There have been hundreds, if not thousands of articles about the new iPad released from Apple.  As an owner of an iPhone and a geek to boot, I see the iPad as a new toy to play with but nothing more.  However if we take a closer look at the iPad it may be better than it seems…but not for the reasons you think.

First off, I’m very happy with the performance of my iPhone.  It’s  a 3GS, which means it has more processing power, more memory and a fairly unique magnetic compass feature.  However, I’m not impressed with the restrictions that Apple has placed on the device and is forcing onto the iPad as well.

With the introduction of the iPad comes the iBook format for reading books.  This is great for publishers that would like to get more people to read their books but horrible for the people who want access to their books from multiple devices.  If I want to read my iBook file on Linux or Windows I don’t want to be running through iTunes.  Along the same lines is the App store that requires Apple’s authorization for installation of applications to the iPad.

I’ve been a proponent of the App store in the past, but the lack of open source programs and apps for the iPad/iPhone is very disturbing.  For a hardware device that is so expensive, why are we not able to use whatever software we prefer on it? Allow me to run a shell or at least something simple like Bluetooth tethering for other devices.

On the other side of things I can see where an iPad would be a handy tool.  Not just an expensive toy, but a real, justifiable expense.  First is that I would like to see them being used in the medical profession where data on a patient would be simple to access.  This has been tried with PDAs before, but small screens and difficult data input were high restrictions to everyday use.  With a 3G connection, you could take an iPad to a construction site and make sure that all shipments and deliveries are on time while keeping up with status reports.

One very large point that has been made is that the iPad is simple.  It will be very easy to port iPhone/iPod Touch apps over to it, rapidly increasing the number of apps available on release.  This will attract many of the people who don’t want to buy a whole computer or support a whole computer for people who are not 100% computer literate.  I would recommend the iPad for people who just want something to check e-mail on, listen to music with, or even to use for recipes in the kitchen.

The largest down side for all the iProducts has been a complaint since the first iPhone/iPod touch was released: you can only run one application at a time.  Until you can listen to Pandora and read recipe books at the same time, Apple’s products will always be a problem.  They can do it on OS X, why can’t they do it on a mobile device?