The Apple iPad……..what is it?

On Wednesday 27th January 2010 the geek world was to change as we know and did it? No, and finally, yes. Especially if you have at least $499 burning a hole in your pocket and a desire browse the Internet for 10 hours straight.

Watching Apple selling the iPad on this YouTube video you would think that it’s the best thing since slice bread and that it was going to crush the world of notebooks, bringing us something that we have never seen before and perhaps they have, after all who else would spend millions bringing out a 9.7 inch touch screen computer / pad or a third party category device as Apple call it.



If they are going to create a third category between the smartphone and the laptop, it needs to be better for certain tasks and in a way this maybe true for the iPad -- web browsing is much better on the bigger screen, and physically flicking through photos, music and movies looks more enjoyable on the iPad than a laptop.

But in several crucial areas, the iPad seems to fall short of the functionality that would have made it more than just a large iPod touch.

As quoted by Rocktime’s Andy Clarke; "I think it is a nice bit of kit, but with the features it has I don’t know where it will fit in the market. It doesn’t support multi-tasking so you can only do one thing at time. The browser doesn’t support Adobe Flash so you can’t fully browse all websites like YouTube and iPlayer etc. The iBook store might not be fully available in the UK. It has no camera so no video messaging or built in USB. It looks just like a big iPod Touch which has more processing power, bigger and can get 3G internet connection (but no phone calls). Depending on what you want it for I would probably stick with a small laptop/netbook – can multitask and has a full web browser"

I think it is too early to decide if it will be a success or not and perhaps Wednesday’s Apple event and the amount of hype surrounding the entire day was best summed up by PC Mag’s Zach Honig, who tweeted: “So I suppose today’s date in the Apple calendar would be 1/0/0000 AT (After Tablet)? Pope Gregory is turning in his grave.”

For now I will leave you with the wise words of wisdom from Hitler an edited version with Apple iPad spin from the movie Downfall.

Author: Micky Pain