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Ya. We know, the photo used here is not of the actual iPad ( photo credit: nDevilTV).

Apple has described the iPad as the most innovative piece of technology they have ever produced. This may be true if you take it apart and look at the pieces, but the end result is a device that is actually strong in it’s non-innovative approach.

Perhaps, it would have been nice to see a larger screen, a slide-out keyboard, a digital camera/video, true GPS, full OS X, an OLED or color eInk screen, and innovative features that have never been seen before. However, a few years from now we may look back and realize that it may be the iPad’s similarity to the iPhone and iPod Touch that make it a success for Apple.

The iPad is actually an answer to complaints from iPhone and iPod Touch users. The larger screen and ability to attach peripherals are the only real differences between Apple’s current touch screen devices and the iPad.

But, is the screen big enough and will people use a device that is missing some of the features that make the iPhone attractive?

Where would Twitter, FourSquare, Yelp!, and mobile Google Maps be without the iPhone. Sure, there are plenty of smartphones that use these services, but would those companies have reached their current value had it not been for the iPhone. The even bigger question is would the iPhone be as popular had these services not found innovative uses for the camera, GPS and overall awareness of the iPhone?

iPad discussions on Twitter and in forums seem to be full of debates on whether the iPad is good enough to be useful to current iPhone and iPod Touch users. And then there’s the Netbook crowd. A nicely equipped netbook costs roughly $200-$300 less than the iPad.

Whether or not the iPad is a hit will depend on the actual needs of users, not the hype that Apple has put behind it. A table on Apple’s website has a price breakdown for each model.

Once cost not covered on this chart is the additional $15-$30 per month for the 3G service (only offered by AT&T). $30 per month for 3G data is a very good deal when you compare it to the cost of other networks data plans or even data plans on AT&T for other devices. If the iPad has a killer feature, this is it. On the other hand, most wireless providers offer a USB 3G wireless adapter that can be plugged into any netbook or notebook for roughly $50 per month.

The question is whether people will pay $629 (or more) plus $15-$30 per month ($180-$360) for a data service that can only be used on a single device. Compare the $629+$180 minimum for a 3G iPad which only offers 16GB of storage, no webcam, and no tactile keyboard to almost any $300 netbook with a 3G dongle or built-in 3G. The pricing is roughly the same. However, the added cost in getting a netbook plus USB 3G dongle allows you to pick your 3G service, you will likely get 160GB or more in storage, a webcam, a tactile keyboard. The USB dongle route allows you to use the 3G service on other device.

On the other hand, if you go the iPad route, you will have a cool device with a touch screen. You will also get noticed in coffee shops as you sit with your neck at a right angle pressing the keys of the onscreen keyboard as you punch out an email that say something like…

Bob,

Got your message. I will write more when I get to a real computer.

Thanks,

Bob

Sent from my iPad

To other iPad users this message will show that you cared enough to hit the function keys that allowed you to make a few punctuation marks. Of course, there is a full QWERTY keyboard available for the iPad. It is important to note that spending the extra $60 on the keyboard will bring you to within $30 of the price difference of going the netbook route. If you choose the 64GB version and unlimited data, then you surpassed the cost of a netbook a long time ago.

If anything, Apple has open the doors for a real non-Windows competitor to step in and steal the market share from anyone who is not a brand loyalist (fanboi).

The instant on, 3G and touch screen are nice features that make the iPad unique. That helps competitors who want to go to the cost and expense define what their competing product needs. We hope it means an Android-based tablet with a real keyboard and OLED or color eInk display. Throw in a webcam, real GPS and the 3G service of the customer’s choosing and you have a device that could win big among people who consider features over brand. Apple has opened the gates on the $500+ price point for a small screen. This allows competitors to come in and offer better equipped devices for a lower cost.

The big question will be whether OS X is enough to draw enough buyers over competing products. The operating system is the only feature that competitors cannot duplicate. If Windows were the only option, the iPad would be a solid winner. Linux, Android, Chrome and even WebOS are always lingering out there for customers and manufacturers who are willing to break with Apple and Windows and try something different.

It’s an exciting time to be a geek.

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On the third Wednesday of every month we join forces with HelpMeRick.com to do a little public affairs show on KAFM 88.1 in Grand Junction, CO. We always discuss tech and pretend to have a topic.

photo credit: ajmexico

Believe it or not, there are still people switching from dial-up to broadband Internet. For almost a decade, these people have been saying stuff like, “I don’t really need fast Internet,” or “All I really ever do is email.”

If you are one of these people who is just now discovering that dial-up and broadband are really two totally difference species of Internet access, here is where you should go to discover a whole new universe of fun and productivity.

1. Google Earth – You have to download and install it, but Google Earth allows you to look at any place on Earth in dozens of different ways. View the Vegas strip in 3D, pinpoint every McDonalds on the planet, stroll down the street you grew up on.

2. Skype – Skype lets make video and audio calls to any other broadband user in the world for free. If you want to pay a little, you can also call any telephone in the world for prices far below anything your telephone company would ever offer. Many soldiers stationed overseas use Skype to call their families on a weekly basis.

