simplicity

I was like any other tech-geek yesterday, stuck in this euphoric optimistic mindset.  I immediately thought back to the days leading up to the iPhone announcement in 2007 and the announcement itself, I remember being completely speechless during that entire presentation.  When Steve dragged his finger on the glass screen and the items started scrolling it made me giddy.  And while there were a lot of negatives about the iPhone that day (no 3G, no multi-task, closed system, no SDK) the phone itself, the technology, the idea behind it, and how Apple was designing it there was this feeling that something special was being built there.  That is exactly why yesterday had that extraordinary feeling, the feeling that Apple could possibly match what they did for the iPhone and surpass that made yesterday that much more special.  However, after the announcement I was left a little bit disappointed as opposed to euphoric.  Granted that the iPad had a lot of hype to live up to and anything with that much hype obviously won’t and can’t ever live up to it, but I’ll be honest I felt a little ‘blah’ after everything was said and done.  That does not mean I am any less optimistic about the iPad, I think it has a lot of possibility it’s just the entire announcement was more or less underwhelming.

I don’t think anyone had doubts regarding what was going to be announced.  The public, analysts, critics, and competitors all knew what was coming.  There’s a reason why Amazon announced their SDK at such a ‘coincidental’ time.  But I was left wanting more, more information, more on what it does, more on how it does it.

From a visual and technological standpoint the thing looks like a tech-geeks dream: thin, light, and powerful.  The glass screen, the design, the multi-touch it all just oozes Apple.  I wouldn’t be a tech-fan if I didn’t say that I wanted one and that I will probably get one, but that doesn’t change the fact that they paraded the iPad around as an oversized iPod/Touch.  My gripe was that they didn’t show any features other then a bigger screen that makes this any better then an iPod/Touch.

However, from Apple’s perspective it makes sense not to announce anything about the underlying architecture and OS until a developer presentation as opposed to a first showing.  Though, it does surprise me that a new piece of hardware only got a minor revision for the iPhone OS, I imagined that instead of going to 3.2 we would see the iPhone SDK updated to 4.0.  Out of everything yesterday, I think this disappointed me the most.

While many people were expecting Apple to also announce that other carriers besides AT&T would get the iPhone I was happy that this wasn’t announced.  Though I am an Apple shareholder and letting other carriers sell the iPhone would result in larger profits for the company, as an Apple fan I’m glad.  There’s exclusivity with Apple products, some of their products are almost luxurious: hard to either get or too expensive to buy.  With the iPhone there has always been that level of un-attainability, the first one was really expensive and the recent version have only been on AT&T.  As a result, people either have to spend a lot of money or make a significant change to purchase one.  I can only assume that Apple will eventually make this announcement, but I’m glad they didn’t just yet.

Finally, there weren’t any surprises, no ‘And one more thing’.  This didn’t fit the mold of typical Apple announcements.  Usually there is something significant that you can grasp to at the end of the announcement that leaves you far more intrigued then the actual product announcement.  The only real surprise yesterday was that they had a love-seat on stage as opposed to a table or desk.  This was obviously done for the marketing of the device.  Apple wants to show you that you can use this device in the comfort of your living room.

However, besides the technology, there wasn’t anything that left me with awe