The iPad was officially announced today.
On the whole, it seems a lot of people are disappointed that it isn’t crapping gold and spewing rainbows.
Personally, I don’t think expectations were set too high, they were just set in the wrong category. A lot of people seem to be comparing the iPad to tablet PC’s.
The iPad is not a touch or tablet laptop.
The iPad is an electronic book device. It’s competition for the the eReader and the Kindle. It has a little extra to make it stand out, like iWork and gaming.
It’s important to remember that we are looking at an eBook type of device in the iPad, not a tablet PC. Judge it accordingly.
-Ben
THANK YOU! I’ve been arguing with people about this all day
To me, it seems obvious. Apple isn’t dumb enough to put out an underpowered tablet pc. If they ever make a proper tablet pc, that is intended to be used as a tablet pc, for all that tablet pc-ing entails, they will do it right.
What we are looking at is a pretty advanced, multi-featured ebook type device. Intended for newspaper, magazine and book consumption, with an added bonus of gaming and some publishing software. An advanced entry meant to compete with the likes of the eReader and the Kindle.
When you look at it from that perspective, it actually might be a pretty good entry into the portable reader war.
Funny thing was I argued with a friend of mine today about it. He argued it wasn’t meant as an e-reader. i was speechless
You know the more I read about it, the more I think it wasn’t meant to be either. It really doesn’t seem to have any purpose for existing. It’s some sort of malformed hybrid that does everything – just not very well.
All I can say is – I will lining up to own one. The real future of publishing has arrived, mo’fuckers!
…I mean, I will be lining up to own one. Typo’s hey!