The iPad isn't enough simple*

The iPad will be a revolution in computing. It'll be your Nan's computer. It'll be the exercise book and textbook and exam paper in classrooms. It's the future of computing, blah, bah, etc, as others have said.

I already use my iPod touch for 90% of my leisure computing needs. I'd still need a laptop, but that could change, particularly if I admit to myself that no, I'm not actually ever going to get around to doing any proper development. I may never need a new laptop. For my father, who got his first laptop last year at age 69, an iPad would not only be perfectly adequate, it'd be simpler. It would be better. I'd considered getting a little Linux netbook for him, but decided supporting a MacBook would be a lot easier on both of us.

The iPad isn't a standalone device. It still needs iTunes running on a Mac or a PC. This is a considerable expense and complication. Like a HiFi, where the sound is only as good as the weakest component, so the iPad will only be as simple as the most complex component. People/n00bs may not be scared of the iPad, but they'll continue to be scared of their computers.

If you've ever seen the episode of Gavin & Stacey in which Bryn explains the web to Gavin, I'm like Bryn, but the patronising assumptions of the ignorance of my father's Gavin are correct. That's how I have to explain computing tasks to my father, an intelligent, curious man. Remote support, on even the simplest of tasks can be frustrating. I can't say 'just drag it to the preview icon on the dock', I have to email him step-by-step instructions, with clearly labelled screen grabs (thank you www.skitch.com, for making this easy).

The iPad comes close to fixing this, but the iTunes on a complex computer problem remains. It needs to be made simpler, and ideally cheaper too. Simpler is in everybody's interest. Cheaper is too, even for Apple. As Pogue said a few years ago : "Simple sells". I'd have had a hard time getting my father to accept buying a Mac mini and an iPad rather than just a MacBook. The MacBook was already twice the cost of the windows laptops he'd seen advertised. A standalone iPad, or an iPad + iTunes magic box that was as cheap as a MacBook would have been another story.

There's room here for Apple to make a bunch more money by reducing mandatory complexity.

Time Capsule runs an embedded version of OS-X (AFAIK). I think Apple can take iTunes off the computer, make it client-server and have the server run on a Time Capsule. A Time Capsule is technically a computer, but it's abstracted. Nobody thinks of Time Capsule as a computer. Adding an iTunes Server to it won't change that. Apple TV boxes could use this server too. Hell, Apple TV boxes could be the server.

Backup and sync via WiFi would be nice. It would be a new thing for iPhones/iPods/iPads, but Time Machine does wireless syncing from Mac to Time Capsule and Apple TV syncs wirelessly to iTunes too, so it's certainly possible. I don't think wireless backup/sync is necessary right now, just that a hypothetical Time Capsule/Apple TV + iTunes server, with iPads no longer requiring Macs or PCs, will seem clunky without it.

Perhaps I'm thinking too small here. Accustomed to keeping data local. Perhaps Apple's facility in North Carolina is gearing up to be a massive cloud store for our entire media libraries. Who needs more than 16GB on an iPad when all your media is in the cloud ?

* 'Simple' is a noun here. Apologies if that is irritating.