Wayne Pan

The anticipation built, the hype was beyond anything we had seen, the announcement was made, and now we’re left to ponder what it all means.

Yes, the iPad can be distilled down to 2 words: giant iPhone, but today’s announcement was never about the hardware (aside from the custom A4 cpu) but about the software. iPhone 3.2 OS, essentially the same OS that will be running in the iPhone sitting my desk.

iPad, in that respect, is underwhelming.

The two most requested features of the iPhone OS are Flash and multitasking. Neither of these features are in the iPhone 3.2 and ostensibly will not be available when the iPad launches in late March.

I can see how Apple justifies not having either of these features; none of which are technical. Let’s start with Flash. It is a resource drain, source of countless crashes, and the source code is ultimately not owned by Apple.

However, the main reason why Apple doesn’t want Flash on the device is that it can’t be optimized. Flash sits on top of Safari which sits on top of the OS; essentially a VM. With the iPad, Apple has designed custom silicon optimized for their OS and applications built off of their SDK. Flash applications are not built off their SDK, unoptimizable.

Multitasking is another matter. It’s obviously technically possible (read: jailbreak) but Apple is holding back on it because it impacts the user experience. Normal users do not want to deal with resource management nor do they understand it. How many Windows users have you seen with 50 icons in their task tray and complain their computer is “slow”. That’s not the perception that Apple wants users to have of the iPhone, and now the iPad.

Background Mobile Safari playing a flash video and it’s welcome to SlowVille – population: lag.

Apple will eventually offer multitasking once the silicon becomes fast enough that it doesn’t impact the user experience. They could potentially approve certain apps to be backgrounded, putting a resource cap for backgrounded apps, or limiting the number of background apps.

Apple’s answer for Flash? HTML5 and native apps of course.

I will be pre-ordering an iPad sight unseen. I know I’m in the minority and all the uses I imagine are very niche. But, what I wouldn’t give to own a first gen iPod. I believe the iPad is a product of that magnitude.

YouTube announced an HTML5 version of the YouTube service a couple days ago. Now Vimeo is joining in and announced their new HTML5 player. This is great news for anybody that has an older computer, a slower netbook, or (like me) an older Mac Mini under your TV.

Watching an older flash video on the older YouTube, my CPU utilization from Safari and Flash is between 100 – 150% usage:

Watching the same video on YouTube HTML5 Beta, my CPU usage hovers around 20-25%:

Not a month into the new year and already one of my 2010 predictions is rolling along.

• iPhone 4G – Just as the sun will rise, Apple will release a new iPhone every year. My only prediction is that the screen resolution will be more than the current 3G. They have to keep pace with the Droid, Nexus One, HTC HD2, etc…
• First compelling HTML5 apps that will force people to get off IE – Native video support will be the driving force here. Imagine if every YouTube video was in HTML5. Native video support requires much less processing power than Flash video. All those low powered netbooks out there will finally be able to play internet video without stuttering.
• Android market share surpasses iPhone – Enterprise will embrace Android over iPhone since Android is open. That coupled with free with contract Android phones, this is a no brainer.
• Gowalla will be the dominate location based social “network” – Loopt will sink as foursquare and Gowalla gain. It’s too early to tell but to me it’s a coin flip between the two. However, I do think Gowalla’s model for rewards is much better than foursquare’s Mayor model. As time goes on, Mayors will be harder and harder to usurp making the “game” aspect less fun.
• Facebook will IPO and not acquire Zynga – 2010 is ripe for IPO after all the ‘09 M&A. Zynga will get left behind as Facebook will continue to grow at an outstanding rate.
• Chrome OS won’t make a dent – How do you explain to a regular consumer that the netbook they’re about to buy is basically only a browser. “So you mean I only get Internet Explorer for the same price as this Windows (XP) machine?” I’m secretly hoping that it’s a raging success because it means WebKit gains more marketshare.
• There will be an Apple tablet – I’m not going to say anymore. It’s all been said.