What Apple could learn from Android: My experiences with an Apple iPad

So I've been an Android user for a while now - I love Android and the
freedom it gives me - my phone is a Nexus One which I ordered the day
they came out in the USA and had it shipped over especially to me in
Australia.
So when the iPad first came out I wasn't really interested - it's a
big fricken iPod touch!

Well.. until I saw it - and used one.. and I slowly changed my mind.
My Boss got one and showed it off to everyone and loved it - and I
started appreciating the appeal of a well designed tablet device -
which the iPad definitely is.
My wife noticed this and with my birthday coming up she was wondering
what to get me - out of the blue she asked me - would I like an iPad.

At first I thought.. nah.. what would I use it for, etc.. but the more
I thought about it the more I was drawn to the idea - so in the end I
pleaded guilty and so she ordered one for me.

I love my iPad - don't get me wrong with the rest of this post - it's
an perfect size, well designed, fast, and has an awesome screen. The
battery life is incredible (more than 8 hours of constant game/movie
playing!)
The Apple App Store is also pretty good - lots of well designed apps
and games and plenty more appearing every day.

So what could Apple learn from Android then if they have such a great device?

Well.. there's a number of flaws with the whole iPhone/iPod/iPad
environment unfortunately..

iTunes sucks - I mean.. its a great music player - but the rest of it
is pretty awful and feels like it was just tacked on.
It's painfully slow to browse the app store in their in-app web
browser - and if you're syncing at the same time its near on
impossible.
It crashed about four times for me in the first few days - mostly for
totally innocuous. But then I'm using Windows - and Apple has made it
pretty clear that they consider Windows users as second class
citizens. Or maybe they think 'Ahh.. noone will notice - its on
WINDOWS - everything crashes all the time anyway!' .. meh!

Notifications on the iPhone/iPad are primitive - they're all mode-less
dialog boxes that pop up in single file and interrupt whatever you're
doing. There's no way to see them all at a glance or dismiss just the
ones you want to - you need to wade through them completely - very
poor.

Soft Keyboard - the soft keyboard on the iPad is actually pretty good
- though I really miss Swype and voice input is also lacking. Apple
don't let you replace anything - so if you don't like the keyboard -
bad luck!

App Crashes/Memory issues - seems that apps/games can chew up memory
and have memory leaks and the OS isn't smart enough to clean up after
them or limit them in any way - no wonder this thing is easy to
jailbreak! Unfortunately it means that eventually you'll go to start
an app or game and it'll run out of memory and bump you back to the
home screen. Apple have a support page for this - all of the game
FAQ's from different companies seem to redirect to it -
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1295
Basically the only way to solve the problem is to Reboot!

Lack of Multitasking - iOS4 is out.. why not for iPad! Yeah.. okay..
minor issue and we'll get it eventually.. but why have we been left
out - this device is sorely in need of some multitasking (even if its
only what Apple calls multitasking).

Impromptu Reboots - I've had a few weird reboots from the device since
I got it - one I was able to repeat every time as it seemed it didn't
like an episode of House I was watching. I got to watch the first 10
minutes and then it decided it didn't like the rest and if I play it I
get 2-3 seconds and then boom - reboot to broken Apple symbol.
Totally reproducible - even tried skipping further into the episode
and the same thing happened.

No Back Button - It really needs a back button. I mean.. you're in an
email and click on a web link.. it closes your mail and opens up
safari - sounds fine.. but then to get back to your mail you need to
close the browser and re-open your Mail again. What if you have been
sent a bunch of links! How frustrating! In Android you can just use
the back button and jump back into the app you came from - whether it
be twitter, mail or anything else.

No Widgets - c'mon.. even Windows Mobile has widgets!

So there are my main quibbles so far - I'm loving the device so far
apart from these problems - I spend a fair amount of time on the train
so using this to amuse myself on the trip - and I've found I do like
using it at home too - while sitting on the couch or relaxing in bed
its much nicer than my phone screen. I enjoy the collection of games
too - there's some great ones available for it!