iPad, or Yours?
I’ll cut right to it: what an awesome device. It seems there are two kinds of people out there: people who went, “Meh,” and people who went, “OMG OMG OMG this changes everything I need one NOW!” I am decidedly in the latter group.
I’ve been saving/selling stuff to try to pick up an iPhone or iPod touch, mostly so I can surf the web and play games while my wife is using the iMac. The iPad does this on a whole new level, of course, but that’s not what impressed me.
The iPad is a really amazing device for watching movies and showing off pictures, of course, but that’s not what impressed me.
What impressed me, essentially, was iWork. Not the details, though they were nice, but the mere existence of it. iWork on the iPad shows that Apple clearly regards this device as a computer, deserving of business applications as well as “lifestyle” applications. It shows me that this is actually a very, very viable second computer. Above an iPhone or iPod touch, my pipe dream was to pick up a MacBook, so I could have just a little more functionality. But now, forget it; an iPad is all I would need.
I say second computer, but contrary to many of the commentators I’ve listened to over the past week, I don’t see any reason why an iPad could not be the sole computing device for a lot of people. What does it not do? The only things I do with my iMac that essentially I could not do with an iPad are some web development and edit movies in iMovie. There’s no earthly reason somebody couldn’t write a decent IDE for web development on it (paging Steven Frank and Cabel Sasser), and you’re on crack if you don’t think Apple has a version of iMovie for the iPad in the works, to be released when Steve-o says it’s good enough.
Consider that, if this is your only computer, you could just get by with the AT&T unlimited data plan—you wouldn’t even need to have cable or DSL in your house! There are certain demographics this is perfect for.
For a lot of us, of course, a desktop machine makes sense. Even the iPad continues the use of a keyboard, and there’s no question that a full-size desktop keyboard is a better text input device than the virtual one, or even the optional hardware keyboard with the dock. And never mind the vast amount of processing and storage available in today’s desktops. But unless you are a true road warrior who needs to be able to do the same kind of work on the go, the iPad is just so… right as your mobile computer.
Some of the podcasters and commentators have worried that this kills the MacBook Air. It just might, but this is what the New Apple does: it kills existing products, even hits, with superior products before they start to fall off in sales. The MacBook Air is by no means a hit. I do think people will continue to buy MacBooks ad MacBooks Pro, for the use of traditional old software. But I, for one, can’t wait to get an iPad, push it to its limits, and see how far I can get on it. I may well never need to buy a notebook, ever.
And depending on how far Apple takes this new level of OS abstraction, and how fully-featured future iPad-based products become, I may have already bought my last desktop Mac.