Out of the box it’s simple to setup, you just need to plug it into the latest version of iTunes, sync up some content as you would with your iPhone or iPod, then off you go. However, the fact that you have to plug the iPad into your computer before you can use it eludes to my main gripe with the iPad. If this device is truly to replace a laptop or netbook then it needs to work out of the box. More of that later though.

Functionally the iPad is just a big iPhone, without the phone! It’s intuitive to use, like the iPhone, and after 5 mins of drooling I did find myself thinking…. “well that was fun”. 1 week later I have set up my email account, uploaded some video and installed some apps, and admittedly the laptop has been out much less. The fact that you can turn the iPad on or just unlock it and be on the internet within 10 seconds is perfect for a quick browse whilst watching TV or in bed.

Moving on to Apps, you really start to realise who the iPad is targeted at. Although Apple quote thousands of iPad Apps being already available, most of these are the long tail of mediocrity. The rest are predominantly business oriented or games. The Business oriented Apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote give a much better idea of where the iPad is going. In fact, it was an App called “Things for iPad”, which retails at £11.99 which made me realise exactly what the point of an iPad is! Yes that’s right folks the reason d’etre for the iPad is to replace the humble notepad. Perhaps I should have realised this from the name but a simple To-do list App made me realise that this could easily replace my notebook, plus add a lot of other cool stuff in. I could carry the iPad around with me every day and never need to write on a bit of paper again!

So what are the drawbacks of the iPad? Well they are two fold. Firstly, it is dependent on syncing up with a laptop. Until it can function separately, it won’t replace the laptop. Secondly is file storage. Creating Apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote, you would think that you would be able to save files and documents on to the 16GB+ of storage space, then share and manage them with the cloud, email, etc etc. Apple have actually made sharing files particularly fiddly, you cannot see a list of files saved, in fact you cannot even manually save a file in Pages, it automatically saves every 30secs. If you want to take the file elsewhere, you have to transfer it via USB to iTunes, or export and email. Also you cannot import a file, work on it and then send it back to yourself.

So in summary the iPad is an amazing product, it has a load of things going for it. Would I advise buying one? If you already have a PC and an iPhone, then no. The second or third generation of the iPad are probably going to blow this one out of the water with a whole raft of new features much like the iPhone 4, so I would wait a year or so, that is unless you are a Apple fanboy like me.

Now I don’t have any mates that work at Apple or any inside info, gleamed from Kevin Rose or anything.  But as sure as Apples are Apples, there should be a new iPhone arriving this summer.  The mobile phone industry moves fast so going more than a year without an update to the iPhone would be inviting the likes of RIM, Android devices etc to start nipping at Apple toes.  Last year that monumental day was 11th July in the UK so expect to see Apple move the barriers on again around the same time this summer.

So the big question is, what are they going to do to make us all go out and exchange our 3G’s for a nice shiny new one and another 18 month contract.  Well first of all no matter how much I’d personally like to see one, Apple have officially confirmed there is no iPhone Nano in the immediate future.  Apparently Apple aren’t “going to play in the low-end voice phone business”.Sorry to break that but now that we’re over that check out some of the fake pictures that have been floating around recently.

Anyway without further adue, here are my predictions for the iPhone 3rd Generation…

My Predictions

- Video Calling via iChat camera (behind the screen if the patents are to be believed.
- Kickass camera (4MP at least).
- Further MobileMe cloud computing models, hedging my bets here.
- Cut and paste functionality – Come on Apple this is schoolboy.
- Stereo sound.
- Bluetooth.
- Higher Storage (32GB min?).
- Picture Messaging (MMS).

There we have it. For me the main new funtionality is going to be around video and sharing stuff via the cloud.  Feel free to tell me I’m speaking a load of b******s below.

So what is a location based service. It is a service (i.e. social networking) accessible through mobile devices that utilises the ability to geographically triangulate the device location anywhere in the globe, i.e. on your Facebook news feed, imagine seeing, “Joe Bloggs is in Leicester Square, London”. Social Networking is going to be the thing that drives this. Kids at school, people lost at festivals, mates in the vicinity, the possibilities are endless. But the possibilities also extend in so many commercial ways that brands with retail presences must be liking their lips at the very thought. Then there’s this idea of social graffiti, i.e. leaving geo-tags on restaurants, shops, etc, that your friends can see, share and comment on. Imagine I want to go to a local restaurant, call it up on Google Maps, and I see a menu from the restaurant, and comments left from 3 of my friends who have been there. We all know that recommendations are that much more influential if they are from your friends. Applications like Brightkite are already doing this in a simplistic way, check out the video below.

The barriers to this service are wide ranging and entwined with all sorts of legal / privacy concerns. We saw the backlash start with the launch of Google Latitude and then continued with the Facebook privacy row. Google Latitude is a location based service that can be installed on most new smartphones, although notably not the iPhone at present. Google obviously have a vested interest in this sort of technology with their complementary product portfolio of namely Maps, Android and Gmail. However for once it’s not going to be Google that drives this. Whilst there are a multitude of services out there like Loopt, Brightkite, etc, the growth is going to come from the established social networks. You can bet that Facebook and MySpace have Silicon Valley’s finest working on this functionality in readiness. To bring this to the mainstream you have to have an established network of friends in place already.

So until Facebook pull their fingers out and get on with it, we can dream. The Tonchidot, Sekai Camera is one such example. Premiered at TechCrunch50 this App stole the show and although the designers seem a little thin on how they are going to populate this augmented reality experience it is clearly a vision of the future.  Enjoy…!