3. Smithsonian Online tour – You may have to use Internet Explorer and download a browser plug-in but this great site lets you tour the Nation’s greatest museum.

4. Online Video – Once you discover the video that the Internet has to offer, you may discover that you can save even more money by canceling your cable or satellite bill. Try Hulu, TV.com or Joost for movies and TV shows, YouTube for goofy stuff and useful stuff alike – YouTube is a great tutorial database if you want to learn how to change that hard drive in your laptop or the kitchen faucet. There are dozens of other online video sites out there. Be careful though, some (i.e. Break.com, MetaCafe.com) allow more controversial content than others.

5. Flickr – Flickr actually works pretty well on dial-up as long as you are just looking at photos. Uploading photos on the other hand is impossible with dial-up. Flickr gives you the ability to share your photos with friends and family and the world.

6. Google Docs/ZOHO – Remember when you used to need Microsoft Office or WordPerfect to do anything productive with your computer? With broadband all you need is an operating system (Windows, Macintosh or Linux) and a browser – which they all come with out of the box. Both of these online office suites allow you to create projects online that can be accessed from any computer. In other words, no need to start a document at work, save it to a flash drive, then find out that you can’t open it at home. If you create a document in either of these online suites, you just log into that site when you get home and everything is there.

7. Online backup – There are dozens of these services but we like Mozy and DropBox the best depending on your need. You have probably also heard of Carbonite which is also very good. Online backup services allow your computer to backup information online so that if your computer crashes, burglary occurs or some other catastrophe causes you to lose information stored on your computer, you can restore it via these online services.

8. FlightAware – This one might not be for everybody, but it comes in handy when you need it. FlightAware lets you track any flight or any airport in near real time. Pick an airport and you can watch the airplanes by flight/tail number and track information such as altitude, speed, arrival time, etc. It is so close to real time that it allows you to feel the power and potential of broadband Internet.

9. Poisson Rouge – This one is for the little kids but it will occupy any kid of any age for several hours. Poisson Rouge is a website that I recommend to anyone who needs to practice with the mouse a little more.

10. Any other website out there – Remember when you could look a recipe up in a book faster than you could online? Not any more, try Food.tv or AllRecipes.com. Remember when you used to have to look a word up in the dictionary? Not any more. Now you can have the definition quicker than it takes to read the next three steps (assuming you can type 25 words per minute or faster).

Open your web browser.

• Type define broadband in the little search box in the upper right corner.
• Hit the ENTER/Return key.
• Poof! the first link at the top will take you to the definition of broadband.

By the time you go to each of these sites, you should be wondering how you ever did without broadband, and we haven’t even gotten into Netflix, iTunes, Last.fm or future technologies like Google Wave.

Palm Pre JPG Creative Commons License photo credit: renaissancechambara

UPDATE: Since posting this article here and linking to in on PreCentral, a lot of people have complained that I was not fair in my analysis. In fact, the guys at PreCentral are such fanboys that they deleted the post from their forums. Today Palm released the WebOS 1.2 update. The device seems much snappier and there are a few other positives too. I will check on battery life, responsiveness and other issues over the next few weeks then write a new review.

I will certainly do a short podcast on this topic later, but I wanted to get this review written sooner rather than later.

On June 6, I was the first person in Grand Junction to buy a Palm Pre. I waited over night for the Sprint store to open – not because I was extremely determined to get the phone – rather, I was tired of the games Sprint had played with their employees and customers in releasing the phone and I was determined to beat their little game.

Now, almost 4 months later, I have decided to take an honest look at the phone and write a real world review.

I am not going to write about many of the positives. The Pre does have a lot of positives, but you can read about those on Palm’s site as well as any Pre fanboy site, such as PreCentral.

Don’t mistake this article as a hater article either. I just don’t want to make the article longer by writing about all of the positive aspects of the phone that most readers are already aware of. I am sure that there will be folks who read this who have not had the same experiences, but these are my experiences.

SETUP: I use my Pre primarily as a phone, but I have added many applications from the regular App Catalog and through the homebrew store. I only use an app or two every day. The main app I use is Twee. I do have the Pre set to check email in the background – only because I don’t know how to turn that feature off. Other than that, I keep my screen brightness set as low as it will go and I turn off WiFi when I am not using any Internet apps. I probably send 4-5 texts per day and about the same for Twitter posts using Twee. I only go onto the Internet about 2-3 times per week on the Pre. The pre is using the latest official OS firmware (WebOS 1.1.0).

BATTERY LIFE: The Pre’s battery life has to be the worst of any smartphone on the market. If there is any phone has worse battery life than the Pre, the company should issue full refunds and allow users to switch phones with all possible rebates and price cuts without a new contract.

