Bullish on the iPad
When Apple debuted the iPad yesterday as a 3rd category of mobile devices, reactions from many of the people I talked with were mixed. On one hand you have the fanboys, who are certain that Apple wouldn’t make something they don’t need, so for them, the iPad is a logical must-buy. Then there are those, who have devices in the other two categories, and find it difficult to see what the iPad gives them over what they already have.
Personally, I use an iPhone and a MacBook Pro, so I also find its use somewhat limiting. At home though, we have an iMac and an aging PowerBook. The iPad seems like a perfect replacement for the PowerBook because we really only use it for browsing the web, email, and maybe watching movies on the go. At $499 that’s a far sight better than dropping $1000 on a MacBook given what we’ll use it for.
I think the real key to the iPad’s success is primarily not the hardware, but in the software. I may be wrong, but I think people are going to be surprised at the kind of apps that are made possible (or much better) by this larger screen size and form factor. I also think that the multi-touch interaction that the iPad has (and iPhone has had) is eventually going to trickle up to the MacBook line far beyond what is currently in the trackpad. So think of this as a precursor for things to come.
My only hope is that if I purchase this when it’s first released, that Apple doesn’t pull what it did with the 1st generation iPhone and make it significantly cheaper within the first few months.
