OPINION
Taking the Good With the Bad in the New iPad

More so than than any other major Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) product in recent memory, Apple's new iPad tablet device presents the world with a confounding mixture of good and bad -- or perhaps it's more of a yin and yang, or some other sort of cosmic force. Depending on who you are, and depending on what you need, some of Apple's deal-breaker decisions might be the killer feature someone wants most.

I still don't know if I'll buy an iPad.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I want one, but want and desire, at least in this case, are far away from buying action. Nevertheless, I don't doubt for a second that millions of people will buy the iPad or that the iPad will be a success. It's got enough overall goodness going for it that it'll make quite a few people happy. So let's start with the top five elements of iPad goodness.

#1 Good: iPad Runs on iPhone OS

By delivering the iPad with the iPhone OS, in one instant Apple is also offering buyers access to well over 100,000 apps via a proven delivery channel -- the App Store. In addition, iPhone and iPod touch developers gain a deployment device, which also builds the Apple ecosystem and makes Apple attractive to new developers.

While we're at it, iPhone OS is astoundingly easy to use, so non-Mac-using iPhone owners can transition to an iPad without the learning curve they might have with Mac OS X. From an Apple perspective, this also creates fewer distinct product lines for development and support purposes. While we're at it, my iPhone and iPod touch have been surprisingly trouble-free, and they simply require less maintenance than Mac OS X. (But don't get too excited with the OS yet -- it's also the iPad's worst feature.)

#2 Good: The Overall Form Factor

Apple is so synonymous with great industrial design that's it's easy to forget the important little details: The iPad looks gorgeous, and while only a handful of press people at Apple's unveiling last week have handled the things, we can bet they'll be well-balanced in the hand. The design is clean, of course, like the iPod touch, with an OS that's intuitive. At first glance, I was surprise by the black border around the edge of the screen, wondering why Apple didn't keep the usable screen edge-to-edge. The reason: It might be more room for the guts, but I think it's more for holding the iPad. It's got a full multi-touch screen, so you don't want an errant thumb getting in the way.

While we're at it, the optional case that doubles as a stand is pretty sweet, as is the minimalist dock.

#3 Good: It's Flexible

The Apple iPad is easily far more than an e-book reader. It's also a more capable computing device than a smartphone. Depending on the person, it may even be better than a netbook. For personal media, it can play movies, video, music and show off photos, not to mention let you buy and read e-books. Want to browse the Web? I've got to say, I do enjoy browsing from my iPhone, and I can only see how using the iPad's larger screen would be a joy. How about email? My iPhone is great, of course, very handy, but I could see myself happily busting through a few hundred messages from a reclined position on the couch.

Plus, the new look and feel to Notes and its Calendar and Contacts apps seem better and more useful than ever.

#4 Good: The Price Is Right

While I might not buy an iPad, the price isn't the biggest factor. Of course, if it were just US$200, it would fall close to the no-brainer level, but we have to recognize that $499 is about as reasonable as Apple gets. (And I should say that despite the high cost of acquisition for Apple products, I've never once felt buyer's remorse or felt as if I had gotten a bad deal -- even when I shelled out for the first-generation iPhone.) The point remains, it's a good price. Apple's acquisition of the mobile semiconductor company PA Semi, which no doubt helps Apple produce its own processors for the iPad, may be paying off.

Granted, 16 GB of memory and no 3G option for $499 does seem paltry, but when you consider the iPad is intended as a transitional mobile device, it's not unreasonable. I'm actually more pleased that Apple isn't offering the iPad with a subsidy agreement through a cellular service provider, because I think these are overall bad deals for American consumers. Through subsidies, we get nice low cost of acquisition points of entry, but I think we end up paying for it through unfavorable long-term contracts and hefty service fees.

#5 Good: A Freakin' Keyboard

Steve Jobs can gush about how wonderful the touchscreen keyboard is all he wants, but the fact remains, a flat glass screen is a poor replacement for the buttons on my keyboard when I need to type more than a sentence or two.

An Apple keyboard accessory option, even via Bluetooth, is quite welcome -- and certainly extends the iPad's usefulness into work and student territory.

Ah, but what about the bad?

#1 Bad: iPad Runs on iPhone OS

Two words: closed ecosystem. The same thing that helped propel the iPhone in the worldwide limelight -- the tight integration with thousands upon thousands of apps -- is the iPad's most irritating feature.

Sure, iPhone OS might help the iPad retain a longer battery life, but what about the deployment of apps that Apple won't sanction? That developers don't want to run through Apple's store rules? How about corporate app development with proprietary content and features? Jailbreak your iPad? I'm sure we've got some intrepid hackers already warming up their hands and case-cracking equipment.

Still, this really sucks. While I don't think the locked-down iPhone OS is the harbinger of doom for personal computing, I'm disappointed -- I was hoping we'd get the power and flexibility of Mac OS X with the ability to run iPhone OS as an application environment. Damn.

#2 Bad: No Support for Adobe Flash

Wow. The lack of Mac OS X wouldn't be quite so bad if Apple actually provided support for Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Flash. It doesn't matter if Apple considers Flash a sub-standard technology, the fact is, a lot of great Web sites and content use Flash, their publishers have invested heavily in Flash, and they aren't going to ditch it any time soon. So that leaves consumers with a hobbled browsing experience.

On the flip side, I think this is a pure business and power decision, and if I were running Apple, I might make the same choice: Screw Flash. Here's why: Take the excellent site Hulu.com, which offers high-quality TV shows (and other movies and video) via a browser-based stream. Hulu is free with advertisements, and it competes directly with iTunes, which provides TV shows and movies for purchase or rent only.

Plus, if Apple is indeed trying to work with TV distribution to offer consumers subscriptions to only the shows they really want (and not 900 channels of crud), Flash would just get in the way.

No Flash still sucks, though.

#3 Bad: No Verizon

To me personally, the lack of Verizon support for 3G doesn't matter much. Apple obviously negotiated some decent pricing terms -- without a contract -- via AT&T (NYSE: T), so that's good. But for those who have a bad AT&T experience, the lack of Verizon could be a deal killer.

Never might that supporting Verizon would have required a whole different cellular 3G chipset on a 3G system that Verizon is gradually replacing anyway -- the problem for some is rooted in the middle of right now.

#4 Bad: No Camera

I don't believe that most people are going to be running around shooting photos or videos with their iPads, but the lack of a camera is just a sad limiting factor. If you put the iPad into a work environment, a camera could be astoundingly useful -- for patients in a hospital, for students in the field, for any worker who might need to document the appearance of an object or environment. And what about video conferencing? No camera, no video conferencing.

Sure, Apple will add a camera in the future, but really? No camera now?

#5 Bad: Lack of Ports

Some think the lack of ports is a good thing, but it would have been nice to have an HDMI out port for easy HDTV connectivity without having to buy some special accessories. Similarly, a USB port would have been nice.

Granted, these aren't deal-killers for most people, just irritating omissions.