Wharton MBA for Executives

A few people have asked me for my thoughts on the iPad. I don’t think I actually know any more than the next person but here are my thoughts anyway.

First some background. I’m not really an apple guy. I don’t worship Steve Jobs. I never really owned a mac. I have an iPod video and iPod touch but I don’t really know how to use the iPod video. I don’t know how to put videos on it and I don’t know how to stop songs when they are playing (I press the pause button and it pauses it, but there’s no stop button so I don’t know how to stop it). However, I have used them many times and I use one as my primary desktop every day at my current job. This is the first job I have had where I used a mac extensively. I’m still not a big fan of apple but I can see where these computers are useable, etc.

When the iPhone came out, I didn’t necessarily care to have one but a few of my friends waited in long lines and bought one the first day it came out. When they showed me their phones, I wanted one. The only problem was that it was sold out everywhere so I drove all over the city to try to get one. In the end, I paid about $100 more and just bought one on ebay.

I used that iPhone for about 6 months before I got sick of it. I switch over to Blackberry and I’ve been a Blackberry guy ever since. The Blackberry is superior to the iPhone primarily in email and text messaging. Since I do both of those things a lot, I prefer Blackberry. I also web browse a lot and web browsing is definitely better on the iPhone.

I bought an iPod touch last year and have been using that instead of the iPhone. I think it’s almost as good.

When the iPad was announced last week, I thought it was kind of cool. When I learned more about the OS and features, I stopped getting excited. It is essentially running the same OS as an iPhone so it’s like having a big iphone (or big ipod touch). Does the world need a bigger iPod touch / iPhone with no phone? I don’t think so. the 10 hours of battery life is certainly impressive and will allow me to watch a few movies while I’m on a plane so that’s good. But otherwise, it’s not much to be excited about. Some comments:

1) This would be cool if it ran OS X. Then I could run MS office, other native OS X apps, etc. This is similar to how windows based table PCs running windows 7 are pretty much the same as a regular laptop running 7. The biggest difference in a tablet is the ability to write of course. But the iPad is just an iPod touch which means that can’t play flash videos, can’t run OS X apps, can’t run MS office, etc.

2) The pricepoint is good at $499-$829. However I would probably get the $829 version and that isn’t so cheap. I would also pay $30/month for internet and that’s really not cheap.

3) E-Reader? Oh please. If you want to buy an e-reader, get a kindle or nook. An LCD screen will really make your eyes tired. I can read for hours on my kindle with no problem. I would hate life trying to read for hours on a computer screen.

4) No built in camera? sucks.

5) This will probably sell pretty well but it’s not an industry changer in the way that the iPhone changed the industry.

RVD.