The iPhone 4G Debacle

Unless you’ve been completely off the grid in the last few days, you’ll have heard all about the iPhone 4G prototype that was left in a bar in Redwood City, California. The phone was found and subsequently sold to Gizmodo.com for $5,000. Gizmodo, a massive gadget news site, who’s posts frequently top 10,000 hits in a few hours, had to turn off their comment system because they were getting such a hammering.

The question that most people are asking is, is this the new iPhone?

The iPad- What is it?

Undoubtedly, the iPad has captivated the attention of the nerdosphere the past week. This is most likely due to the year-long saga that led up to the announcement fronted by the gadget blogs across the Internet to drive up page views. Look back at the old posts for the Apple tablet on Gizmodo, Engadget, or TechCrunch and a plethora of results come up with “exclusive info”, or an “inside source”.

So early this week when it was announced, the web had worked itself up into a frenzy. I personally thought it was like the fervor surrounding a presidential election- we knew who was going to be President for almost two months before it became official. However, instead of getting the “revolutionary product that will change the world”, it seems like the company that can do no wrong fell flat on its face.

I’m an unapologetic anti-Apple person for numerous reasons. And, to be perfectly honest, I was expecting something that would be pretty, shiny, and appeal to mass consumers, but really be nothing revolutionary. Their other products, the iPod and iPhone were exactly that. The iPod was merely a shiny Creative Nomad, and the iPhone a uber-glossy HTC. The iPad, despite its embarrassingly bad name, had the first two. It seems to have fallen flat on the third one, however.

I’m struggling to figure out what exactly it is supposed to do. From the keynote, Apple really doesn’t seem to know either. On its promotional website, it claims that its “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device”. If that’s not marketing-speak for “we can’t really promote much of anything about the device, so OOH, SHINY STUFF!”, then I don’t really know what is.

So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Clicking on over to the features page, it promotes Safari at the top, highlighting the New York Times’ website. Which is smart, because the vast majority of the homepage is very textual and light on images. Notably absent, of course, is the use of Adobe’s Flash technology. Why? Because the iPad doesn’t support Flash. It may have been easy to overlook on the iPhone, but on a device designed to browse the full web on a large screen? It seems completely unacceptable.

The Jobs said that netbooks are “not better at laptops than anything, they’re just cheaper.” The thing is, however, people are not looking for something better than laptops when they buy a netbook. They want one in a mini form factor. You can’t begin to call the iPad a netbook or even a laptop competitor if it doesn’t support Flash. For starters, that means no Hulu, no Facebook games, and no Pandora.

However, most of these problems will be integrated into the App Store, with dedicated YouTube and Pandora apps. But sites like Hulu may not have the resources to pore over making a secure iPad app, and there’s no easy way to integrate a Facebook game into a separate app.

I can understand why Apple is blocking Flash. It wants people to go to the iTunes store, spend six hours loading the damn thing, then buying a TV show, rather than streaming it from Hulu. I think its a terrible business practice, however. When I shell out $500, I don’t want to be forced into buying stuff I can get for free. Not to mention that preventing a device from fully functioning is kind of like buying a clock that only tells time in 24-hour, and you have to buy access to get the 12-hour version. It makes no sense.

After looking over those two arguments, it’s pretty plain to see that its not supposed to be a laptop/netbook replacement. So what is it supposed to do exactly? It’s not a phone or mobile workstation, because it’s far too big to be practically used. Can you see yourself whipping out the iPad on the way to work?

It’s not supposed to be an eBook reader. The battery life is a mere ten hours. Compared to the Kindle’s three day lifespan, ten hours is embarrassing.

It’s not a video player, as the size is way too big to conveniently carry around. Could it replace a backseat DVD player? Yes. But, it has no DVD slot, or USB port for one, so you’d have to digitally copy everything to the hard drive. There is a dock to connect cameras or SD cards, but there are no drivers for an external DVD drive. The same is true for the iPod function- you’d have to have it in a bag with wireless headphones to carry it around.

That’s my biggest issue with the device. The form factor isn’t really necessary for the functions it does have. It would be far simpler and cheaper to just do all of this on the iPhone, and add a few new apps. Even some imagery with Jobs using it in the New York Times made it look very awkward and uncomfortable. For someone who specializes in PR, if he can’t make it comfortable, then I have a hard time believing anyone will.

So, in reality, it’s a jack of all trades, but a master of none. That wasn’t really a problem with the iPod or iPhone- they did one function really well, then a bunch of others as secondary. Personally, I think this will end up with a very enthusiastic group of owners who actually find it fits their lifestyle. In that sense, it’s like the Apple TV, which I actually thought was pretty cool aside from the whole iTunes thing. Could it be improved with a few updates, a la iPhone 3G? Certainly. But right now, there are far better options for those looking in the tablet/netbook market.