When Steve Jobs presented the newest Apple gadget, the iPad, the discussions started all over the world. Some call it a ”giant iPhone”, except that you can’t use it as a phone, so maybe a giant iPod Touch is more accurate. The similarities are many. The iPad can run most of the applications on Apples App Store, and to develop iPad applications you use the iPhone SDK, although a updated version with better support for the new giant. Will the iPad be the next big thing and experience the same success as the iPhone? There are a bunch of discussions out there. The price, the size, the possibilities and of course the limitations. One of the limitations I have read most about, and as a Flash developer are very interested in, is the lack of support for the Adobe Flash Player.

Since the release of the iPhone Adobe have tried to get Apple to release a Flash player version for the iPhone, but without any luck. The situation has not changed when it comes to the iPad. The big difference here is that one of the major things to use iPad to is surfing the web. We have been used to limitations when surfing the web on mobile devices. But I must admit that I don’t expect any of these limitations when it comes to a “mini-computer” like the iPad.

Connecting to millions of sites out there, some major like Disney, ESPN, Farmville, YouTube, through the iPad will not give a very good experience. All the sites that use Flash to enhance the user experience, all the games and videos and much more will be stopped by the iPad. Fallback solutions will be presented and damages the ultimate user experience for many sites. For me this is a big deal and a reason alone to not buy the iPad. Not because I’m a Flash developer. I’m still in love with my iPhone and I love gadgets, but there is a limit for what limitations I am willing to accept. The Flash limitations are demonstrated on the theFlashBlog

Just a couple of days after the iPad news were released MSI showed a prototype of a similar tablet-pc that is based on the Android platform. The fuzz wasn’t as big as around the iPad, but I still think this is exciting news. One thing is sure and that is that Apple needs competition. Android is challenging the iPhone on mobile devices and maybe we will see the same war on the tablet-pc area.

Anyway, whatever the iPad will turn out to be, I would like to thank Apple for what they do when it comes to developing user-friendly innovating technology. Somebody needs to show the way and as long as the crowd follows we will continue to have progress. I do look forward to sit with an iPad in my hands and try it out. I’m a bit skeptic but it’s always possible to convince me.