“While it’s still too soon to tell if it can live up to the insane amount of hype that preceded its introduction, the iPad is more than any other product the company has made the quintessential Apple device,” Erica Ogg writes for CNET. “From the almost entirely homegrown technology, to the addition of the books counterpart to its iTunes media hub, to taking a risk on the middle category between smartphones and laptops, the iPad completes the picture for Apple in a lot of ways.”
“With few exceptions, Apple makes portable media-centric devices, and of those, the iPad is the one that brings all of Apple’s businesses together,” Ogg writes. “[iPad takes] tasks that were too big for an iPhone and puts them on a device that isn’t pocket-sized, but is more convenient to carry around than a 13- or 15-inch laptop.”
“Looking back now, we should have seen this coming over the past few years: Apple wanted a new way of building their MacBooks, so they came up with the manufacture process where it’s cut from a single block of aluminum. They wanted to make their own chip, so they bought PA Semi and created the “A4,” which notably cuts Intel out of the equation,” Ogg writes. “They also have their own battery technology and are using IPS, or in-plane-switching LCD technology, for the screen that allows quicker response times for viewing video and wider viewing angles. And all of the content for the device must pass through one of Apple’s own online retail stores: iBooks, iTunes, or the App Store. Plus, if you consider the sweet deal on the 3G wireless plans (AT&T, no contract, month-to-month), Apple clearly dictated the terms with AT&T.”
Ogg writes, “The introduction of the iBooks store also snaps into place the final piece of the iTunes puzzle. Beyond music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, games, apps, and iTunes U educational material, books was the only thing missing. Yes, newspapers and magazine content did go mostly unmentioned during Wednesday’s presentation, but it’s conceivable those deals are still getting worked out behind the scenes and could be added later to the iBooks site… This device is both a beginning and an end for Apple. With a new product category and a new part of the business, it’s also closed the circle on its media ambitions.”
Full article here.
Remember that movie 2001 A Space Odyssey and Poole or Bowman? was reading his news on the pad. It’s the iPad. We’re a bit late, but Apple has brought it to us today!
Related question. What is the quintessential Apple Tool?
a) Michael Dell
b) Eric Schmidt
c) Steve Ballmer
d) Music Industry
e) That Cell Phone CEO Guy
I want one NAOW!!!!!
I like reading all the BAD articles about the iPad. How it fails at this or that. They are missing the point. The iPad isn’t supposed to be a laptop. Or a Mac. It’s something new. And it totally makes sense. I can’t wait to gather up the funds to get one of these.
You are missing the cloud computing at Apple’s billion dollar server farm that they started construction on last August.
Coming soon to a cloud near you.
I think the demand will far outpace the supply in the beginning. I for one, will be buying in the neighborhood of 6-7 of these as soon as they are available for pre-order. One for me, one for my wife, and a couple for my kids birthdays. After that, a few to deliver stellar presentations to my clients. You ask… “Why do you need a few to deliver presentations? Won’t the one you ordered for yourself suffice?” Yes… but can you imagine the leg-up I’ll have on the competition when I put together (with the iPad SDK) a custom application to showcase my product and leave it all in the hands of the customer. $499 is a small price to pay after you’ve already invested thousands if not tens of thousands into gaining a customers business. The WOW factor will be hard to deny.
Same FUD was spread about the iPhone.
I believe these FUDsters are just picking themselves up from that big dust pile. Wait…looks like they’re ready to kiss the ground again.
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.. and don’t forget: by the time it ships, we’ll have iPhone OS 4.0 (controlled multitasking) and already thousands of adapted and new apps.
iPhoto and iTunes Remote are the other obvious apps from Apple is the next logical step – and then this thing is THE remote control for the next AppleTV to come …
I think of the iPad as something more like the PADD devices used in STARTREK: The Next Generation. They were everywhere in that show.
the Books store will do for the iPad as iTunes did for the iPod and App store is doing for the iPod Touch and iPhone.
iTunes is saving millions to the music industries avoiding the fabrication of acrylic disc, electricity used to produced, diesel consumed to transport the disc, paper used for the covers, etc. The iPad will save millions to schools and publishers avoiding buying raw paper for impression, assembly of the printed paper of the book, transportation, etc.
Student will receive a notification from their teaches to buy a book for his class, the students will search it in the Apple book store and download it. that simple. No more walking or driving to buy a book or newspaper, no more transporting tons of news paper or books to distribution points, no more printing, no more electricity, no more waiting. Can you see any other gadget more environmentally friendly than the iPad and the iBook store?
@HMCIV
Add that CEO from McGraw Hill and you might have an up to date contender list.
Penciled them in for my mom and granps, who really don’t need an iMac or Mac Book to use the web and stay connected. The iPad will be so simple for them to learn and use, and if they got a problem, they can go down to the Apple store instead of bugging me.
