A Year Too Early
Let’s take away the fact that it’s lacking external features (HDMI? Seriously?). The fact of the matter is, it’s running iPhone 3.2. That’s THREE dot 2. So of course it won’t do multitasking, of course it won’t do any of the other things your iPhone won’t do because it’s not a new major release of the software.
And this is the saddening point, you can’t have “magical” software if it’s the same damn thing everybody’s already running. So with all the noise, this was just another shot in the foot for a product that will inevitably see it’s stride in the next cycle or two–at least when SDK 4.0 comes out.
I never came into this expecting that the iPad would be “OMG PERFECT” out of the gate, but I at least wish they had waited until they had truly magical software to go with their magical hardware.
A Year Too Early · Avalonstar, the blog of Bryan Veloso
While I don’t think it’s a year until we see iPhone OS 4.0 and multitasking, I agree with the general premise. The real question I have is why Apple announced the iPad now, rather than waiting until this summer when OS 4.0 is available.
This is the same kind of headscratcher as when Apple released the unibody MacBook in October 2008 only to rebrand it as the 13" MacBook Pro less than a year later.