By Eric Pettifor
Apple’s iPad has been out for awhile now, long enough for tons of opinion pieces to be written, so no need for me to add to the noise, especially when so many of my reservations have been so well expressed by none other than Adolph Hitler. Apparently, for him, the final straw was the iPad’s lack of multitasking.
That’s quite the rant, but even so he left out mention of another omission, namely that of a USB port. Over at crunchgear.com they also lament the omission of an SD card reader. They point out that Apple will sell you an adapter for USB and SD cards, which they regard as something of a rip off for basic stuff that should be included on the unit itself.
Hitler’s final verdict is to wait for the HP Slate. More generally, one could simply say “wait.” The competition will no doubt include more features at better prices.
Remember, Google’s Chrome OS is on the horizon, and it could be just as much for tablets as for netbooks, as speculated on over at hothardware.com.
It would be an understatement to say that Hitler was wrong about many things, but in 
this case I think his take on the iPad is correct. Competitors won’t even have to scramble to come up with something better, they’ll simply include those basic features which people, dictators and regular folk alike, want.
Why did this happen? Was it a case of rushing so that they could enjoy the same first to market advantage they did with the iPhone? The inevitability of this product niche seemed pressingly tangible, though that was in part driven by the hype about their tablet, fueled by their own leaks. Was it as crunchgear.com implied, a play to squeeze extra money out of customers by selling them add-ons? There isn’t going to be a multitasking add-on, that’s just how the thing works, so some limitations can’t be explained that way.
Whatever the reason, it won’t be long before the iPad fails to carry with it the panache of other Apple products. Even the Apple fan boys may find themselves saying along with Adolph, “This is the first time in a long time that Apple has disappointed me so much.”
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