Last Wednesday rolled around rather uneventfully. After the previous track record of the iPhone 3GS, the MacBook Pro unibody, and the iPodtouch 3G (third generation) announcements, I’ve been pretty much bored by the recent string of Apple keynotes. Instead of having iPad force me to rethink that notion, it only solidified it some more. Admittedly, there was a lot of hype for the iPad, but I did not buy into it much. Not sure as to what to expect, I planned on a full-fledged Mac, or at least some form of Mac OS X on it (not iPhone OS) that would make it at least as useful as a laptop, but with the usual Apple ingenuity.

However, when the announcement came out and all I saw was an over-sized iPod touch, I was, needless to say, underwhelmed. And that’s an understatement. Now that isn’t to say I don’t want one — I do, but mainly because of my lust for shiny gadgets. And I should probably pick one of these up fast, because honestly, I don’t expect them to be around for much longer. Maybe it won’t go the way of the Apple TV that quickly, but if Apple doesn’t change the purpose of the iPad, it may go the way of the Newton — a long, sad, and embarrassing existence. Now why do I say this? There are a few reasons why I predict the iPad (and the tablet category in general) will fail:

1. Let’s take a look at the Tablet industry in general. Tablets have been done before. Granted, not in the same manner as the new iPad, but they’ve been done. Sure, they’ve had a mildly successful run, but they didn’t turn out to be the answer the computing industry was looking for, as Bill Gates predicted a few years back. Specifically focusing on the iPad, it’s been done before. By the same company. Does the iPhone ring a bell? What does the iPad do that the iPhone can’t (except for a few unfocused apps that Apple has developed solely, so far at least, for the iPad)? Nothing? Well there’s the problem.
2. What category does the iPad fall into? Steve Jobs tried answering this question in the keynote, calling it a third middle device in between a smartphone and a laptop. Call it Apple’s answer to a netbook — just don’t call it a netbook. However, the problem is that this middle device is intrinsically the same thing as the smartphone, or worse, as another product they have — the iPod touch. Sans the portability. In Jobs’ keynote, he doesn’t target a specific audience, but rather describes a variety of apps that could potentially hook people from different demographics. iWork for businesspeople. eBook readers for book worms and housewives. Games for the teens and twentysomethings. None of these are compelling enough to warrant a complete device, let alone an entire category.
3. The iPad is too much like the iPhone. I’ve probably already beaten this to death, but I’ll put the nail in the coffin. How is the iPad different from the iPhone? So it has a larger screen. And it has customizable backgrounds. Hell, even the interface is the same, who are we kidding here? Not to mention the name is similar to an existing product — the iPod. What the iPad is is a confusing product, with no distinct identity at the moment, and fills a nonexistent need, and worse yet doesn’t create one.

Will my predictions come true? It’s tough to say at the moment, but if Apple doesn’t step up to the task of truly convincing us that tablets are the future, I’m convinced that the iPad will go down as Apple’s biggest bust since the Newton.