Why Apple’s revolutionary iPad is the first real computer

Joel Johnson writes for Macworld, “I don’t have a pundit’s drunken courage to say that this first iPad is going to be a smash hit. But I don’t think it puts me too far out on a limb to say that we might look back on it in a few decades and say, ‘Hey, that was the first real computer.'”

MacDailyNews Take: We haven’t had a drop to drink today, yet, nor did we the first time we said it on iPad unveiling day (in-between we make no claims), so we have no problem typing the following yet again, in bold: “This first iPad is going to be a smash hit.”

Johnson continues, “Nerds of 2040 will sigh and rattle off any number of previous computers if someone makes that [“iPad was the first real computer”] claim. But even those nerds will have to concede that the iPad marked the beginning of appliance computing, when physical devices and interfaces receded into the background and touch gave us an entirely new intimacy with our information.”

“Automobiles had been around for 30 years before Henry Ford put together the first Model T,” Johnson writes. “Those previous attempts at a mass-market car were critical to Ford’s success, but it’s Ford we remember.”

Johnson writes, “The iPad isn’t the most capable machine out there. It’s not a multitasker.”

MacDailyNews Take: Whoops. iPad, like every single iPhone and iPod touch that’s ever shipped, is a multitasker. It simply doesn’t yet allow for multitasking by third-party apps. Listen to your iPod while surfing the web and you’re multitasking. With iPhone 4.0, Apple will usher in multitasking for third-party apps, along with much more. It will be available as a software update to iPhone and iPod touch users this summer and a version of iPhone OS 4 will be coming to iPad this fall.

Johnson continues, “But the iPad’s limitations are also its strength. Because they’re uniform across the platform, developers can work with and around them. The same kind of uniformity has allowed video game consoles to stay competitive with—and sometimes eclipse—more-powerful gaming hardware… The iPad won’t be all things to all people. Those of us who need raw power will still have our Macs and our PCs and our mainframes for years to come. But I think we’ll find that dainty two-stroke computers like the iPad are surprisingly versatile.”

Read more in the full article – recommended – here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]