The iPad is stupid. There, I said it.

Anyone who knows me also knows I’m an unapologetic Mac lover. I’ve owned Apple products since the original iPod mini. My current work computer and home desktop are iMacs. I still use my five-year-old iBook. My music has always been organized in iTunes.

I’ve forever defended Macs against Windows and Linux lovers, too — the fact that they’re not good for gaming (get a game console for gaming, I say), the lack of a right mouse button (all current Macs have that capability) and because they’ve never gotten the mouse right in the first place (still true, though the Magic Mouse is 75 percent cool).

But I won’t be defending Apple over the iPad.

Because I think it’s stupid.

We’re accustomed now to hearing Steve Jobs overuse words like “gorgeous,” “magical,” “fantastic” or “like a dream” in his special event keynotes, but at some point, he doesn’t need to anymore because the product itself does the talking. He couldn’t do that in his Jan. 27 keynote, though, because the iPad really isn’t any of those words. It’s a half-baked product that doesn’t come close to meeting the towering standards Apple has set for itself.

Consider:

• Steve wants to position the iPad as an e-reader. People calling it a “Kindle killer” are dead wrong. This isn’t happening, for one major reason: The iPad has an active, backlit LCD display. You’re telling someone like me, who stares at a computer screen for seven, eight, nine hours every day, that when I read a book, I’ll have to once again stare at a computer screen? Not a chance. I doubt I’m the only one. I don’t care how interactive and colorful publishers can make their books and magazines, the Kindle’s E Ink still wins if we’re looking for a book replacement. And a glossy screen that will be unreadable outdoors? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m especially disappointed because this seemed like a problem ripe for an Apple-esque solution, and they failed miserably.
• Games and apps are the same as the iPhone’s, only zoomed 2x? Are you kidding me? Of course, this is a temporary solution. Developers haven’t had time yet to produce the same apps for the iPad’s resolution, and the company wants to make sure people don’t have to pay twice for one app, but this really seems like a cop-out from Apple. Really, a 2x zoom? Again, it was a problem that seemed ripe for an Apple-esque solution and again, it just comes across as laziness.
• No front-facing camera for video chatting? No camera at all?! This has to be a joke. Indeed, I was set up for disappointment by the rampant pre-iPad rumors, one of which predicted facial-recognition technology for user authentication. Seriously, though, doesn’t a product like the iPad seem like the perfect vessel for portable face-to-face video chatting? Apparently Apple thinks not.
• This is a petty complaint, really, but what initially strikes me about the iPad is its unabashed plainness. Apple is famous for creating gorgeous (there’s that word again) products that other companies end up copying. The iPad looks like a blown-up iPod touch, and really not any different from any other tablet on the market. Come on, Apple, couldn’t you have made it fold in two or something crazy like that?
• The thing doesn’t act like a computer. You can’t use more than one non-native application at once, which means no listening to Pandora while creating a Keynote presentation. You can’t download anything Apple doesn’t approve beforehand, which means no Firefox web browser. This is fine for something like the iPhone or iPod touch, but for a tablet touted as the best ever way to ever experience the Internet ever? I don’t know about you, but I like to experience my Internet through Firefox.
• I’d be remiss to not at least mention the product’s name, but I don’t think that needs any more commentary.

Granted (and to totally kill my argument), I’ve never held the thing in my hands. I just know that I’m usually pretty excited by major Apple announcements — even if I don’t plan on buying the product — and this one has left me not just disappointed, but angry. I’m angry that Steve Jobs is trying to sell me, under the moniker of The Next Big Thing, a product with so many shortfalls — and that he’s shamelessly using those catchwords to do it. Only Apple employees know what really goes on inside the doors of its Cupertino headquarters, but the current incarnation of the iPad just smacks of a product at Stage 3 of a six-stage process, rushed to meet deadline. It’s just … incomplete.

In two months, thousands of people will wait hours in line for one of these things, and Apple will make a gazillion dollars, and dissenting opinions like mine will be moot. Future iPad owners, just don’t say we didn’t warn you.