Magical it may be, but that doesn’t mean Apple’s tablet can’t be improved
“It will come,” Steve Jobs is reported to have replied last week, via e-mail, when a customer asked him “Why no printing on the iPad? What gives?”
Okay. Great. And while we’ve got your attention, Mr. Jobs, here a few more requests:
- Multitasking. Why do I have to shut down e-mail to grab a URL from Safari? This fix is coming too, when iPhone 4.0 is released for the iPad, but why do we have to wait until next fall?
- Multiple accounts. I’d like one iPad configuration — apps, calendar, e-mail, bookmarks — for me, another for my wife.
- Streaming music from a Mac. Videos can be streamed over Wi-Fi using third-party apps like Air Video. Why not songs?
- Apple app syncing. When using Pages, Numbers or Keynote, why aren’t changes made on Mac documents reflected on their iPad counterparts?
- Tethering. There’s a USB cable port on the iPad camera connection kit. What exactly is preventing USB modems from working on it?
Note to Apple (AAPL) software engineers: We don’t mean to suggest that these fixes — or anything else you do — are actually easy to execute. They could be fiendishly complex, for all we know. But unlike, say, adding a camera or a USB port to the iPad, they can be accomplished through software updates to the existing hardware platform.
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