Just a couple days ago I went on a long car ride. My wife had her cell phone and I didn’t want to take any calls, so I put my Pre in Airplane mode. I didn’t touch the phone for eight hours. When I turned the phone on again, the battery level was in the yellow (less than 10 percent battery left). What’s draining the juice? On a number of occasions, I have attempted to use the GPS. In a short 20 minute trip, as much as half my battery will drain. After so many bad experiences, I believe that Palm should include the car charging attachment for free. If I want to get any good out of my phone, I have to keep it charging in the car if I plan on using the phone, apps, GPS, Internet or even texting for more than a couple of minute.

RECEPTION: It’s pretty bad. I typically have one or two bars in many areas that my wife and kids will have four bars.

SEARCH: I have a huge addressbook – over 1000 people. Most of the people in my addressbook are former clients who I may have only met a couple of times. I switched from a Palm Centro to the Pre. On my Centro, I could search for anything in any app. When I met one of my clients at the mall and they would say, “Hi Adam!” I could nicely pretend that I remembered their names – even tough all I could remember was that they lived on Maple St. I would pull out my phone and casually search “Maple St.” and it would bring up a list of contacts, appointments, phone calls, and memos I which included “Maple St.”

Using the Palm Pre – searching only brings up two things – contacts and the card with Google, Google Maps, Twitter, etc. My biggest complaint about this is that the Pre was marketed as having universal search. Since search has always been so perfect with Palm devices, I expected that it would only improve. Not so. I guess I don’t want universal search, I want ubiquitous search. Search everything. I don’t expect search within third party apps, but I do expect the OS to search all of the standard PIM data.

CONSTRUCTION: The Pre build is certainly flimsy, but not shoddy. It has held together great. However, the two halves do twist and I hate the USB port in the side. Then again, I don’t hate the USB connector enough to pay $70 for a Touchstone.

My biggest complaint on build is the stupid loose battery issue. For the first month or so, everything was fine, but as the Pre loosened up, I began having the problem. Even when trying to carefully slide the Pre shut with one hand, the final little snap would knock the battery loose and the Pre would shut off (my rant about the boot-up time is coming). At first, I fixed this problem by changing the Pre battery for an older Centro battery I had laying around. That worked for a month or two. When it started occurring again, I inserted a piece of paper as demonstrated in the earlier link.

I have only had the Pre shut off a couple of times since adding the piece of paper a month or so ago. I try to carry an extra charged battery, but that is difficult to do with the short battery life of the Pre. Removing the battery is a horrible process as well. I have to pull so hard on the plastic strip that I feel like I am going to break the phone.

BOOT-UP TIME: Why does it take so long to boot up? My Pre is not unusual with its roughly 2.5 minute boot-up time.

SPEED/PERFORMANCE: Ya, the Pre is sluggish. Don’t expect anything with smooth frame rates. Tetris, Breakout, Google Maps, they all have weird little hang-ups. Opening any app takes about 4-5 seconds – just to get to the point where you see the app on the screen.

GPS: The GPS only works if you are in a data service area. No maps are pre-loaded and they don’t stay in the cache. If you aren’t in a data coverage area, the driving GPS app just comes up with a screen telling you that it won’t work until you are in a data coverage area. The Pre is not a replacement for a TomTom by any stretch. The interface is clunky, there is no reliable way to lookup a contact and have the navigator take you there – if you try, it takes you to Google Maps – which is almost better.

CUT & PASTE: Sure, it has cut, copy & paste, but not in any Internet-based apps. When it does work – it still doesn’t work. You must use just the right amount of pressure and drag your finger at just the right speed to highlight text. Usually it takes me longer to highlight the text than it does to actually retype whatever I am trying to copy.

MISSING SHORTCUTS: CTRL+C and CTRL+V work great – but why no CTRL+Z – I need an undo for when my copy and paste shortcuts don’t work right. Often I end up having to retype the content I was trying to copy because I press C and it types a C over whatever I had highlighted instead of copying the phrase.

NO VIDEO: If I would have realized how often I would miss even the crappy video feature in my Centro, I probably would have waited for a better phone to come out.

In the end, I think the Pre is a great introductory smartphone. It does some amazing stuff. You still can’t beat the wonders of background processing. I find a need to keep two or three apps open at the same time almost every time I use it. Often it is only for a few seconds as I look up a phone number on the web or using GOOG-411 while I have my contacts open. Or I start an email and then want to look up a scheduled appointment in my calendar to include in the email. I think that the ability to run multiple apps at the same time IS the Pre’s killer app.

The problem is, there comes a point when you stop overlooking all of the little annoyances and begin to realize that your usage is handicapped because every action requires that you overlook or workaround.

I would still recommend the Pre to teens, busy parents, email-centric business users and others. However, if you are looking for a versatile device that you can depend on to get you through all aspects of your day (email, appointments, GPS, web searching, digital camera, toilet computing, etc.), you will likely be happier with an Android device. Of course, you could go iPhone, but most of us that are left have our reasons for not taking things in that direction (AT&T).

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photo credit: Colleen AF Venable

While we did wander off topic a couple of times, no podcast has ever done a better job of summarizing everything Google does in under an hour.

This week we proclaim ourselves to be the “Good Enough” Leo Laportes of tech radio and podcasting.

As always, you can hear all of our previous podcasts at HelpMeRick.com.