Why does Apple makes nice looking crippled products

Mac, iPod, iPhone, and now iPad.

According to Apple, iPad is supposed to be the best device for browsing Internet, watching TV shows, etc.

It can't display any shows from hulu.com, from Amazon Video on Demand, from ABC TV videos, ... the list is endless. Apple has made iPad crippled deliberately so that you buy your videos from Apple's iTunes store.

iPad would have been a great device to use Skype to do video chat. Unfortunately, it does not have a webcam. It does not even have a microphone. Even a $299 netbook will have all these.

How do you send messages on iPad - be it text chat, voice chat, video chat, email, facebook, whatever... no video input, no audio input, and for text input - no keyboard, all there is a on-screen keyboard. There is not even a digital pen or stylus so that you can just write on the screen. All netbooks are equiped with keyboard, mic, and webcam for any kind of input. And all tablet PCs support writing on the screen. Effectively, iPad is not for taking input, and mostly a viewer.

Even as a viewer, its capability is limited. It can display photos, music, and videos only from iTunes software and store. It can't display photos or videos from your SD card, or xD card or whatever card you have. Most netbooks and Windows laptops can read the card from your digital camera or camcorder or cell phone. iPad is useless for online music and videos since it doesn't have flash. For stored music and videos also, it can play only limited formats.

I have to say a $299 netbook is a lot lot lot better than $499 iPad. And that netbook will have 160 GB harddisk intead of 16 GB harddisk, plus software-wise it can do everything a PC can do.

iPad is just one more crippled product from Apple.