I have to stress that I'm writing this as I see the news come in about the iPad. Some of the things I might comment on may be due to the fact that I haven't researched enough. I'm really impressed by the iPad, disappointed also...and a bit surprised. I'll start with the disappointment. Adobe Flash. It's evident Apple's out to make sure that Flash isn't part of their platforms these days. Regardless of what sort of processor this thing has, it could, I speculate, handle Flash easily.

Surprise? No forward facing camera (oh, and no multitasking). I was sure a camera was a certainty. Why? Well this thing is going to be an absolute gem for the education sector, and a forward facing camera would make a superb device to give to kids to go off and hold video conferences...or heck, call back to the teacher whilst they are out and about surveying students in school, etc. I could have even seen myself telling my folks to ditch their Mac mini in favour of an iPad, but not now. The second surprise...where does this leave apps versus applications? I'll expand on this a bit more later.

The good news is that it looks amazing...and Apple have yet again shown that when the produce a product they think of it holistically...the whole concept for them isn't just the iPad, but everything that surrounds it...how to buy music, how to buy books, how to view them just looks amazing...and the fact that they have tied them back into the iPhone OS is clever. Just watch how beautiful the user interface is in the Apple videos on the product.....absolutely stunning.

OK, Darryn and I have been having a bit of a discussion about iMovie 08 and Final Cut Express within the blog area. I wanted (through the use of state-of-the-art images...I joke!) explain what I mean about the issue related to the way of working (note - I had a habit of saying 'anology' when I should have said 'metaphor' in my last post).

There's one phrase in Darryn's reply that really struck a chord. And for me, it sums up my surprise and concern at what Apple has done....

"iMovie has about as much to do with Final Cut (Express) as tomatoe sauce has to do with a rock."

I'll come back to that comment later, but first there are some things that I want to respond to that I disagree with in Darryn's comments. Most notably, the issue of timeline use in iMovie.

I'm only just starting to get to play with the copy of Final Cut Express 4 that Apple recently sent me. I decided to start by taking a quick look at the Apple site to find out what had changed, and one page really caught my eye. Take a look at this page...

http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/

On the page about what is new is a movie showing how you can import iMovie '08 projects into FCE. Take a good look at it and what struck me the most was how different the "way of working" (for want of a better term) is between these two applications.