You know, it’s funny.  I’ve been feeling guilty about neglecting this blog in favor of my 365 photo project for a while (although all I really have to do there is upload a photo and come up with a short caption, and the caption is optional), and then I came to the realization that it’s always this way at the beginning of the year.  I have, each year that I’ve been blogging, gone through a low-post slump in the late January/early February phase that picks up again as we get on toward spring.  Maybe it’s a light thing – who can say?

Anyway, in all of the not blogging, I haven’t made any comments about the keynote that shook the Internet last week (was it last week?).  You know what I’m talking about: the announcement of the iPad.

Within moments, I jumped on the feminine product bandwagon – because, yes, it is the dumbest name ever. Heck, I tweeted it.  I think that the all-female team that hosts All Things Considered on NPR had it right when they opined that clearly Apple has no women on its marketing team.

On the other hand, I don’t quite get the premature vitriol being lobbed at the iPad from a bunch of people who’ve never actually handled the damned thing. How do you know you hate it?

“It’s just a big iPhone,” goes the common complaint.  Well, what’s interesting about this armchair observation is that everyone who’s actually picked one up and used it has commented that it is very much not just a large iPhone.

“No one will want to write on their iPad screen,” I hear.  Do you know how many people I know who have stopped carrying a laptop in favor of an iPhone or an iPod Touch?

“I kind of want one,” I told some people at work the day after the big announcement.

“Why?” was the typical scornful reply from many.

OK, let me rephrase.  I can see how one might be useful—even neat—for someone like me.  I travel a lot.  My laptop is small, but would it be nice to have a thin tablet that fits into my briefcase with my itinerary?  Sure it would.

That said, I can already think of several reasons to wait for iPad 2.0, or a reasonable competitor (the HP Slate is not out of the running).  For example, I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom as my main photo cataloguing and editing-on-the-spot program.  Each night I come back to my hotel room, wherever I am, dump the photos off of my camera and happily spend some time going through them, editing, enhancing, and basically seeing what I can do to make them more interesting.

My camera takes a compact flash card.  The iPad may or may not have a Secure Digital port, which does me no good.  The iPad doesn’t even have a proprietary USB port – you have to buy an adaptor ($30), and even then there are some questions about exactly what you can plug in to it.  I graduated from iPhoto years ago when I wanted more control than the “magic fix” button.  Sometimes the “magic fix” and I disagree with what is wrong with a photo and what it takes to fix it.  I want to be able to control what it’s fixing.

And given that the iPad doesn’t support Flash, I can’t imagine that Adobe is rushing right out to create Lightroom for iPad.  It would be nice … but I’m not holding my breath.

But, yes, would it be neat to have a device like the iPad that could serve as photo storage, power my road warrior PowerPoints, and let me check  my e-mail?  You betcha.  Being able to use the iPhone Kindle app and Skype would be even better.

So, maybe I won’t be running out to get one on launch day.  Money’s a bit tight in the khowaga household right now, and I have this here laptop that I’m writing on that’s zippy and does everything I need it to.  But will I keep my eye out for iPad 2.0 and or Adobe products on the iPad?  You bet.

The iPad may turn out to be Apple’s biggest flop since the Mac Toaster (and does anyone remember Apple’s first attempt at a portable computer that was roughly the size of an adding machine from the mid 90s?).  But, unlike 75% of the blogosphere, I’m going to wait until I actually see one before I pass judgment on it.

To do otherwise would just be … Republican.