Gates On iPad: Needs Pen, Keyboard, Voice

If Bill Gates could redesign the iPad, he’d add a keyboard, a stylus and voice recognition. Heck, he’d probably even put Windows 7 on there.

Speaking to BNET’s Brent Schlender, Gates said “You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream on that.”

Now Gates is a smart guy, but if you want a netbook, you can buy a netbook. The whole point of the iPad is that it is an entirely new device, and not just an Apple-branded version of the tiny, hard-to-use computers that even Sony executive Mike Abary called “a race to the bottom.”

The iPad has attracted a lot of hatred, before anyone has even seen one. The day after the iPad announcement, my dad – not someone usually interested in this stuff – mentioned something about it “not having Flash”. He’d seen it on the BBC news. And now that Gates is on record, it seems that he, too, wants the iPad to metamorphose into a normal, albeit small, laptop.

Read more: wired.com