At dinner Tuesday night, I was discussing those points with a bunch of guys I consider to be very bright technologsts. One of the guys at the table argued the iPad isn’t meant to replace a laptop for business use, it is meant as a consumer device – a user friendly extension of yourself, I suppose. I agreed, explaining that the iPad is useless as a mobile office solution because it is limited in applications to what is web based, or what is available at the app store.

I like using Office, I really don’t like OpenOffice/GoogleDocs. I’ve tried them and found them incredibly wanting. Say what you will about Microsoft, they make a hell of an office product. (Don’t get me started on how inferior Entourage is to Outlook, though. That’s another post in itself.)

But here’s the problem, as I explained to them. The iPad isn’t really a good platform for personal use either.

What do you use a personal device for?

A personal device, especially one expected to become the standard for such devices, needs to have a lot of capability for personal media.

The iPad is clearly based on the assumption that everything is in the cloud. That’s not the case for most users, though. Most users still install applications, download mp3s, play DVDs, etc. With only 16GB on the low end device, the amount of space available for any of that media is minimal. Even at 64GB, the iPad is seriously underpowered for storage compared to a 160GB to 250GB netbook – especially at two or three times the price.

Assuming you want to get everything online, you still have the problem of actually achieving that. Since the iPad doesn’t do Flash, you’re going to have problems with a staggering number of websites, especially if they use it for video delivery. Flash is installed on the overwhelming majority of computers. There is rampant talk of HTML5 replacing it, and many big names are looking at implementations to replace Flash, but there are significant hurdles.

George Ou at Digital Society (of which I am a Director), looked at YouTube’s implementation of HTML5 and found it lacking. In addition, you have the issue of battling codecs that has made adoption by browsers inconsistent.

Assuming the iPad only allows Safari, and since Apple has significant concerns with the lack of patents on the Ogg Theora codec, it’s possible that some site video won’t work even with HTML5.

Absent a reliable streaming solution, and without enough storage space to handle stored media, the iPad falls short on the media front.

What is the iPad’s Value Proposition?

The other problem with the iPad is the fact that it is unlikely to function well as a standalone product. The lack of any type of drive prevents the direct install of applications and requires the iPad be connected to something else. So now you have to shell out the $500 to $700 for the iPad, and you still have to have the $300 netbook, or the $1,000 laptop to connect it to. The iPad was billed by Jobs as an intermediary device with the best features of a smartphone and a laptop. However, since it is far too large to hold up to your ear, and way to underpowered to replace the laptop, you have left neither of those behind, and instead spent $600 for a device that does little the other two don’t.

If you will still need a laptop/computer as well as a phone, there is a serious question as to what the iPad gives you that makes it a unique value.

When the iPod came along, most people were still listening to CDs. The value of the iPod was in a) the storage capacity to keep larger amounts of content with you at any time, b) a menu system that made accessing that content quick and easy. While other mp3 players were in the market, the iPod made digital music easily accessible. The best mp3 available offered significantly less as a value proposition.

Similarly, the iPhone put more power in the phone. The Blackberry was the smartest widely-deployed smartphone available at the time of the iPhone’s release. Yet the iPhone rose quickly to dominance because it gave you more power, more capability, and more storage at a similar price point, and in an easier to use package.

The iPad Has None Of That

A few years ago I helped organize an event at which Marc Andreessen spoke. He had requested a white board for an audience participation event. With almost 800 people in the room, that just wasn’t reasonable. So I arranged with a Dell sales rep the use of their first tablet. We connected it to a projector, and turned Andreessen loose.

Midway through his remarks, he started talking about convergence, and the tendency to take things that work perfectly well on their own, and jam them together. He commented that his first cellphone was a brick – big, bulky, heavy. But he had just gotten to a very small, very lightweight phone, and now here come smartphones to make us carry the brick again.

Then he held up the tablet and said, “A paper tablet is cheap, you can get it wet, you can use it in broad daylight… this thing has none of that!”

And that’s the problem with the iPad. It’s not robust enough to be either a business device or a consumer device. It relies on Apple’s closed architecture, has far too little capacity, and limits your ability to consume the media you want as you choose. Further, it has far greater limitations than a netbook, but at a substantially higher price point.

A netbook has similar battery life, but also allows you to add your own software. A netbook has a larger hard drive, and doesn’t require another more expensive computer to run. A netbook costs half, but does twice, as much. Are they perfect, no. Will they get much better over time, yes. But I would still pit even the worst one against the iPad.

The iPad simply doesn’t offer any value compared to what else is on the market. Cheaper, but more powerful netbooks, or slightly more expensive, but far more capable Macbooks offer much more. Even the iPod Touch and iPhone give you most of the same functionality, but with a smaller screen at half the price. There is simply nothing that differentiates this product. And that’s the fundamental problem with the iPad.

CES was also better this year.

Don’t get me wrong. The number of booths pimping flash drives still outweighed the number of decent tech offerings about 3 to 1. That ratio is, however, significantly better than the 10 to 1 of last year.

And just in case you think I was joking about the wide variety of shapes and sizes of flash drives on display, the pic to the left is just one booth’s offering. This particular company has a 47 page catalog of options (my favorite is the goofy little sheik on page 13).

If you don’t see what you want (say a banana shaped flash drive to promote a fruit company), just call them, and they’ll crank one out for you. Personally, I think they should do more work with the porn awards that were also going on in Vegas. They could give away little donger shaped drives pre-loaded with clips of the nominees for best threesome and best oral.

As for the rest of the technology, I did find some cool stuff. I’ve shared a couple of the items related to broadband networks and TV via CableTechTalk.com. I really dig the PC Ride (video below). It’s a car shaped CPU that retails at $2,495. I’m not a big fan of the desktop case, so I was pleased to see someone making a different shape. I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone has a 47 page catalog of PC designs, though.

I also really dug the ultra-thin TVs that most of the manufacturers unveiled. Just in case you haven’t heard “Oh my god! It’s so small!” enough in your life, bring one of these home.

Some of the really cool finds I didn’t put up on the cable blog because they aren’t really broadband/connected home specific. For instance, I love little more than the ocean. Any time Mrs. Quip and I vacation, we generally head for a tropic island. While there, I like to snorkel, and often wish I had an underwater camera.

The dive mask to the right has a 5.0 MP digital camera built into the mask (I know, it’s a grainy picture). Push a red button on the top right (your left) to snap a picture.

I’d love to take this with me on my next trip to the Caribbean.

Another cool find (especially for parents with aspiring social media monsters for kids) is Crayola’s kid friendly video camera.

Now your toddlers can film themselves dropping mentos in diet coke and destroying your living room. When they’re done, you can use it to film them washing Diet Coke off the walls.

When the little critters grow up, and tire of tedious housecleaning, they’ll no doubt move on to killing copious amounts of brain cells by vegging out in front of the TV playing video games. By the staggering amount of controllers and promos for it, there’s a good chance Guitar Hero 12 or Rock Band 9 will be the game of the day.

If, however, they decide they’d like to learn to play an actual guitar, you should check out JamVox. JamVox is a software application and a mini-amp. Connect the amp to your PC and an actual guitar, and the software will strip out the guitar track of any song – allowing you to play along with your favorite music. Think of it as Guitar Hero on the extra, extra hard setting. The difference, however, is after your done some chicks will actually be impressed because you can play a real instrument.

Before my first trip to CES, I had a concept in my head that no event could ever actually live up to. CES, to me, was nerdvana. It was like a car show featuring nothing but concept vehicles – and all of them were cool. Unfortunately, the reality is the show is like the world’s largest Eatser Egg hunt. You have these enormous rooms full of iPod docks, bling kits, and batteries, and tucked into this cavern of a room is one or two truly interesting technologies.

In a way, it’s sort of sad. I imagine the one guy who has come up with a revolutionary idea, scraped together enough cash to rent a 10×10 booth space, and ends up surrounded by 10 booths full of junk nobody will buy that will end up in a dollar store in Topeka. His dream of being discovered and becoming a billionaire is lost in a sea of cheap Chinese imports.

It’s probably fitting that the event is held in Las Vegas – given that city’s tendency to quash dreams, take fortunes and create hollow alcoholics and strippers. This paean to consumerism could only fit in a city based on squandering cash on the great gamble.

Perhaps I’m jaded on Sin City. I have ended up on some sort of Hell’s Holiday vacation plan that takes me there three or four times a year. Spending that much time in Vegas is like spending that much time at Disneyland. Pretty soon your going to run into a ride that’s out of order, or maybe a chunk of the Peter Pan flight will fall on your head as you careen over Neverland. One way or another, you’ll see the rather sketchy workmanship that holds it all together.

Vegas is like that. Eventually you stop seeing the carefree celebration and you see nothing but desparate people, clad in a trashy wardrobe of sequins with hair bigger than the skies of Texas. Vegas becomes a cavalcade of the beat and weary fresh off the front lines of their life.

The upside to this trip to perdition, and the quest for that one cool gadget that makes the trip through hell worthwhile, is that there are, occasionally, some truly incredible things on display – technologies that make life more enjoyable.

My favorite from last year is the 3D TV. My understanding is this year will see even more of these. They’re difficult to describe, but they offer some cool functionality. Imagine, if you will, two people playing a head to head game on the Xbox360. Watching the game from behind them, the screen is a mess of color and imagery. If you’re one of the gamers, wearing the special 3D glasses, the game not only occupies the whole screen (as opposed to split screen games today) but also stands out away from the TV. You have depth and width not possible on even the best 2D TV.

Over the next few days, I’ll bring you the best of the Easter eggs I find. If I stumble upon the guy with the billion dollar idea, I’ll give him your best.

I’m not, and I’ll tell you why. One word… Android

T-Mobile is releasing Android based phones this fall. Enabling development of a huge array of applications for the phone has the potential to create the iPhone killer. T-Mobile is talking internally about their new G3 platform and the phones in development as unlike any phone/network you’ve ever seen.

Now, I have to admit, the fact that the iPhone is only available through AT&T is the main factor in me refusing to purchase. However, even if the announcement coming out of Apple in June is the end of that exclusivity and the wider distribution of iPhone to other platforms, I’m still not buying.

Take the Google-driven Android platform, and combine that with their new FriendConnect service to unite all of their properties and other social nets through a giant open-source and open access distribution network, and the “gee-whiz” aspect of iPhone allowing you to browse YouTube and Facebook suddenly seem like an antiquated concept.

You’ll be able to truly interact from the mobile device. Tie your mobile’s built in GPS to location based social networks and you’ve got capabilities for connection on your phone that Apple just doesn’t match with the iPhone.

Add the fact that T-Mobile has been playing up wi-fi roaming via their phones, and suddenly your T-Mobile Andriod phone has is a wide open playground for development. The possibilities of this are endless.

In a nutshell, that’s why you’re unlikely to see me schlepping an iPhone any time soon.

EXCEPT, iTunes rentals don’t work with just any video iPod. They only work with the current generation. If you’ve got the old 5G iPod, you’re out of luck. But how can that be? The iTunes movies work with the older iPod, so why not the rentals? Any difference between the formats should be a function of software, right?

Well, I was surprised to say the least and went trolling Apple’s site. Surely, given the millions of 5G devices in the hands of consumers, there would be warnings and caveats all over the site and iTunes store, right? Well, no. I found one reference buried at the bottom of this page.

Rentals to go.

Movies you rent from the iTunes Store transfer to your iPod¹ or iPhone to watch on the go. Either device remembers where you stopped watching on your computer and picks up where you left off.

Notice that little subscript “1″? That points you at a footnote in about a 6 point font way down at the bottom of the page.

1. Movies rented on the iTunes Store will play only on the current-generation iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPod touch.

The best part of this little story, though, is buried even further down the hole. If you view the source code for the page, and look at the CSS style for that disclaimer, the style name is… wait for it…

sosumi

Read that as a disgruntled customer who finds they just downloaded useless movies might and you get, “So, Sue Me!”

Not that I don’t appreciate Apple’s sense of humor at my expense, but it really is pretty crappy thing to do. Release a new function, limit it to only the current devices (despite the fact that it should be a simple software fix to enable it on the old ones), and force people to buy even more expensive hardware. It’s a brilliant move for a corporation, and one I would expect from Microsoft. Congrats, Apple. You’ve become everything you used to disdain.

Shock - The sheer scope of this thing is incredible. You can’t escape it. Whether its the shuttle bus stops in front of every hotel, the presence of advertising absolutely everywhere, or the size and number of exhibit halls, it is a mammoth undertaking. I’ve been to two GOP conventions, the Iowa straw poll, two cable industry shows, and countless political conferences. Added together, I don’t think they equal the number of people in Vegas for CES. Someone told me (but I have not verified) that between 150,000 and 250,000 people descend on Vegas for the show. The GOP conventions were quoted as 15,000 delegates and 30,000 press for a total of 45,000. Cable’s big show draws around 15,000. They all seemed packed. This was insane.

Awe - The show has the latest and greatest gadgets. I’ve written about a bunch of them on CableTechTalk. You can read those posts here, here, here, here, here and here. My personal favorites had to be the MyVu personal video eyewear, the 3DV camera for gaming, the AnyPlay portable set-top box, DVD and DVR combo, and the Sonos home audio streaming system. If you’re a gadget freak, this is the show for you.

Letdown – The bad news about the show, and what nobody tells you, is how much garbage you have to sift through to get to the gems. For every one cool gadget, there are two places hawking batteries, three places pimping cases for every portable device and four places pushing iPod docks. If I never see another dog shaped, cat shaped, pig shaped, of giraffe shaped iPod dock again, it will be too soon.

The thing nobody tells you is how surreal the whole experience is. I’ve always known that the porn industry schedules its big show (The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo) at the same time. What they don’t tell you is that between porn stars, booth babes, and overweight geeky men, it’s very hard to tell who is there for what. It’s like a giant sea of guys who are absolutely geeked out – only you don’t know if they’re hot for the star of Debbie Does Everything or the latest duck shaped iPod dock.

The other thing to keep in mind is this is a trade show. Like any trade show, it wears thin after the first 36-48 hours – but it lasts four days. Even with four days, there is almost no way you can see everything on the show floor AND go to any of the panel discussions. I could have spent a lot more time doing either, but would have been completely unable to do both.

Would I do it all again if I had the chance? Probably. Would I try to blog it? If I was there for that reason, yes. But otherwise, absolutely not. Trying to squeeze in three to five posts a day on top of the panels and floor was a bit much. It can be done, but you need to get up early, stay up late, and do little else.

In all, it was a fun trip, but I wouldn’t want to do something like it more than once a year.

CableTechTalk will give the industry a voice in the ongoing discussion and debate over telecom policy discussions. Debate over the direction of our nation’s telecom laws increasingly takes place online. This blog seeks to be an active player in that conversation, but it won’t be one-sided. Far from a typical press release and talking points blog, CableTechTalk will invite people with whom we disagree to engage in cross posted debates on the issues – sharing both sides of the argument and letting readers draw their own conclusion.

The blog also gives us the opportunity to share developments in the gadgets that attach to and leverage our voice, video and data platform. This week we’re in Las Vegas looking at the new tech toys on display at CES. We’re looking at the new TVs and set-top boxes, personal entertainment devices, gaming and broadband applications, and all the other things that make life fun.

If you get a chance, I hope you’ll take a look.

I’ll let you be the judge of how good a job it did… Turk Simpson is standing to the right…

The DOCSIS 3.0 standard gets its juice from “channel bonding” technology. The modem bonds the equivalent of 4 channels of television (which would each be the equivalent of 40mbps), allowing speeds in the range of 160 mbps downstream. The upstream rate would increase as well. While the demo didn’t address upstream speeds, I was able to confirm with DOCSIS modem vendors that the upstream speed would likely increase to the 10-20 mbps range.

That may still seem small compared to the downstream, but is a dramatic increase over the 1mpbs we currently receive.

The vendors also told me that the downstream speed isn’t capped at 160, but actually scales up dramatically. The DOCSIS 3.0 standard allows for up to 32 bound channels – meaning the maximum downstream speed for the standard is 1280 mbps, or just over 1gbps.

At 160 mbps, the new standard puts cable modems far ahead of the current fiber optic offerings (which top out in the 30mbps range). The new standard is expected to reach consumers by this time next year. The interesting effect of all this, I believe, will be the creation of a bandwidth arms race between cable and the telcos. For those who have been concerned with the relative low speeds of US broadband compared to other countries, this should ease that pain.

An arms race between access providers will also limit the possibility of “net neutrality” violations. If customers are continually seeing improvements in throughput and have one significant reason to switch providers, it’s unlikely the ISP would give them another reason by limiting content.

The cost of HDMI cables, as a result, struck me as really odd.

So I went online to find the reasoning. Here’s the first thing I found…

We dug a little deeper, and noticed that Best Buy wasn’t the only electronics purveyor hopping on the HDMI gravy train. Checking online stores, it appears that everyone wants to get in on the act of selling Monster Cable‚Äîor any HDMI Cable‚Äîfor seemingly inflated prices. Of course, these cables are gold plated, right? Help us out here. Is there really $143.62 worth of difference?

Now, Gizmodo is not exactly a site for Luddites. If they’re perplexed by the high cost, there must be something going on, right?

I clicked through the link in the post and found a 6ft cable, gold plated, and certified to perform at HDMI standards for $17.93.

Huh? How can that be, you ask? Surely they must be selling these cables at a huge loss. If the major retailers are hawking them at $130, there must be so much gold in the wire that it has to cost that much, right?

Apparently, no. I ordered two of the cables (which actually lowered my price per piece by $1). I should have them in a couple of days. When I get them hooked up, I’ll post my findings here. Maybe some Cal-Tech engineer could attach up some fancy meter and tell me the difference, but I suspect, as Gizmodo’s readers did, that the real difference between the two is their marketing teams.