As you regular readers know full well, I have been seriously considering whether it makes sense to buy an iPad. I have one now, courtesy of Apple. It must be returned shortly, since that’s how their editorial loaner program works. But what about the future of Apple’s tablet computer, and will it survive after the demand from early adopters abates?

Now one of the things that concerned me on the iPhone, and has become all the more serious with the iPad in light of the various electronic reading apps I’ve installed, is the total lack of interface consistency. Before I get into specifics — and I suspect most of you know what I’m getting at — remember that one of the hallmarks of the Mac OS was its predictable user environment.

Indeed, Apple has almost always requested that developers adhere to its own human interface guidelines, although some, including Apple itself, ignore them from time to time. What this is supposed to mean is that the skills you master to learn how to use one app can be applied to another. This is where the Mac has always been superior to Windows, where user interface issues are not as predictable.

Now in building an iPhone platform based on a touchscreen from scratch, you’d think that Apple would have considered all of the pitfalls. Indeed, the review process is quite stringent, and Apple has gotten its lumps from developers who feel their apps were rejected for arbitrary reasons.

It does seem, however, based on my own experience and a recent usability study, that Apple isn’t doing a whole lot to make sure that those 200,000 products in the App Store adhere to a predictable user interface. This is particularly true for the ones that are used to read text. With iBooks, you know that you can just flick a page to the right or left to turn the pages of a book. With the USA Today reader, you scroll downwards to see the listing of stories, along with short blurbs. Once you click on an article’s title to open it, vertical scrolling lets you navigate through the text, and horizontal scrolling takes you to the next article. That also makes sense, since most everyone is used to scrolling through a Web page.

With Time magazine’s iPhone app, which has yet to be expanded for the iPad except as a retail product, where you pay for each individual issue, navigation becomes confusing. You can scroll sideways to check out the available articles, and there are buttons at the bottom of the window for different sections. But how do you read those articles? It’s not obvious, but you have to touch the picture that accompanies it. That action flips the page leftward to display the selected article, where traditional scrolling will take you through the contents of that article.

Now I don’t know about you, but my instincts tell me that clicking on the title itself should open the article, but evidently Time’s programmers had a different concept. Worse, Apple allowed that app to pass the approval process without bothering to question the interface consistency. I mean, it’s hard enough to train your fingers to act as a mouse, and certainly the end result is more immersive. You feel a closer connection to the gadget itself.

But when a touch means different things in different apps, who suffers? Everyone, of course. If an app is more difficult to use, you might not want to use it anymore. If it’s a retail product, you may not want to buy upgrades or any other products from the same company. For Apple, customers are left confused, and key benefits of the Mac OS, so strongly touted for the past 26 years, have failed to make their way to the iPhone.

I realize that starting a new platform from scratch is not an easy process. Granted, Apple might even strive to enforce greater interface consistency come iPhone 4.0, although that’s by no means certain. What concerns me is the fact that questions of this sort just aren’t being asked. Until I read that singular study, I hadn’t considered the larger issue of whether Apple needs to address the iPhone interface in a more consistent fashion.

Predictably, people who commented on that study complain about the sampling size, or whether the sites that published the story simply want to boost the hit counts by ganging up on Apple. The real issue is whether the survey is accurate or not, and it seems to me that valid points are being raised.

Certainly, the results have to be of singular importance to Apple. The majority of company profits these days come from the mobile platform. The more technical customers have long-since bought iPhones and are acquiring iPads as fast as they can be built and delivered. But as more and more less people who aren’t tech savvy consider whether a mobile computer makes sense, the things that make these gadgets more difficult to use become ever more significant.

Yes, there are other mobile platforms out there. Some, such as Android and RIM, are doing quite well, but I doubt that their interfaces are any better. Clearly here’s an area where Apple can excel, but first they have to admit there’s a problem.

So tech pundits continue to weigh in on the world war between Apple and Adobe. While some suggest that Flash has long since outlived its usefulness, others either favor Adobe, or want to find some middle ground. When it comes to deciding between the disparate interests of two countries, serious compromise is essential. But when it comes to a corporate conflict that has a simple yes or no answer, the gray area approach is destined to fail.

