A lot of times when I write these editorials, it's because they are inspired by other editorials. This is not an exception. For some reason or another, I stumbled upon Andy Ihnatko's review of the iPad 2 today which I had not read before. Every good review has cons and his of course did toward the end. Most usually just make up a bunch of shit in order to seem unbiased. It's usually the "well iPad 2 still doesn't have an SD card slot, built in HDMI, USB" and so on and so forth. Oddly, Ihnatko didn't mention any of this in his review. His only section of cons was this brief paragraph:

The iPad still has a few basic limitations that prevent anyone from operating it like a standalone computer. Out of the box, it won’t work until it’s been linked to a desktop PC or Mac. After you disconnect, you never need dock it again (you can buy and install apps media and install your own docs via WiFi and 3G) ... until you want to backup the device or install an OS update. But these are all limitations that could be removed with a new edition of iOS. I think Apple’s started steering the iPad towards that direction.

He thinks the iPad's only limitations can easily be fixed via software update. I had some different opinions on that initially. He then goes on to talk about MobileMe and the baby steps Apple is taking to fix those types of problems. And then I thought about it and I've come to the conclusion that we are never going to see a USB port or an SD cart slot on an iPad. Any type of port at all implies the limitation of a cord, wire, or local storage. Apple doesn't want that. I don't think anyone wants that. We're headed toward an entirely wireless future. All of our content will be stored on the cloud. There will be no need to transport data via SD cart or USB because we'll rely on the internet to make anything we want accessible whenever we want it.

But we all already know about that future. Let's talk about now. As always, the competition likes to seek out any possible weakness in the iPad. The Xoom has all of your "necessary" ports and where would we be without Flash? Well, we'd be on an iPad. I think once again Apple is actually looking ahead. The only difference is the general public doesn't really get that yet because there hasn't been a huge stink about it.

Apple was one of the first to remove the floppy drive however many years ago even when it was still widely used. People bitched. Fast forward to 2011. What the hell is a floppy drive? Apple never even bothered to include Flash in any iOS devices. People are bitching now. A decade from now, it's very possible Flash will be a thing of the past. And now we come to ports. Apple has nothing more than a headphone jack and 30-pin dock connector built into the iPad. That's because by today's standards, both are absolutely necessary. With the headphone jack, Apple is only limited by the speed in which it takes the industry to move on to wireless headphones. We haven't made it there quite yet, so we need headphone jacks (and long, annoying wires that seem to magically get tangled). As for the 30-pin dock connector, well that's actually Apple's fault. But it's also in Apple's complete control to fix it with a single software update that says "I can sync wirelessly." And that update will come. Someday.

There aren't any substantial complaints about the lack of connectivity options on the iPad because we don't need it. As of now, we technically need Flash to see the entire web. But we have services like Dropbox and MobileMe and even AirPlay -- another step toward the wireless world -- to transport or store data.

If you are holding out for something as simple as a USB port to buy an iPad because you believe it will make the tablet more of a fully functional computer, don't hold your breath. It's not coming. And for the record, if you have any doubts at all about iPad being a computer, take a look at GarageBand. Need I say more?

My iPad 2 gets delivered to me this Friday. Yes, I was dumb enough to wait a little bit after the release and then order it in the midst of a 3-4 week shipping delay. But once I get it, I hope to expand on this topic in my own review. Stay tuned.