Ten days after the introduction of the iPad, I am even more convinced this device is positioned to emerge as a great success, carving out a new place in people's lives. As others have observed, the iPad is all about media consumption, not media creation--and so it really is different from a laptop or desktop computer. It certainly can't replace the computer, but it can extend the concept of the digital hub much more easily. Some things I've been mulling over:
- Living in an academic community, it's easy for me to imagine how an iPad might be successfully marketed to college and high school students: if Apple or a third-party developer could implement handwriting recognition (presumably using a suitable stylus on the multi-touch screen), a student could take class notes on the same slim device that contains all of her textbooks. She could also access her schedule, e-mail, and Internet sites of interest. No more bulging backpacks! This could easily become the must-have campus accessory before too long.
- Apple needs to get moving on the periodicals subscription front. I receive The International Herald Tribune daily on my Kindle; it was very simple to set up a subscription and takes no effort to download each new edition via Whispersync (at least in the States--doing so abroad means transferring a file from my laptop). The iPad has the potential to revolutionize the periodicals industry as I discussed a few days ago (and please do check out the tablet-optimized Sports Illustrated demo). If digital delivery to a tablet is the future of publishing, sign me up. (By the way, since Steve Jobs now is the largest single shareholder of Disney, he seems to be able to leverage this position into ABC providing content for iTunes; why can't he now do the same with recent Disney acquisition Marvel Comics? Seems the iPad platform is ideal for making digital comics work on a large scale.)
- Since I own about a dozen or more Kindle e-books that I can read on an iPhone app, I wonder if Amazon.com and Apple will allow me to read these on a Kindle app for the iPad? I hope so, but it would constitute an end-run around Apple's iBookstore and also encourage Amazon customers from purchasing the dedicated Kindle hardware. It will be interesting watching this unfold.
- Yes a camera--or even two, one facing each way--would be nice, but surely this will be a feature of iPad 2.0 once it can be implemented without making the device too expensive.
- Too bad the iPad won't be able to play Flash, but I predict the Adobe vs. Apple conflict will result in web developers moving away from Flash-based programming in favor of more open standards. I can't imagine them writing off iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users by using Flash on any new web pages under development when there are alternatives available.
The question for me is not whether to get the iPad but how soon to get it. Perhaps I will do what I did with the iPhone: get the first and third generations.
