Yesterday we saw huge gatherings infront of retail stores to put a hand on one of the limited stock of iPad devices available. There were more than 150,000 gadgets delivered at door steps of those who had pre ordered it last month. The hottest debate that was going on since its announcement on Jan 27 by Steve Jobs, is whether the iPad is a laptop or netbook replacement or otherwise. The focus of conversation about iPad mainly remained on the quality of the virtual keyboard, the power of the processor, the storage capacity, and the simplified UI. As a result of these discussion a new talking point that is ‘Independence of iPad from computer’ has emerged that’s more about Apple itself. It was hinted in the technical specifications and now confirmed in some unboxing posts that the iPad won’t even turn on unless it has been plugged into a Mac or PC to be synced through iTunes.

It is beyond comprehension why Apple has retained this umbilical cord with iTunes.  If the objective of iPad is to attract non-computer users to a revolutionarily simplified platform, they shouldn’t depend on a regular computer. Let the iPad exist all by itself. If it is never connected to a computer, it should still work brilliantly. If you want to connect it to a computer to transfer files, there shouldn’t be any problem. After all the Mac didn’t need to sync to an Apple II and the first PowerBook didn’t have to be docked into a Quadra to turn it on. If  iPad is a serious new computing platform it shouldn’t be treated like an iPhone, dependent on a mother computer to be useful. If it’s not a laptop then it’s not an iPhone either as well. [Via CultofMac]