The media have been frothing at the mouth about the launch of the iPad. Techies and geeks, like myself, were salivating at the potential specs for this gadget but what is it actually good for, now that we have seen the options available? The media (press and television) were committed to it being the next big thing regardless of what it turned out to be (thank heavens it was not another Apple Hi-Fi - for those of you that remember that ghastly piece of white plastic nonsense). Some of the more savvy tech journalists were disappointed that it was in effect a souped up iPhone/iTouch, a mistake I initially made but on reflection I think there is great potential in this device for a number of different groups and it is this multi-purpose use that makes it such an exciting item and potentially the seas-change gadget that Apple obviously believe it to be.
Ultimately this is to computers what the Wii has been to the gaming market. It is the device that can open up that part of the population that is not in the slightest bit interested in the equipment, or learning key strokes to do thing more efficiently rather it is a device you can just pick up and use. One of the joys of Mac OS X over whichever version of Windows Microsoft has put out this week is the interface. It is intuitive to use and indeed it is easier to use if you do not come in trying to use all those Windows shortcuts you had to learn. They distilled this functionality down to the iPhone and blew that market wide apart. Now they have taken the iPhone knowledge and used it to redesign the computer. Finally there is a device that people can pick up and use without reading a manual and heading to the internet for endless tips on how to do what you thought it could do out of the box. People will walk into the shop to buy an iTouch play with the iPad and find themselves walking out with a new computer.
The iPad is obviously going to be the media delivery machine of 2010. Steve Jobs demonstrated it as an eBook reader and rather than the poorly designed interfaces of the Sony reader or the archaic design of the Kindle it will be as easy to use as a book. However you can also expect useful features like marking up text, adding notes, etc. so that it will be useful not just to reader but to students, academic and members of book clubs the world over. Although not yet a key part of the package the iPad is clearly the device to save the daily newspaper. It will not be long before publishers are using it to publish a media rich electronic version of the daily rag. The screen is a good size for newspaper stories and with the easy ability to embed audio and video clips your daily newspaper is going to become a great deal more interesting in future. Obviously music will be another part of this media machine but probably a less important part than the other items. It is a much better machine to watch film and TV on however than the iPhone/iTouch or any of the other mini players that are seen on trains and planes currently. One final item on the media front that I am particularly excited about is that of the comic book reader. You can use the zoom function to get the most out of a particular drawing and viewing those two page spreads is going to be a joy on that screen. Marvel already offer electronic version of their comics and the Mac has the equivalent of iTunes in the Comic Book Lover application. This has recently been ported to the iPhone, where it is almost impossible to use unless you have 20/20 vision but as that app will run on the iPad from day one there will be a comic reader for the device and given the increase in screen size I think it will suddenly show itself to be a worthy addition to the Comic Book Lover family.
The final area where this device will appeal is to the geeks and techies out there; I realise this may seem obvious but we do not buy everything that comes out you know! There are a number of things that make this a desirable object the first of which is its weight, 1.5 lbs. Those of us that carry round their laptop can now save their backs with this little beauty. It can e-mail and be used to surf the web but more importantly for some you can add a keyboard, either using the dock or via Bluetooth. this means that typing an article or blog is suddenly viable rather than a pain as it is on the iPhone. The fact that iWork has been retooled to work on it with Office document support means that it really can replace your laptop for a number of scenarios. One of the most exciting features is that you can use iPhone apps on it too, this means that Skype is possible (although no video yet) and there is an app for using a printer with the iPhone so now you can use that on the iPad too. With the move to cloud computing the fact that the biggest hard drive for the iPad is 64gb is less relevant especially with the Wi-fi/3G version that should allow you to be connected to more storage. Indeed I should remind everyone of the marvellous application Dropbox that I already use to synchronise key documents between my home unit, laptop and iPhone, which will be one of the first apps I install on the iPad.
There has been an awfully large amount of print and TV time given over to this device already but I think the possibilities are almost endless. I was excited by the iPhone when it was launched and it was only after living with it for a while and trying to extend it further that its true potential became clear. Should that be the case with the iPad then we will look back at the launch and talk about it being the real start of the 21st century.
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