Infoworld’s Galen Gruman is a typical example of a compromise advocate. Perhaps in the tradition of former President Jimmy Carter, he is advancing “The Infoworld peace plan,” where he first defines the arguments and then suggests the two companies sit down, discuss their concerns, and, in the tradition of all those DAs on TV’s “Law and Order,” make a deal.

The question is, of course, just what is it that these two companies need to talk about? Steve Jobs has already defined the problems with Flash and, unfortunately, Gruman glosses over some of the concerns and fails to address what may be the most serious issue of all.

Yes, Gruman is very upfront about Flash’s well-known stability problems and doesn’t dispute the fact that there are security concerns as well. Unfortunately his credibility begins to sink when he asserts that “Apple has had its share of security issues on the Mac OS,” forgetting that none of those alleged issues have resulted in widespread malware outbreaks. The most serious security issues impacting the Mac are caused by social engineering. You download a bogus file such as a pirated application from a torrent site, launch it, and it performs its mischief.

When it comes to the question of hogging resources, Gruman admits the existence of the problem, but doesn’t really define the “battery power” complaint beyond that single phrase. According to Steve Jobs, battery life on a smartphone is cut in half by Flash. That threatens to be a far more serious issue than just causing the OS to slow down somewhat because of resource hogging.

Gruman’s solution is for Apple to allow Adobe to create an iPhone plugin. Period. The rest of his suggestions are simply logical consequences of the first. However, he ignores the thrust of Jobs’ complaint that “Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?”

If you believe what Jobs says there, and there’s no reason to assume it’s not true, Apple has already delivered their “show me” argument to Adobe without success. If it’s possible to build a Flash player that satisfies all or most of Apple’s concerns, it would be a trivial matter for Adobe to stage a special media event and demonstrate a working product.

So where is it?

If Apple is lying that Flash is the biggest cause of crashes on Mac OS X as Adobe claims, surely they can produce crash logs that reveal the real offender.

So where are those logs?

Adobe’s initial reaction to Apple’s complaint is that it’s all a “smokescreen,” but it appears to me that the smoke is actually spewing forth from Adobe’s side. They have had lots of time to prove that Apple is wrong. Instead they are busy encouraging their media partners to echo their unproven statements, when they’re not crying crocodile tears to the U.S. government.

In the end I expect the authorities will run a routine inquiry and conclude there’s no evidence to pursue the matter any further. I would be very surprised if they chose to investigate why a private corporation that doesn’t hold anything near a dominant position in a market segment should be subject to antitrust action.

Yes, the App Store is dominant, but since it only caters to users of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, it doesn’t impact any other company. If you’re using an Android-based phone, you go to Google’s own marketplace, assuming you can find anything worthwhile beyond a task killer. Is that Apple’s fault?

Yes, I grant that Adobe might suffer, at least when it comes to control over the way sites are coded. That wouldn’t be so bad if all or most of Flash’s known shortcomings were fixed. Certainly Adobe has the resources to get the job done, but it does seem they are still having problems. Just the other day, there was a published report that so-called “smartbooks,” which are essentially netbooks that use an ARM processor, have been delayed since 2008 because of Adobe’s failure to deliver a satisfactory version of Flash. So I’m not confident that Adobe will do any better for smartphones that, in large part, use the very same processor family.

While I’m sure Gruman’s heart is in the right place, it’s up to Adobe to produce something to demonstrate at a sit-down session. I see little reason to be optimistic that’s going to happen anytime soon, as more and more sites continue to transition away from Flash.

Apple has learned how to play the speculation and surprise game better than just about any company on the planet. They provide precious little information about forthcoming products, except to build a groundswell of interest, or to cater to the needs of the developer community.

Sometimes they are forced to deliver a preview about a new gadget simply because the information would ultimately come from a third party, such as when submitting the iPhone for FCC certification, so they might as well control the flow of information.

That strategy worked perfectly with the first iPhone. It took roughly six months from the initial announcement until the day it went on sale to throngs of waiting buyers. While you knew all about the look and features of Apple’s latest and greatest, there was plenty of opportunity for tech writers and so-called analysts to debate the possibilities that the product would be successful.

