started to win me over was in its mobile devices. First the iPod, which was awesome, then the original iPhone, which was a game changer, and now the iPad. Say what you want about Apple, their mobile stuff is pretty damn good. That said, I am no longer using an iPhone but switched to the HTC Evo. But that choice was more because the Evo had 4G and a carrier that didn’t treat their customers like dung.

And as for all the people complaining about Apple’s control of the App store, take a look at what happened recently to Android’s market. It’s really out of control with malware and cheap apps. At least when I download something from Apple’s App store, I know it’ll at least work.

Wow, I’m really sounding like a fanboy, but I’m not, I swear. Again, I will never own a Macintosh computer, they are crap. As for their mobile suite, lets face it people, it’s pretty damn good. They aren’t selling 45 million iPad’s to just fanboy’s after all. They made a killer device. By controlling the software, hardware and retail stores, they have a winning recipe.

Will honeycomb beat out the iPad in years to come? Who knows. The power really is in the Apps and until Google, and let me say I am a google fan boy, deals with it’s app store, it will never really be a solid challenger.

First of all, the good. The iPad is beautiful to look at. It really is. It has access to all of Apple’s App store applications, which is awesome. It’s light, portable and cheap, you can get one for 500 bucks, not bad at all. Apple has added some good apps including iWorks and iBooks, both of them aiming at different competing software and hardware on the market. And last but not least, they are 3G capable, so you can go anywhere with them and have blazing fast speeds. Ahem.

Well that’s all well and good, lets run out and buy it, right? Hold your horses there comrade. Lets take a deeper look at this magical device. First, it’s the iPhone OS, so no flash. Yes, no flash. Excuse me? No flash?!? Love it or hate it, Flash is a big part of the internet. I can’t even look at my Google Analytics with this thing let alone play Flash games and the biggest of all let downs, I can’t watch porn on flash porn sites! WTF?

Next problem, you can’t multitask with it. So, if I want to use Apple’s iWorks and do a bit of research on Wikipedia while I’m writing something, I can’t. I certainly can’t have two apps running at the same time. That seems to me to be a serious let down for what is supposed to be a bridge between netbooks and phones. That was Steve Jobs opening slide, an iPhone on one side and a Macbook on the other with a big question mark in the middle. The iPad goes in the middle. Well, tell me how not being able to do two things at once is anything at all like a netbook? I typically do 10 things at once on the PC, I have poker sites open, two or three FireFox windows open, Chrome, Kindle for the PC, etc etc. You expect me to go down to just one? We’ve been turning ourselves into an ADD species for decades and now I have to revert? No chance.

Another big minus is no camera and no phone. Huh?? How is something that is supposed to be both an iPhone and a Macbook not equipped with a phone, camera or Flash? Epic Fail.

Next, they partnered with AT&T again. Need I say more? Blazing fast 3G? HA!

Apple got something very right with the iPhone. It filled a big need. Adding computer like capability to a portable device. They designed it to have a closed system which has worked well for the iPhone. It has because people don’t expect it to be a computer, they just expect it to be computer like. People tolerate not having flash on their phone because not many people want to browse the web on such a small small screen while sitting in their house. The iPhone OS is meant to be portable. The big issue here is that the iPad is not a portable device.

The iPad is really a game changer. It will change Apple’s success rate of recent years. They have taken the functionality of a netbook, removed it, taken the limitations of the iPhone, expanded them, and put it all together. The iPad is now a big iTouch. That’s it. It is not a functioning computer that you can use and do anything with effectively. By locking it down so much they have made it useless.

Here is what you need a tablet computer to do. Everything a laptop computer can do. Simple isn’t it? The iPad can’t do half of what a laptop can do. It’s way to big to put in the pocket so portability is out of the question. You can’t multitask with it so anything work related is not going to happen. You do have access to the App store and it is a nice screen for browsing the web, but that’s about it. It doesn’t fill any need or niche.

All in all, the iPad will be purchased by people wanting to have a new toy. You won’t see 75 million people buying this. Everyone needs a phone, so everyone bought the coolest one. Not everyone needs a tablet that doesn’t do anything except what Apple says it should do.

One thing is for certain. Google better be paying attention to this. Chrome OS will be about the same as the iPhone OS except no App store. Why do these companies think if you remove functionality that you have a winner? These internet only computers, which is really what the iPad is, are neat in that they are designed to just look at the internet. But frankly, they don’t do anything that my laptop or computer doesn’t already do. They boot in seven seconds you say? Who gives a fuck?!? Turn on your PC, go to the kitchen, get a beer, get back, it’s up.

Oh and the last thing that’s wrong with this thing, the name. iPad? Lame.

The iPhone was game changing. Never before had anything like it come out in the smart phone market. Sure there was blackberry and it had a neat keyboard, but really that’s all it had. The iPhone was sleek, slender, and destined to be great. The app store was innovative and showed the world that a closed system could work just fine. In fact it works better than fine, as Andriod developers are finding out.

Ok, what all this really amounts to is a new smart phone with this nifty thing called Andriod on it. What does it do? Well, first and foremost it does a lot less than any iPhone. Why? The app store, that’s why. There are 100,000+ applications in that thing from fun games to professional level software. Sure there is an Andriod app store but it has  a tenth of what’s in the Apple store. Sure new apps will go into the Andriod app store but so will apps into the iPhone app store which now has a huge lead. The real clincher here is going back to that closed system of the iPhone. Because it’s closed that means there are just three hardware models, all three generations of the iPhone. With Andriod you have many more. Soon there will be hundreds more.

The issue? Not all phones are made equally.

Some phones have touch screens, some phones have GPS, some phones have a flip out keyboard. If you are a developer, your app better know how to deal with it. The issue we are seeing is that apps have to be customized, just a little bit, for every model of phone out there. But wait! There’s more! Now that tablets are coming and some powered by Andriod, the problem will only get worse. Developers are freaking out about it and I don’t blame them. I want to make one application, sell it, make money, have hot girlfriend, go to beach, the end. I don’t want to make one application, get complaints it doesn’t work on yet another Andriod phone, fix it, make money, get more complaints, see hot girl friend leave for not stressed out twenty something douche bag. Big pain in the ass.

Ok, so the app store sucks, what about all those other bells and whistles of a smart phone? Can we say,been there done that? They all have cameras, they all have touch screens, etc etc. Just putting out yet one more and wrapping it under both Andriod and Google names isn’t going to do anything. Sure they will sell but the appeal to an iPhone isn’t just the phone, its the store.

If you have a phone already, keep it. Don’t buy into the hype and waste your money. Wait for the next generation to come out. I am talking built in pico projectors, not something that you connect to the bottom. I am talking holographic keyboards, they are displayed with friggin lasers on a solid surface and can operate just like a normal keyboard. Wait for the day when your phone will fit into a stand on your desk, use it’s projector to beam a 1020/768 screen on your empty wall and its friggin lasers to draw a keyboard on your desk. That day is coming. Soon  young jedi, soon.