The iPad is the Future

Let me begin with some background.
i'm a man of two worlds. A world of Mac and PC. Each brings function and ease to my life in specific ways. The PC give me the productivity and compatibility. Apple gives me entertainment and the user experience unique to Apple.

Apple products, to me, have a usefulness over their simplistic coolness. It's.. tech chic, but also brings a lot of functionality in a simple concept. An iPod is not a particularly sexy device, but it packages the an mp3 player into a nice pretty package with intuitive design which has resulted in its ubiquitous nature despite the fact it is often pricier and comes with less features than competitors.

And though the iPhone has lost a bit of its unique luster over the past few years with all the touchscreen copy cats, without the iPhone's debut a few years ago i doubt the smartphone industry would've expanded out of the rut that was Blackberry.

With that said, i believe the iPad is the future. A claim, part grandiose-part obvious, which makes sense when looking at the recent past of "computing". Tablet PCs have been an overpriced, niche field of computing that has been more of a curiosity without proper implementation because no one really wants one and no company would devote time/energy into developing something incredibly useful for such few users.

What the iPad brings to the mainstream consciousness is not a tablet PC, but something that transcends the concept (or to hardcore nerds something that's just pretentiously inadequate to be labeled a computer). It is a product that - with the most basic physical level of interaction, touch - allows for the use of many tools. A toolbox of computer gadgetry containing the apps (or tools, sticking with the analogy) to accomplish many tasks. In a practical sense, there have been many times the iPhone has kept me entertained and in many of those cases.. bigger would've been better (a bigger screen anyway). Email, maps, and web surfing are just a few of the major uses i have for my iPhone. All of those would benefit from faster processing and larger real estate. The iPhone wasn't initially a workhorse of productive business. It couldn't. Mail clients weren't entirely secure. The Blackberry system was hardwired into the business consciousness and iPhones are still making ground, but the iPad is the next step. i can imagine many, many uses outside of the few packaged programs demonstrated during the Apple keynote.

Now, i'm not talking about playing Bejeweled Blitz on a 10" screen (though that'd be nice). I see a lot of industries being able to use the iPad in day-to-day operations with the proper apps. Take a real estate agent who can pull up information on a listing from their iPad and show clients different houses quickly through the interface. Or take those insurance adjusters who go around recording damage and getting estimates while they're on the road. Or doctors who can look up information quickly through a secure hospital network, pulling up more concise information quicker than before. There are endless uses for a device like the iPad and the strength is a combination of the ease and familiarity of use (who doesn't know how to use an iPod touch/iPhone?) and the development of the right apps, the iPad will be everywhere and deservedly so.

This is mostly wishful thinking. i'm not really rooting for just the iPad, but devices like this that redefine what we know about personal computing. In my simple lifetime of computers, i've started from using just keyboards and command-line/menu-driven user interfaces to ones driven by touch and that's pretty amazing when you think about it. i've gone from dialing up with AOL and waiting a million years and getting disconnected by call-waiting to surfing the net on my phone waiting for my lab to start. So while my expectations are high, that is to be expected considering the leaps and bounds we've made even with cynical criticisms made before even handling a product.

But yeah, i'm still bummed the iPad won't have a camera. Being able to video Skype would be pretty awesome. Also the storage options are pretty weak, but yeah... There are products out there that have a touch screen and a single function that the iPad could easily replace. Take for instance the Logitech touchscreen remote control.

This thing has a 3.5 inch screen (iPhone sized) and costs $400.

Or how about the comparably sized Amazon Kindle DX (~$489) or the B&N Nook (6" screen, ~$280). Two pretty good e-book readers with grayscale screens.

They are good at what they do, but for the same price or a little more you get more features. The one plus for these readers is that the screen is especially good to read on and the connection to download products is free and integrated in all readers, but for the iPad you have to either be connected on Wi-fi or have the 3G version and a monthly plan.

With all that said... the iPad is the future.

Anyway, this post was a nerd-fest.