iPad's Identity Crisis and Apple's A4 CPU Showstopper ( What is this A4???)

As you've no doubt heard by now, Apple launched a new mobile computing device and it's within a product category that is all-new territory for the traditionally tight-lipped company. It's a bit of an odd choice for a company that revels in innovation, and after today's announcement, we're left with more questions than answers on whether or not it can truly deliver in the way that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs

thinks it can. The iPad simply isn't as revolutionary as the iPhone and iPod, and that alone is at least initially limiting the general perception of the product. For better or worse, Apple has worked itself into a corner where people simply expect each and every new product release to change that product category for the better; to revolutionize things in a way that no other company has done so far.

On almost every front, the iPad doesn't do that. It doesn't revolutionize, and it doesn't change the way we personally feel about mobile computing. Apple's approach was to find a device that could be reasonably retrofitted into a lifestyle as a "third device" between the smartphone (preferably the iPhone, if you're Apple) and the notebook (preferably a MacBook or MacBook Pro, if you're Apple). There are a few problems with that approach. First, Jobs himself thinks that netbooks "aren't good at anything." He said as much in his January 27th keynote for the world to hear. Netbooks are arguably that "third device" between someone's phone and someone's main computer, and when you really look critically at the situation, netbooks are actually far more capable than the iPad in its existing form.

...so I don't know if my perception is skewed by the fact that I'd prefer something that could multitask. For instance, I often listen to music while reading. That doesn't seem to be possible.

Well, you can; the iPod app will continue running while you do other stuff. But other media apps, like AOL radio, Pandora, will not. I understand why they restricted multi-tasking to a few core apps on the iPhone. To maintain the integrity of its core function (a phone) and maintain battery life and responsiveness. For the most part, I haven't really missed being able to multi-task on the phone as the screen size really limits that usefulness and app switching is so quick. Still, I would like to be able to listen to Rush through AOL radio while I'm on the go away from a radio, and still do other things.

These issues should not be as great a concern on the iPad however.

I'm sure Steve and Apple are reading all the blogs. Who knows, the version we saw, may not be the one that ships (at least software wise), or a SW upgrade will be out shortly thereafter. The HW design is probably locked and in production.

I would have liked to have seen at least a MicroSD slot, maybe a mini-USB, and since I will still carry the my iPhone with me; the ability to tether to my iPhone for 3G.

Thanks, from page three:

Apple describes the silicon that's powering this machine as a "1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip." That's a lot of words, but essentially it's a super-low power chip designed to handle basic applications for extended lengths of time. You can tell from the one month standby estimate and the claim of 10 hours of video viewing that this chip isn't an energy hog, and frankly, those figures are astounding. Even the most long-lasting netbooks flicker out after 7 or 8 hours of intense usage, if you're lucky. We don't recall a similar device ever hitting the market with battery claims such as this, and there are really only a few things one can do to increase longevity. There are however many devices that could be coming, based on NVIDIA's competitive Tegra 2 platform that NVIDIA claims will offer 16 hours of HD video playback. However, those devices aren't here yet and we have to hand it to Apple getting to market first with this class of capability in low power consumption... Let's just ponder the possibilities for a moment. The iPad runs on iPhone OS. The iPad uses a 1GHz Apple A4. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that a next-generation iPhone, which would undoubtedly run iPhone OS, could easily run on a scaled-back version of the A4 chip, if space/heat issues are managed properly. Wouldn't Apple rather design its own chips for the next iPhone rather than relying on another supply chain? We can't say for certain, but considering just how much Jobs enjoys keeping things close to the vest, we bet the answer is "yes." Smartphones have already hit the 1GHz point. Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset is making waves across the industry, and Toshiba's TG01 (which runs Windows Mobile 6.5) is already widely available in some parts of the globe with a 1GHz CPU. Having such power within a phone certainly makes sense, and given that Apple has already pushed its power plant once on its iPhone 3G when it introduced the iPhone 3GS, one would conclude that Apple is planning to bump the next-gen version as well.

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