Steve Jobs Delivers iPad to the Masses

Apple dropped a bomb on the consumer market yesterday at the Apple Event when they debuted the iPad. The iPad weighs in at 1.5 pounds and has a 9.75 touch screen that is extremely responsive. The screen sports a 1024x728 resolution which is gorgeous. Apple also released a new store along with the usual bag of tricks that come with Apple portable devices. One new store that has been added to the line up is the new iBook store where consumers can browse the store for books to read, purchase a select and begin reading. We saw a video of the reader function at work, and it was just plain better than the Nook or Kindle in terms of actual page-turning functions and screen resolutions. I am sure that there will be tests to see if e-ink displays are better for reading than the iPad screen in the future, but I would rather take a chance on a more fluid reading experience than a laggy page-turning reading experience. The iPad will also give user the ability to browse the web (sans Flash support unfortunately), read email, use iTunes, and the App store, and allow people to use a portable version of iWork. 

There were a few disappointments that go along with the iPad to go along with the excitement of a new Apple product. The iPad is not a multitasking device which means that it will not allow a person to run more than one program at a time. As stated before, the iPad does not have Flash support making some Flash-heavy sites somewhat useless. Sites like G4 may not render the same as the regular PC web browsers would render them. People are also confused as to why Apple decided to leave out the capability of video chatting. A device that is meant to "replace the netbook" is certainly missing a great deal of the features that make the netbook popular. In short, the iPad is just a larger-sized, more powerful iPhone with the few new bells and whistles. Will people buy purchase the iPad? Of course they will. This device may be serious competition for the Barnes & Nobles Nook and the Amazon Kindle. Apple has basically told asked the public a fundamental questions and this is--why buy an ebook reader and a netbook when you can just purchase the iPad? We will see if Apple's strategy works in approximately 60 days when the device is scheduled to begin shipping. There will be three models of the iPad available at the time of shipping. The16GB model with just WiFi will start at $499. The pricing increases in $100 dollar increments for the 32GB and 64GB models respectively. Consumers who would prefer a WiFi + 3G iPad and pay At&T for yet another data plan will expect to pay an extra $130 which is sure to upset a lot of people who live in San Francisco and New York who have complained about At&T 3G coverage for the iPhone. 

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