App Store

One big takeaway I got from yesterday’s iPad keynote is how much Apple is depending on the App Store library to sell its new device.

“140,000 apps at your fingertips!”

The issue is, out of those 140k, about 139,500 suck and are near-useless. Of the remaining 500, 400 are games. So we’re talking about 100 truly well designed apps that are realistically useful to most people.

Of course, developers have the option to create apps specifically designed for the iPad. Unfortunately, there’s less core functionality available on the device than an iPhone, meaning iPad-specific apps can’t do things like VoIP and augmented reality.

Even something as simple as a front-facing camera would have made the iPad a truly revolutionary product. Imagine being able to have a video chat with someone while walking around the house. I realize that’s technically possible now with a laptop, but it’s annoying enough to not be a common practice. Making the notion of mobile video chat monumentally easier is worth writing home about.

I’m the target customer for the iPad. I own a MacBook Pro and often leave it at work, because I can do 95% of work-related tasks from my iPhone if I’m away. Unfortunately, using an iPad instead of an iPhone remotely wouldn’t make me any more productive, so it’s impossible to justify buying one.

All in all, I think Apple should have considered exactly what users would realistically use a tablet device for, then build on that, instead of using the bloated App Store library to gauge demand.