The iPad

As a member of the blogosphere, I consider it my duty to post about the latest piece of hardware to be unleashed on the public by the folks at 1, Infinite Loop, California (for the uninitiated, that’s where Apple is headquartered.

Anyhoo, it’s called the iPad, which, according to Apple, is a market filler between the iPhone and the Macbook Air (further known as MBA). The rather disturbing thing about the keynote speech by Steve Jobs was the fact that the product’s development was driven by a gap in the market, not a consumer-based need. Which is slightly worrying. Still, can’t blame Apple for making sure that they had all bases covered.

The specs of the iPad are as follows (I’ve lifted them from this PCWorld article):

• 9.7″ IPS display (different and better than a standard TFT display because it allows a much wider view angle)
• 1 Ghz semi-inhouse production processor (since Apple bought PA Semi, you can’t really call it a completely indigenous design)
• 16, 32, 64GB flash memory
• WiFi (802.11n), 3G, Bluetooth
• Speaker, mic, accelerometer (d’uh), compass (?)
• About 10 hours of battery life

Now, apart from these mundane specs, the question I want to raise is this – who will buy the iPad.

Firstly, there’s a legion of Apple fanboys out there, who will undoubtedly sell their own mothers to get their hands on one. But apart from that, what killer features does it have to offer? At 9.56 by 7.47 by 0.5 inches, and 1.5 to 1.6 pounds, it’s not exactly compact. In the sense that you can’t slip it into a pocket. Nor can you actually carry it around in a laptop bag, because let’s face it, it isn’t a laptop.

It’s a pad.

If I was gifted one, I would be confused. It doesn’t offer me as much functionality as let’s say a MBA, nor does it offer me the portability of an iPhone (I have neither). I can’t get a wrist strap or lanyard for that.

Unless of course, the iPad does for the tablet market what the iPod did for the MP3 player market. For those of you who remain blissfully unaware, Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, and was single-handedly responsible for reviving the slow MP3 player market. As of today, tablets do ship, but in relatively small numbers. You can get a few offerings from HP, Lenovo, Dell etc, but they’re basically just ultra-thin laptops with screens you can scribble on.

Agreed, Steve Ballmer did showcase a potential iPad-rival from HP some time back, but the fact remains that the iPad is out now, and the HP Slate’s release date is TBA. So, maybe the shiny anodised aluminium is going to attract people like jackdaws, and despite the lack of a direct market audience, it will sell like…like…like the iPhone did (there isn’t a better analogy).

Recent studies have shown that hot cakes are no longer as popular as they were once thought to be.