When I woke up today, it took me about half an hour to get up to speed with the iPad (I'm in Croatia, so the bulk of the news came in overnight for me). After I'd read a couple of articles, I already knew everything there was to know about it (and more): its advantages, its flaws and its potential.

But hidden between the lines of all that iPad coverage I've learned a thing or two about Apple and its plans, mostly from the things iPad is missing.

The thing is, Apple didn't omit a camera or multitasking by accident. An engineer didn't come up to Steve Jobs on Tuesday saying, "I don't know how to tell you this, Steve, but we've forgotten about the camera. No, please, not the head! Ouch!" They've omitted all these things on purpose, and this purpose tells you more about Apple's plans than the things they did put in.

First of all, Flash. For years, we've been hearing that Adobe and Apple are in talks to bring full Flash support on the iPhone. It was almost always described as "nearly there." Well, now that the iPad is out — a bigger device, perfect for browsing the web — and there's still no Flash in sight, we can assume that Apple is not only not bringing Flash to its mobile devices, it's fighting against it. For some reason, Apple doesn't see eye to eye with Adobe where Flash is concerned, and if they haven't reached some sort of agreement now, it's probably not just around the corner, either.

Then, there's multi-tasking. Nearly everyone I've talked to thinks this is a huge deal-breaker, but I think it makes sense. Although Steve Jobs was trying hard to prove to us that the iPad is a computer, it isn't. Just like the iPod and the iPhone, its main purpose is to give the users an easy way to consume certain types of digital content. After music (iPod) and mobile applications (iPhone) comes iPad with video, photos, e-books, e-magazines, games. Apple doesn't really want you to do complex photo editing on the iPad; you've got your Mac or PC for that. Apple wants you to touch a button, and start consuming content (preferably paying a couple of dollars for it).

Finally, the camera. Yes, it would be nice to have video chat. But once again, Apple wants you to do that on a Mac. If you want to snap photos, you should do it on the iPhone — you're carrying it with you all the time, anyway. Once again, it becomes clear that Apple doesn't want to sell devices that can do everything; they want to find the best form factor to consume some types of digital content, and then focus on them. If you look at it, you can do pretty much everything on your personal computer; by that philosophy, you don't need anything else besides a laptop. And yet, you've now got smartphones and e-readers selling very well. Could it be that one powerful device is not as good as several less powerful, but more focused ones?

The way I see it, the iPad is not about creating; it's all about consuming content. It shouldn't be sold in Apple stores, it should be sold on newsstands (together with a 24-month subscription to some newspaper), in video clubs, in libraries. I honestly expected a lot of subsidized options for the device if you agree to buy some content with it, but Apple hasn't really delivered that — yet. If I'm right, and if Apple starts doing that, most of iPad's shortcomings won't matter.