You can’t buy that kind of publicity and Apple has learned how to keep us talking about them simply by keeping their mouths shut. That is, unless there’s a reason to say something.

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So I’ve been busy mastering the ins and outs of the review sample of a Wi-Fi iPad for the past couple of weeks, and I’ve come to some conclusions, most of which were not unexpected. However, it’s crystal clear why sales of netbooks have been flattened by the promise and the reality of the iPad.

I suppose there’s a resemblance between the two product categories in some respects. A netbook is not meant to be your primary computer, but something that will perform such basic chores as managing email, accessing the Internet and perhaps using a few simple productivity apps. In order to pay as little as $300 for one of those things, you are saddled with a small screen, a tiny keyboard with squished together keys and limited system resources. Basically, the PC makers took a standard note-book and made it smaller and cheaper to keep the price down. There’s not an ounce of innovation in those things.

However, the iPad is clearly far more than an occasional note-book replacement. As the result of its smaller form factor, it’s more easily transported. Take it from me, it definitely excels at e-book reading. Over the years, I have had difficulty getting myself accustomed to entering the e-book universe. I started with the legendary (or infamous if you will) Rocket e-book device a number of years ago. I always managed to force myself to read a few pages of a book, before I simply set the device aside and returned to the print version.

With the iPad, I can get away with actually reading real books for a prolonged period without feeling too uncomfortable. Sure, it’s not a 100% replacement, and I expect those of you who grew up consuming lots of printed material will appreciate the fact that growing accustomed to a new way of doing things isn’t always easy or possible. But since iPad owners have downloaded millions of books so far, it appears that Apple’s strategies might be paying off.

There are also lots of new iPad apps for  magazines and newspapers. Depending on the publisher, you might have to pay for each app — or issue — or just use a single app to get free and paid content. How well these work depends on the publisher. USA Today remains awkward to handle, and I often return to Safari to just check out the regular online version. The Wall Street Journal, which requires a paid subscription to read more than a few blurbs of published stories, is somewhat better developed, but all of this remains a work in progress.

So far, Apple hasn’t announced alliances with textbook publishers, even though the iPad seems tailor-made for educational use. Anytime you see a child struggling to stand straight while burdened with a heavy backpack, you can appreciate the potential, if it’s realized. Of course, one of the problems is that a textbook has to have fixed page content — it can’t reflow depending on your choice of font or size. When your teacher says, “turn to page 364,” it must remain page 364 whether you’re reading the electronic or print version of that book, which probably means using some sort of fixed PDF-based structure for the e-book app. But it’ll come.

Where the iPad falls down, as most of you know, is with content creation. I do think graphic artists will do well, using fingers or perhaps a stylus to draw on the screen. There are already illustration apps available, and wouldn’t it be fascinating to see an iPad version of Adobe Illustrator? That is, if Adobe stops crying to the Feds about Apple’s dominance of its own platform, and finds a way to exploit the iPad as a way to sell new and innovative apps.

When it comes to writing, number one is the regular keyboard on my desktop computer. I can manage my MacBook Pro, but I’ve never been enamored with note-book keyboards, even though the ones on Apple’s machines feel much the same as the desktop versions.

I have become accustomed to using a single finger to awkwardly type short messages on the iPhone. Extending this ability to the iPad took a few days, after which I devised a clunky two-finger scheme. I realize regular touch typing can be accomplished, particularly when the unit is in landscape mode, but that’s still a stretch for me. Yes, I could check out an accessory keyboard, but that is strictly a makeshift arrangement. A standard note-book computer becomes a more reasonable solution when your creative instincts arise.

However, when you consider the needs of the average home computer user, probably three quarters would find that the iPad fulfills their requirements perfectly. The ability to interact with the operating system so seamlessly by touch is something that even small children can readily master. You are freed of the reliance on a mouse or trackpad, and you can experience the utter joy of a direct connection with the software you’re using.

Maybe some day, most people will become comfortable typing on virtual keyboards for extended sessions, but that’s not a skill I expect to master for quite a while — if ever. Meantime, I am still wondering whether, once I have to return this iPad, I should buy one for myself.