Despite being so ultra-hyped and priced unbelievably low at $499, the Apple iPad does have it’s share of disappointments. Based on the initial impressions of the iPad by Engadget and Gizmodo and our own judgment of the specifications and features, here are the drawbacks of the Apple tablet:

• No handwriting recognition. Students would have loved it to take down notes and artists would have found it useful for drawing. I guess artists weren’t catered to, but since it has iBooks, I think a lot of students would be let down that they can’t take notes as well with it.
• No multitasking. With a 1Ghz processor which is much faster than what the iPhone 3GS has under the hood, we were expecting to have multitasking in the OS. But, Steve Jobs still thinks it’s not a good feature.
• No webcam. Apple is one of the companies that made webcams an absolute feature in its product line up of notebooks and desktop computers. It’s hard to think of a good reason why the iPad doesn’t have one.
• No phone calls. From what we know so far, you can’t make phone calls despite having a SIM tray and cellular support in the 3G model.
• No SMS. Again, just like phone calls, no text messaging available.
• No widescreen. We all wanted a widescreen iPad. That’s the aspect ratio that everyone wants, Apple!
• No Flash support. At a display of this size, it sucks if you still have to see the no plugin image in Safari. Why put a 1Ghz processor if you can’t allow people to run Flash in the device? Make it optional to save battery life, but give us an option! iPad doesn’t have the best browsing experience ever based on this issue alone.
• No USB. Let me make this clear and simple. The crappy notebooks that the iPad replaces have USB support. We want to connect our devices to this entertainment hub. Steve thinks otherwise though.
• No expandable storage. The most you can have is 64GB for a high price. No storage expansion after that. You’re stuck. The world ends at 64GB.
• Name. Yes, iSlate or iTablet would have sounded much better. iPad is already the butt of many jokes, specially hygiene ones. Don’t believe me? Check iTampon on Twitter.

That’s all we can come up with, without a hands on of our own. Apple wouldn’t be fixing these issues either so they’re part of the iPad package. Do take a look at these before making up your mind on buying the iPad. Let us know if we’re missed any points.

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