I’m already tired of hearing about the iPad 2. After much speculation, rumors and hopes being thrown around, everyone seems excited about a slightly thinner design, a front-facing camera and some additional RAM.
Big f***ing whoop. Nothing about those features are revolutionary or magical. While FaceTime is pretty fancy, video calling isn’t something that will catch on until it can be easily handled through 3G (or 4G or LTE or whatever cell network you use) instead of being WiFi tethered. There’s plenty Apple can do to wow me and other fanatics with an iPad 2, and they are:
1. WiFi syncing
Why in the hell do I still have to plug in my iPhone or iPad to sync? It seems ridiculously obvious that this could happen via WiFi and eventually over the air. WebOS can do it and it would be sure nice if Apple could catch up a little bit.
I know the iPad is meant to be a single user device, but it would be fantastic to at least have a guest account available for when friends or kids ask to use it. I don’t need full fledged user accounts, but a temporary account would be awesome.
3. Better way of reading books
The Books app annoys the shit out of me. Sure, it seems fun to virtually flip pages, but I’m not reading a damn book, I’m reading on a tablet. Let me endlessly scroll, let me make pages just appear or make the iPad 2 able to follow my eyes and scroll for me. Just stop trying to pretend you’re a book.
4. Pick a size…one size
No person in their right mind is going to carry around a seven-inch iPad and whip it out at the grocery store or in public. That’s what we have smartphones for. Two sizes gives Apple too much to worry about. Make one size and make it awesome.
5. Don’t stick to product cycles
I’ve never understood the need for Apple to introduce new or improved products under any sort of timeline, especially if it’s a year or less. Take your time and make products awesome, don’t give us incremental updates that don’t really matter. We want wow.
Can you tell I’m WAY more excited about the new MacBook Pros?
