The iPad’s Greatest Need

I’ve had my iPad now for one week, more or less. I purchased the low-end model, the 16GB wifi model for $499. I also bought the Apple case for it. Since I brought it back from the Del Monte Apple Store in Monterey while on our Spring getaway, I’ve purchased $55.00 worth of apps for it. I’ll enumerate my apps later, probably on my Tumblog.
As I have written about previously, I have been looking for some time (years, really) for an ideal field note-taking device. I’ve tried everything from the original Palm Pilot to other PDAs to HP’s tablet (the TC1100 from, what, 2005?) to Moleskine to the iPhones to net books. Some have worked better than others. But they have all had failings, and I’ve hoped that the iPad could be — well, not the perfect device, but the best device built so far for this purpose. This entry is not an evaluation of whether the iPad fills that niche or not, it’s definitely too early to tell.
But that drive, along with a general love of gadgets and Apple gadgets in particular, led to the pre-order and purchase of the device.
There has been much written about the iPad, it’s potential and its limitations. Some of the limitations that people espouse are really design decisions — the device doesn’t have a USB port because Apple didn’t want to build a device that still relied on USB. Some of its limitations are based on Apple not having yet determine how they want to implement them. The lack of multi-tasking is, now that we have seen the iPhone 4.0 announcement, going to be addressed in Apple’s iconic way.
The lack of support for Adobe’s Flash has been the most repeated criticism of the iPad. I won’t go into whether I think the decision not to support Flash was wise. It was widely reported and I doubt many buyers of the iPad were surprised to learn that Flash was not going to work. If Flash support is important to you, don’t buy an iPad.
The thing that the iPad needs, in my opinion, more than any other feature, is support for Blutooth tethering to a device with a cellular data connection.
I know, I know. In a couple of weeks Apple will begin selling iPads with 3G support from AT&T built-in. Perhaps I should have waited to purchase one of those. But here’s the deal: I already have an iPhone (and a Verizon Droid) with a data plan, for which I pay $30/month and I never get close to my monthly cap. I do not want another monthly service charge for anything in my life. It is the accumulation of all of these recurring charges (cable, phone, cell phone, Internet, NetFlix, Xbox Live, etc etc) that is killing us. We buy these devices that are not inexpensive themselves, and each of them has some associated monthly expense on top of it.
I can tether my net book to my Droid using the PDANet app and get a 3G connection anywhere that I can’t get to wifi. That experience over the past few months has really colored my reception of the iPad in a way that I did not expect.
I could buy a MiFi and connect the iPad in that way. I haven’t ruled that out, but there is, of course, a recurring service fee for the MiFi, which is twice what my iPhone data plan costs. That scenario is only palatable if I can turn off my iPhone data and voice plan. That only works if I switch to Skype or Google Voice. These are all possible, and maybe where I head with this.
But if the iPad could tether to the iPhone, Apple could sell more of both! When you look at how, for instance, the Kindle app syncs between the iPad and iPhone, so that I can do some light reading on my iPhone and when I open the same book on the iPad, it knows exactly where I left off… well there is (to use some hated marketing-speak) a synergy there that makes both devices more useful. I can see using Dragon Dictation on my iPhone to capture a thought or note, then opening it on the iPad to expand it to a more concrete thought. I can see using Bento on the iPad to capture data for later access on the iPhone. Ditto with Reqall and Evernote and Write Room. These devices are great alone but even better together. Why can’t my iPhone share it’s data connection with the iPad? Even for AT&T this creates more lock-in for iPhone sells.
I can guess that there might be some concern if Apple only allowed tethering to the iPhone and not to other phones. Anti-competitive. But, since devices such as the MiFi (presumably, haven’t tried it) work with the iPhone, there seems to be a reasonable counter-argument.
But for Apple fans who are already carrying their iPhone and are now carrying an iPad, you’d think Apple would find a way to reward them.
Sigh.
And don’t get me started on MobileMe and the boat that Apple is missing with that one.