iCave

OK, OK. I cave. I have to talk about the iPad. I get it. On my failure to address last week’s most impactful appearance of an important public figure, I’ve not much to say. iPad? My bad. And I reckon this will make me a heretic among my tech brethren (a heretech?), but I pretty much don’t give a hoot. In a word: yawn.

It’ll be interesting to see how the technology is adopted and its release marks a crucial starting point for a new wave of netbook-obliterating, better-than-e-reader devices, but I don’t see an iPhone-esque groundswell/sea change (choose your geometaphor) happening just yet. It’s way better for reading than a Kindle, they say (I haven’t had a hands on), but it’s not like we’re all toting those puppies around. Otherwise, it seems like an oversized iPhone. An oversized iPhone that doesn’t take pictures. Or, you know, make calls. Yet still has a pricey 3G plan with famously spotty service to go along with it.

And as for other sad similarities, how the hell did they let this thing out of the box without multitasking functionality? You know how you can’t play music with the Pandora app on your iPhone while look something up on Google? You won’t be able to do that on the iPad either. Truly idiotic. Hey, check out this cool little ‘puter — it does one thing at a time!

Surely we’ll be revisiting the long-heralded tablet, and in the meantime I’d be remiss if I didn’t jump on the wagon and bring you MadTV’s prescient iPod/iPad spoof circa 2006: