iPad 2 Near Fatal Facetime Flaw?

Last week saw the long anticipated announcement by Steve Jobs of Apple’s iPad 2. While it’s hard to imagine that a product that was only launched in April last year has a “long anticipated” second generation, the fact remains that Apple has cleverly positioned a product that will ensure it remains number 1 in the tablet market for some time.

Would I Buy One? Ask me today if I would buy an iPad 2 and I would say yes, but I’m an enthusiast willing to put up with the technical flaws in favour of having the latest gadget. I think that the vast majority of business users won’t benefit from the updated features offered in iPad 2.  Much like the relatively new iPhone 4 the new iPad comes with a better screen, faster processor, lighter weight and basically looks sexier than its predecessor – but that’s hardly ground breaking. If you were to buy a new PC or Mac today you’d expect the same technical advances. The true jewel in the crown is supposed to be the addition of Facetime whereby a video capable camera has been added to the front and the rear of the device so that users can participate in video calls with one another. That is pretty cool – except that it reminds me of what I wrote about in last weeks Last Known Issue regarding the National Broadband Network and Telstra’s new 4G network and how the world is shifting toward using mobile devices rather than a traditional broadband network.  I’ll explain the correlation in a moment.

Cool Vs Usability The problem with Facetime and it certainly isn’t widely advertised by Apple is that it only works if you are connected to a wireless network and will not work if you are simply roaming around on a 3G network such as that offered by your telco. I experienced this first hand when I excitedly unwrapped the iPhone 4 and wanted to call a family member whilst away from my office using Facetime and I couldn’t due to this limitation. Granted, many of us have a wireless network in our home and office but there are considerable varying degrees of performance that you can’t reliably build say, a regular out of office business meeting around the iPad’s Facetime capability. In my view, this in effect means the iPad 2 is well ahead of its time for the corporate world. This may not be as big of an issue in the US where wireless networks are far more abundant than Australia (and even then, perhaps not so great) , but it is a deal breaker for any company wishing to mobilise its workforce and use Facetime as a way of communicating for business.

Skype The workaround at the moment on iPhone 4 is Skype, the Skype application allows you to make video calls over 3G but it is far from reliable. Perhaps if the sun, clouds and the moon align in such a way that you have a pure and fast 3G network uninterrupted you can have a clear video call from iPad over Skype but it’s far from a trusted and reliable service when used in this manner. Perhaps when Telstra rolls out its 4G network this will be another story.   Unfortunately the NBN’s fixed line approach won’t help with devices like this.

Well.. Should You Buy One? With that in mind, I’m anticipating a lot of questions from our readers about whether to purchase an iPad 2 and at this stage (well, at least until I get my hands on one) my answer would be the same as it was with the iPad 1 – it’s a great consumer device, it can help you work away from the office and it can free you from lugging around a laptop – sure, go ahead and buy one but.. and this is a big but, most people cannot replace their desktop or laptop entirely with an iPad. It’s a pipe dream. Knowing all of this, then it might be sensible to weigh up other devices as well such as Windows Based Tablets, Netbooks or just a small slimline notebook because you’ll be able to run your own applications, most come with at least a front facing video camera and contain more power and capability than the iPad both of today and the next generation.