Like many others, I eagerly await the release of the iPad. Not only as a developer (with some iPad-related stuff in the works), but as an end user. I also realize that the device has some limitations, some of which I believe have been overblown and others that could – and should – be fixed fairly easily with future firmware updates.

Important to remember is that, as many critics have stated, in many ways the iPad is essentially just a large iPod touch. This isn’t a slam against it – indeed, I feel that in time “iDevices” such as these will be the future of portable computing. However, it does mean that the iPad itself hasn’t yet had a chance to differentiate itself from its ancestor. That will take time.

In the hope that Apple is listening, here are my thoughts on what Apple should – and shouldn’t – do to address the real and perceived criticisms surrounding the iPad.

• Flash – Honestly, I am a bit surprised at the backlash against the iPad due to its inability to support Flash media. Neither the iPhone nor the iPod touch have ever supported it, and the company has made it clear from the start that Flash as a platform is not a priority for them. It’s probably worth noting that aside from the occasional restaurant web site that requires Flash (why is it always restaurants?),

  I’ve barely noticed this limitation on my iPhone. Then again, I’m probably not the target consumer for all things Flash.

  This doesn’t stop it from being a limitation, however, and given how Apple is pushing the iPad as providing the best Internet browsing experience ever it’s going to be a tough sell if and when consumers find that (say) Happy Aquarium no longer works.

  Having had a long background in web development I certainly won’t be sad to see Flash go – and would rather see Apple improve their platform directly rather than expend resources supporting what has always been a resource-hungry, mostly inaccessible, stability-killing platform ill-suited for mobile use. Apple has often handled transitions well, and if this speeds up the development of HTML5 I see it as a net win for nearly everyone but Adobe.

• Multitasking – While I consider this a legitimate complaint, I’m not sure the obvious solution to “add multitasking support” as necessarily the best one. It’s true that the iPad has greater resources at its disposal than its forbearers, users (and developers) understandably expect to be able to use those resources for higher end applications. On a relatively resource-constrained platform, if the memory and CPU at your disposal aren’t a known quantity, it becomes far more difficult to tune an app to run its best.

  As a practical matter, though, I’m not really sure this is so much a limitation of single-tasking as it is a user interface matter. There’s no reason why Apple couldn’t improve the process of quickly switching between related apps – say, by using a system-wide  gesture to bring up a switcher of commonly-used apps and providing improved support for inter-application communication. Handled properly, whether or not these sorts of apps are actually running or not is irrelevant, as long as switching between them is quick and seamless. That might take a lot of steam out of the need for “true” multitasking.

  There are two areas where real multitasking is necessary, however, and that is with things like music streaming services (Pandora, Last.fm) and always-on instant messaging services. The only solution I can see for this is to reserve a handful of slots for background-only processes, each tightly reigned in with enforced memory and processing constraints.

• Organization – This hasn’t garnered as much press as the above two limitations, but is a problem that has plagued the iPhone and iPod touch for some time: The inability to easily look through and manage more than about three pages worth of of 3rd party applications. I see this becoming even worse with the iPad.

  Clearly, it’s in Apple’s best interests to make it easy for users to download and keep large numbers of applications. As it is, though, once a user gets past a couple dozen or so apps it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of what apps one has or work best for a given purpose.

  One solution described above to this is a gesture-based access menu of commonly-used apps. Another is to allow users to categorize apps in some manner, with a shortcut to switch between those categories. Users could even choose to mark certain apps as favorites, only showing the remainder upon request.Apple seems to understand that this has become a problem, though so far the only solution they’ve offered – the ability to organize apps from within iTunes – comes across as a stopgap measure at best. In any case, a wide grid containing dozens of applications does not scale.

• Camera – Like many, I too was a bit disappointed to see that the iPad was announced without a built-in camera of any sort. Tapestry’s apps so far have all been designed with photography in mind (though only PhotoTrader requires a camera-enabled device).

  However, upon consideration it’s understandable why Apple opted not to include one in the initial hardware release. The iPad form factor doesn’t really lend itself to on-the-go photography, and a front-facing camera – likely the only type we’ll ever see – would take some truly awful under-the-chin photos from the angles we’ve seen the device being used. After all, unlike a traditional webcam the iPad won’t often be held directly in front of the user.

  Aside from a periscope-like camera attachment, it’s not clear how this problem would be addressed. Maybe we’ll just have to get used to oddball angles? Either way, I do hold out hope that Apple comes up with a solution.

• No Mac Software – Inexplicably, it seems that some had it in their minds that the iPad would be a tablet-based Mac. While I am a life-long Mac fan (and bleed six colors!), I believe it would have been an awful mistake had Apple gone down this route. Desktop operating systems do not lend themselves to the tablet form factor, nor are they the end-all and be-all when it comes to the future of mobile computing.

  Apple practically invented graphical desktop computing as we know it today, and their willingness to wipe the slate clean – tossing out even their own legacy of design – is why we look to them for future innovations rather than, say, Dell or Microsoft.

This covers some of the more common criticisms. There are others, of course, though for the most part I feel that Apple has gotten more right than wrong with the iPad (and iPhone/iPod touch) platform.

The real concern over the long term revolves around – I feel – their iTunes App Store policies, control over what users can install on their products, etc. However, that’s a post for another time.

Update: AppleInsider suggests that multitasking support – the real deal – will arrive alongside firmware v4.0. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, though hopefully Apple will take the user (and developer) experience into account.