chip cullen graphics freelancer

If you pay attention to the tech world, and weren’t under a rock, you’ll know that Apple announced it’s new tablet computer, the iPad, today.

The short version: it’s a big iPod Touch, with a 3G option.

The long version: it’s a big iPod Touch, with a 3G option, a lot more possibilities and a killer price.

There seems to be a lot of negative reaction in the tech media. A lot of “disappointed”, “let down”, “meh” reactions. Some people are never happy.

Of COURSE it wouldn’t live up to every wild rumor and speculation. There have been rumors on this churning for years – and it’s been fever pitch for about 3 months now. If it did everything the rumors said it would do, it would have to shoot unicorns out of it’s 30 pin port in order to really be a surprise.

What irks me most, though, is while this was predominantly a hardware announcement, the biggest complaints all tend to be software or content related.

• There’s no multi-tasking. Yet. That’s a software issue that can (and to some degree will, I’m sure) be addressed in future OS updates. And it could possibly be backwards-compatible with old iPhones. It could quite reasonably argued that Apple’s insistence on one-task-at-a time has been a wise move. One need only read up on the Palm Pre’s battery life for verification. Would multi-tasking have been nice to have today? Sure. Will the experience be hurt – not as much as if it were implemented poorly.

• No subscription content. Again – yet. I’m sure some deals are in the works. I’m surprised as anyone that this was absent. But the possibility is obviously there. In fact, all of the infrastructure is already in place. The deals just have to happen.

• No camera. Okay, it’s an obvious hardware omission. I’m thinking we’ll see this in rev 2 – the curious inclusion of a microphone points to it. However, if it had a camera built in, it would be nowhere near $499 to start. If I’m Apple, and I was looking at $499 sans camera, and a $699ish starting price with a camera, I don’t think it would be a hard decision to make.

So, what did work?

• As an artsy-type, the single thing that blew my mind was the Brushes demo. I can’t WAIT to get my mitts on that on the iPad. Talk about a permanent sketchbook. I’m positively giddy about that.

• The ebooks look pretty slick. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing you just need to spend time with to gauge whether or not it will be a pleasant reading experience.

• Video playback looks really nice, too. It’ll be much nicer to watch a movie on a plane than on an iPhone.

This will be continued to be hashed and re-hashed for the next 60 days, I’m sure. I can’t wait to hold one in my had.