Yesterday, Apple announced the iPad. Not that anyone was really surprised, as all bar the nitty gritty specifics had been leaked already over the last few weeks.
And, although I was looking forward to the reveal, I didn’t think I was going to be especially interested in the product. After all, I’ve had tablet PCs and PDAs and an iPhone and laptops and netbooks and stuff in the past. So it wasn’t going to be anything new.
I was wrong. I really want one. I’m right in that it does nothing new, but that’s not the point with Apple kit – little of it is actually new. The iPhone did nothing new. The iPod did nothing new. But Apple are masters of mastery; Of doing things right. The proof is there: mp3 players didn’t take off until Apple’s iPod, and now half of the competition are trying to duplicate the iPod. Touch screen phones had been around for years before the iPhone, but now every phone is an iPhone wannabe. So it is with the iPad.
Everything it does, has been done before. But it’s how it does it. How easy it is to do it. How powerful it is in doing it. How slick, smooth, seemless and shiny Apple have done it.
I can see the naysayers and iPad haters already making complaints and rubbishing it. It might well flop yet – after all, every other similar PDA/tablet/touchscreen device before it have already flopped – but this feels different. It gets so many things right that even if some of it’s functionality doesn’t take off, there’s loads left.
Take iBooks. It’s just Kindle mixed with Delicious Library. But then this is Kindle which can also play films. And games. And surf the internet.
Or it’s a portable movie player. That lets you read books, check your email, and do your online shopping.
Or it’s a games console. That doubles as an electronic photo frame, lets you view YouTube and plan a holiday.
Or it’s all of those things, and everything else the App Store can provide for you. As with the iPhone, it’s all the “value added” stuff that will make the machine. The iPhone without the App Store is a basic, but pretty and functional, smartphone. With it, it does everything you can imagine. If you can think of a need, there’s a pretty good chance (as they say) there’s an app for that.
If you’re the sort of person who wants a mobile office desk, with your desk diary, email, internet, notepad and so on, with features for when you have “down time” or are travelling (that’s your music, books, films and games then) it’s great. If, like me, you love the iPhone but when playing games or reading web pages you just want something… bigger, then it too is great.
Imagine playing the sort of games Microsoft were showing off with Surface – only without having to spend ten billion pounds to own one!
My only concern with it is the lack of a camera on the front. This would be ideal for Skype, but I’m betting there’ll be a camera add-on for the expansion socket available at some point.
Will I be getting one? I’d like one, certainly. But I might just wait until the second revision. If I can.
