Hello, iPad
So the news is out, and Apple has finally unveiled the iPad - it’s tablet device that fills a whole new role in the marketplace. Well, here’s my take on it.
At first glance it was both amazing and exactly what I expected. Creating a product between the iPods and MacBooks makes perfect sense, and I think the tablet couldn’t be done any other way. Apple has always made consumer appliances - just plug it in and go! This is exactly that. As a techie I’m a little disappointed that it won’t run the real Mac OS X, and sure enough the cynical geeks online are going to start complaining about having to jail break it or that it’s just an oversized iPod touch. But that’s missing the point - it’s a consumer product and it fills a gap in the marketplace. And it wouldn’t work any other way. Tablets have never really taken off with consumers because of these things - the desktop metaphor based OS, trying to tack on a mouse and keyboard, that sort of thing.
So pros and cons. It’s hard to say without using it firsthand, but here’s my take:
CONS:
* Meant for consumers, not geeks (who probably want a tablet the most right now)
* No camera
* Low storage
* No means of using a desktop OS on it… you’re stuck with the app store!
PROS:
* Highly affordable
* Should have very high market appeal (status symbol)
* Prepaid plans will bring in a flood of people who wanted the iphone but wern’t At&t customers
* Elegant, looks responsive, decent specs (10hr battery life, etc)
So what’s next?
I think we’ll see a flood of “i know better” type people claiming it sucks because it misses a feature they wanted, although some of these features would over complicate it and kill it in the marketplace.
It’s going to start shipping in a month or two. There’ll be the lines, the camp outs, the works.
I want to grab one as soon as I can too, but sure enough there will probably be a new version that comes out a year later that has features we early-adopters can’t live without! And then people will complain about that too!
But the thing is, if this takes off, it’s really a game changer. It’s going to create a whole new market, and redefine what netbooks and tablets are all about. The success isn’t in pleasing the nerds who want multitasking, it’s changing the tech universe with a new way for users to access technology. And that, it appears, the iPad does very well.
