iPad >= iPod + iPhone

The greatest over-hyped new product of the decade has been revealed at Apple Event 2010 yesterday.

Yes… we’re talking about Apple’s newest product tagged by them as ‘Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price‘. Heavy isn’t it… not only is it most advanced technology and revolutionary – it is also magical. BTW, it is also unbelievable.

I’m not going to do a review, since I’m sure CHIP team will soon dissect and make a thorough review soon. But I can’t resist making a few notes.

1. I’m happy to report that my prediction in the earlier posting has been mostly accurate. Smug . Except the part of a revolutionary new GUI.
   
    
2. Our new blogger, C3PO, must be a mighty confused droid right now. Just two days ago, he was hankering for a Nook eBook device. I wonder whether this shiny new iPad will cause a change of heart.

It seems that the media critics today are not sure what to make of this new iPad. Most of them are left disappointed though. Like alien worshippers that have waited for years for an alien mothership to come and bring them to a wonderful sanctuary. Only to find that when the alien do come, other than the sleek mothership with cool maneuvering techniques, they look just like us and their home planet is no less screwed than planet earth.

In a way, the new iPad (thank god it’s not called iSlate) is just like that. It’s a sleek tablet PC that look and work like a oversized iPod and/or iPhone. It’s no geek nirvana but geeks don’t bring in billions of ringgit to Apple’s coffers – mass consumers do. Even when Apple’s biggest product, iPod, was launched, nobody think twice about them. “Bah.. MP3 players… plenty of them in the market” so thought the critics.

I believe that the crux to iPad’s success or otherwise will be down to one key ingredient usability. This has often been Apple’s strength and also the achilles heel of run-of-the-mill tablet PC. So we’ll have to wait and see till March when the product will actually be made available and for the general public to get their hands on the latest shiny gadget coming out from Cupertino. Two months… plenty of time for Apple’s PR machine to flex their muscle and for developers to beat the queue to build new apps for iPad.

So… how do we look at this? In my mind, the greatest desire for a tablet PC is to enable us to enjoy computing in the living room, bed room and on the throne. Bill Gate’s dream of ‘a PC on every table‘ is so 80′s. Today, we, the 21st century citizens, want it everywhere now. As any hardworking career executives would testify, after a solid 10 hours staring at the office’s PC or notebook, you want something enjoyable that wouldn’t remind you of work.

Socialising

With its sleek 1.1cm thin profile, dainty 1.5lbs and 10 hours battery life, I can imagine myself taking this sexy thing to bed and spend hours of fun with it. No wires, no keyboard, no mouse. Just my fingers to get my iPad do stuff that I’ve never had in bed before. Facebooking, Twittering and emailing….

If only it has a built in camera… that will open up another dimension of socialising I can do.

Showing Off

One of the reasons why people like me still prints photos is because digital photos are just so damn difficult to show off to other people. Getting uncles and aunties to squint at the 4″ screen of the phone or camera is so cumbersome to them. Passing around your notebooks to show your last holiday pics in a party is so not cool.

But I can imagine me (or most probably my better half) showing off this sleek tablet AND the photos to friends and family in the living room or at the porch. Pinching at the screen to zoom in and out… My cool-geek status would be considerably increased. Oh ya.. it will be fun to them as well.

Apparently, the iPad will also double as a digital photo display whilst it’s being charged and docked.

Me time

Again, with its spec mentioned above, the iPad would make a great company for the all important ‘Me time’. e.g. when you want to sit in your favorite chair in a corner on a nice Sunday morning, reading the newspaper or a nice book. The only question is about content and availability of it. How many titles can you get – and whether Apple will limit to just titles from its iBookstore (likely) or can you download your own titles? Can I read local content like NST, The Star or Business Times in iPad optimised version?

It seem light enough to bring to the small-room’s throne. That will help to avoid the clutter of mags there.

Family Time

The iPad is also claimed to be able to play movies and videos – including an apps for YouTube. In other words, it’s a portable media player as well.

This is great news. The balik kampung this year will be a peaceful one as the little passengers at the back will be busy with Upin & Ipin movie. 10 hours battery time will buy me time from KL to Alor Star easily.

Of course, I can’t forget the Apps Store. Apparently the iPad can play almost everything that the Apps store has. All the 100,000+ titles. However, I’m not an iPhone user and have no first hand experience in this matter, so can’t really say how excited I’m with this prospect.

So what’s your take? Will you be queuing for it or wait see first?

Fast Tube by Casper

Related articles:

• Apple Ipad – Will you buy it? (trak.in)
• Three Things Apple Needs To Do To Make Its Tablet A Breakthrough Device (paidcontent.org)
• First Impressions of the new Apple iPad (Walter S. Mossberg /Mossblog) (techmeme.com)
• Apple Tablet iPad Features and Specification (shoutmeloud.com)
• The Goldilocks device (speedcommunications.com)