i [don't know] Pad

With the initial rumours of Apple contending against the Tablet market, and then the possible name, I did not feel much excitement as there were questions as to what innovations can take place in the market.

Then the iPad was launched and it received a luke-warm reception, echoing Microsoft's ailment of Windows Vista.

After looking at the reviews and in-depth reports I still remain unconvinced of the usefulness of this latest offering. Here are a number of reasons as to why:

1. It does not run the full Mac OS, but the phone OS. The limitation: multi-tasking and you are restricted to the App Store for applications
2. The lack of storage. The iPad comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, which begs the question of future expansion. At the very moment I am using a Tablet PC with 64GB storage and am already struggling to store all my pictures and music.
3. Lack of expansion. That's right, there's no USB ports, no Flash card support and no built-in webcam. There goes video conferencing.
4. Accessorised. Apple still likes to continue with forcing us to use proprietary ways of doing things like getting apps from the App Store. There's also only one connection that iPhone and iPod users will recognise, where you can plug in a keyboard. And the good old fashioned "I can't replace the battery".

The tip of the iceberg is that there is no keyboard attached, albeit you can get the add on and plug it in. This just defeats the objective as relying on the on-screen keyboard is very annoying. Remember those Tablets with the screen that turns around, how cool were they!?!

With all these limitations, it just seems to be an oversized iPhone without the facility of making a phone. Oh, and that gives another moan of network limitations to use 3G.

Indeed, the iPad looks very nice as Apple constantly amazes us with attractive gadgets. I just don't see how can Apple justify the high cost of owning one of these gadgets. Nor can I see a real practical use.

So, in the end, I'll give it a wide berth.