While the iPad seems great…

If you watch the videos and see the Apple hype on the iPad, it looks like a pretty incredible device.  Couple that with inexpensive wireless internet that is NOT locked into a contract, and it seems like it is the perfect device to compete with a Netbook… but it’s not (in my opinion).

Here’s Why:

Um, no Flash support – Are you KIDDING ME??  Steve Jobs touts the iPad as having “a better web experience than your laptop”… and yet, there is no flash support (as seen in his live keynote when he opens “The Wall Street Journal’s” web site and you see the lego block in the middle where there *should* be Flash), and being that Steve Jobs “hates” Flash and says it is the only thing that causes Mac’s to crash, you can bet that you will never see Flash support on the iPad (or the iPhone for that matter).  Heck, I could see Steve trying to banish it from Mac computers and laptops at some point.

 Walled Garden – What do I mean by a walled garden?  Well, I mean that Apple controls the entire experience for you, including applications (they decide what you can and can’t have on your device, not you).  You HAVE to use iTunes to manage your device, including the media content you might want to consume on here.  And while you can get this content from elsewhere and convert it to something that works on the iPad, it is a bit of a hassle and can NOT be done on the fly… which brings me to the fact that you can NOT download files or (incompatible) attachments to this device.  So, let’s say you need an incompatible file for one reason or another (not to use on the iPad, but your laptop or someone else’s computer, etc.) and you are not around WiFi for your laptop to be able to get it… this iPad has 3G service, so you *could* get to that file, but Apple won’t let you download it.  Back to iTunes, the fact that you have to physically hook up this ultra-wireless device to a computer to back it up or sync it is beyond me.  It’s so 2001.  With the  proliferation of WiFi networks and the fact that this thing can be purchased with 3G as well, it makes no sense to me to *have* to physically tether it to a computer (same goes for the iPhone).  This is yet another way they maintain strict control over the experience.  I understand some of the benefits with having a walled garden, but not having any choice bugs me.

Limited OS – The iPad is not using full OS X, it is using the iPhone OS (a sub-set of OS X).  While I understand having a more purpose built OS for a device like this, the iPhone OS seems to be far too crippled for a device like this.  Where it may work well enough on a “phone”, it is my opinion that this will not be enough for a larger screened tablet device where you could do so much more than you would on a phone.

Conclusion – These are some of the major reasons I don’t think the iPad is the best device (for me at least).  There are a slew of other more minor things about it that bug me, but that would be like nitpicking. ;-)

I’d love to hear other’s thoughts on the pros and cons of the iPad.  I didn’t really list any pros in this post, but believe me I *do* think there are some serious pros to the iPad… I just feel like the cons I have listed here would keep me from buying one.