It’s been a while since my last post, what a perfect occasion to break my silence is the launch of the new Apple iPad!
After months (years?) of anticipation and rumors finally Apple made his move, entering the ebook readers and tablet pc arena. It’s a difficult market, currently targeting mostly early adopters and geeks but which is indeed going to grow in the coming years.
The proposition is solid. It’s a great device, offered with the same iPod Touch/iPhone diversity (wi-fi only and 3G), targeting different audiences and needs. I really loved the concept of using the iPad to move around the house and office, it’s a great entertainment and productivity tool.
It could also be used as the centre of a home media center, controlling my whole music and video library, routing audio and video through different sources (TV, Hi-Fi, etc.) simply by sliding fingers on its beautiful interface. It’s already a great experience with the iPhone, the iPad find a way to augment it.
Also the office could be a perfect environment, walking around from meeting to meeting with this lightweight and responsive gadget, keeping in touch with emails, calendar and iWork.
There are indeed blurred boundaries between the iPad and the iPhone/MacBook Air, I guess that it just addresses slightly different needs, which could be tricky. I was a little disappointed to see that it mounts iPhone OS, I thought for a moment that it could run the very same Mac OS X that runs on Macs, but it does make sense if we think about the multitouch interface and its purpose.
It’s still very early to forecast how it will perform, my take is that we’ll need at least one or two upgrades to really see the iPad take off and reach mass adoption. It’s a completely new device, which needs new behaviors to arise. To this degree I liked very much the setting created during the presentation: Steve sitting on the sofa almost “teaching” how to use it, as if we need to be educated on how to interact with the iPad during our daily life.
I’m sure there’s much more to come, and developers will play a key role in finding endless ways to leverage iPad’s key features.