It’s taken 20-FRAKKING-YEARS since Star Trek NG first showed us the soft keyboard for it the finally be popular and user friendly on a mass consumer device. People sometimes purposely stay blind to the significant cultural changes that are about to take place.
iPad with iBooks just killed the Kindle…
Apple needs one more device a new Apple TV with an A4 or A6 Processor and Apple TV interface that allows Web Browsing, and e-pub book format. The Apple TV needs to be more then just a media content Player it needs to be the home Central Media repository back-up Center for Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, Apps and Pictures.
So everyone’s devices and computers that contain any form of iTunes Media the Apple TV should sync and purchased/new content on of that device and added it to it’s back up.
The Apple TV itself would still function as it does it would just have new back-end abilities for the client devices.
MDN quoting “iPad is the quintessential Apple device”
But just for the moment… Not yet in history: the best yet to come!
@Jubei
Seriously dude, after all that hoopla, did you really set your standard as high as a Kindle-killer? Is that how we are going to define the new era of Apple and its fans?
APPL tanking $8/share and 80-90% negative comments is a strange definition for “quintessential”!!!!
And all of the content for the device must pass through one of Apple’s own online retail stores
Horse$h!t. The iPad runs nearly all iPhone apps. I would say that almost certainly includes Amazon’s Kindle app.
If Amazon has any brains, they’ll optimize their Kindle app for the iPad and stop wasting money on the Kindle.
Also, while I’m at it — Amazon-purchased MP3s will play on the device, as will your own CDs ripped and synched via iTunes on your home Mac/PC. There’s the mostly forgotten Rhapsody app, plus Pandora and AOL Radio.
Saying that everything you read, watch, or listen on the iPad has to be purchased from Apple is a giant load of baloney and it needs to be corrected before it becomes the next great anti-Apple meme.
——RM
“all of the content for the device must pass through one of Apple’s own online retail stores”
Wrong. I can rip (or buy in digital form) music and movies from any source, put them in iTunes, and sync them to my iPod, iPhone, and now my iPad.
This thing needs to stream iTunes like appletv does. I hope to see this thing work with iPhone as well. There’s alot of potential imagine taking a picture on the iPhone and wirelessly flicking it on over to the ipad or using the iPhone as a 3g modem. I really wanna see this thing work with what many of us already have. For me that is the killer feature that I’m waiting to see. The seamless integration of the ipad iPhone appletv iTunes MobileMe and mac.
Commercials that you can’t turn off? Really, MDN? I’ll be sure to leave forever, if this doesn’t stop. –Long-time loyal reader.
“APPL tanking $8/share”
What, you’ve never noticed the “silver lining” effect before?
Every single major Apple announcement has been preceded by wild speculation, particularly in the financial community. No product made by man could possibly meet those unrealistic expectations, so the stock dips for a bit after the product is actually announced. And most of the time, comes right back up as the product actually sells well in the market.
That’s “silver lining” as in “every silver lining must have a dark cloud, so I’ll focus on the cloud”.
“…and 80-90% negative comments is a strange definition for “quintessential”!”
Depends on where you’re reading. For the most part, right now it’s the “silver lining” brigade bloviating about something they’ve neither touched or used. As usual.
…and now Newspapers, Magazines, and Books.
Similar to their domination of music, Apple is preparing to dominate content in ways that no competitor can match. Brilliant.
AT&T will make out fine on this deal. Every million iPads hooked up to 3G service represents nearly $360M in annual revenue for AT&T. And a *lot* more than one million iPads will be sold, many of which will be 3G.
The lack of a camera for video telephony/iChat is a bit of a downer. But Apple excelled so much in every other area that I cannot complain. I’m buying a 3G iPad in a few months (or when one becomes available after that)…
Im getting feed up with all the ppl talking about what the iPad is missing. I feel as if Apple has brilliant strategy.. just like they did with the iphone.. they start with an “under-powered” revolutionary idevice. People go crazy about it and haters talk about all that the idevice is missing… ( I ask myself.. how do they even know its missing.. did they design or engineer it?.. no) .. 12 months later they refresh the idevice and they add *some* of the features the idevice *was missing*, again haters hate and bitch about features that its still *missing*.. 12 months later they do it again.. everybody is in awe but there are still *missing* features and the cycle goes on until eventually no features are missing and they have to completely overhaul the idevice. In this matter Apple can keep they hype and *freshness* of their idevices and continue to sell them over the years. Its stupid to add all the features you can possibly think of and try to top if off in 12 months adding more features thus overwhelming the “average joe” customer.
On another note.. the iPad might just be the tablet equivalent of a netbook and hopefully in 3 years from now the iSlate will return as a full fledge tablet equivalent of a macbook.. one running a fully touch enabled OS X. thus keeping the cash flow.. flowing
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