“‘It’s strong adoption in Asia means iPad could become another strong source of revenue for Apple and it would be not just Asia as myriads of applications that iPad has would make it possible for enterprises to offer personalized experience to their customers,’ said Lee Chae-gi, research director at Gartner in Seoul,” Kim reports. “Despite critics who question whether a true need exists for such a gadget, analysts expect Hewlett-Packard, Dell and potentially Nokia and Sony and others to trot out their own competing devices this year.”
MacDailyNews Take: Circa 1910: “Despite critics who question whether a true need exists for such a gadget, analysts expect the Thomas Brothers, Gallaudet, and potentially Burgess and Glenn Martin and others to trot out their own competing aeroplanes this year.”
Kim continues, “Apple has staked its formidable reputation on a 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet with no clear-cut case for use other than pure media consumption.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, puleeze. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, for just three examples among tens of thousands.
Kim continues, “Access to unique content and programs on Apple’s universe of more than 150,000 applications has the potential to drive tablet adoption.”
MacDailyNews Take: Make that 210,000+, but what’s a 60,000+ difference (despite 60,000 being approximately 10,000 more that the total number of Android apps in existence)? Reuters’ new slogan: “Accuracy, smaccuracy.”
Kim continues, “In Japan, Otsuka Pharmaceutical said it plans to buy 1,300 iPads for its sales representatives so they can use it to do presentations more visually and with the latest information.”
MacDailyNews Take: In other words, a “clear-cut case for use other than pure media consumption.” 
Full article, for what it’s worth, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
Can we get some level of qualification for tech writers?
Gee, what a brilliant article that argues against its own point!
“Consumption” be done about these analysts, tech “writers”, bloggers, and “journalists” who don’t have an imagination? Not that one is needed to know that the iPad will have its presence felt in places we, who are dreamers, can’t even dream about.
And, yes, I had to do it.
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I guess “more than” represents a fixed number?
@GregoriusM
“consumption” be done. I like that. Very clever.
While content generating programs do exist for the iPad, I do not see them as the driving force behind iPad sales. I could not even imagine at this time using Keynote, Pages, or Numbers for any major content creation. I cannot make posts to this site as regularly as I would like to due to bugs and glitches and lack of multitasking and just a general distain for putting 20 to 30 mins into something just to have it disappear.
For me, and for probably the vast majority at this point it is mainly a media consumption device. Things will change for sure, but that is it’s clear cut purpose for now. Application development and imagination will move it beyond that and develop what this thing will become in the future.
Miyoung Kim just gots casterbated
The total of iPhone and iPad apps is almost always going to be a bit low. Steve Jobs said they get about 15,000 new apps submitted every week. So being 60,000 apps off just means the writer used information from about one month ago,
No, Steve Jobs said that the 15,000 apps submitted each week includes updates. One can only speculate about the proportions, my guess would be at least half of these 15,000 are update.
@ob1spyker
“I cannot make posts to this site as regularly as I would like to due to bugs and glitches and lack of multitasking and just a general distain for putting 20 to 30 mins into something just to have it disappear.”
What does multi-tasking have to do with posting? 20-30 minutes to make a post?
“Apple has staked its formidable reputation on a 9.7-inch touchscreen tablet with no clear-cut case for use other than pure media consumption.”
What a crock. How has Apple staked it’s reputation on one device? Mac laptops, iPods, iPhones are multimillion dollar reputation makers already. What about that?
I was just at annual meeting of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncologist) in Chicago and noticed lots of Pharma companies using the iPads as eBooklets while other companies were demo’ing to the clinicians. It is amazing to say the least.
@ Adam T. Lindley
I like to try and check any facts I use in a post or if I am not sure about something. This requires me to go onto the internet to do so and yes it is inconvenient to have to close out of MDN to go into Safari or wherever and find out what I want to know. Typing on the iPad is not a speedy as a regular keyboard to say the least, plus I do tend to get wordy in my posts so yes I could spend 20 mins on a post when everything is said and done. (I am not even including the hang time I get when I try and post.) But this is not just singled to MDN, other apps give me problems and crash on a regular basis causing me to lose whatever I was working on. Gee and there isn’t even any Flash here and I’m still crashing. I do not have these problems working on a desktop or laptop, at least not in content creation programs, and if Flash crashes all I have to do is hit refresh in my Chrome browser and everything is back to where I left it. And really, I wasn’t taking about multi-tasking being needed for posting, it would be helpful for content creation though.
This post created on my laptop using Chrome with no crashes.
I think this tech writer was assigned to write a negative article but end up writing a glowing one out of his/her lust for the iPad. Way to go.
So far the only times I have seen ipads were in corporate settings. I went to the Novell offices right after the launch and those guys were already using them.
Another company I know bought one for each employee for presentations, note taking etc.
Our local ems bought one to put in the ambulance for the emts. It is much easier and efficient than a laptop.
“Our local ems bought one to put in the ambulance for the emts. It is much easier and efficient than a laptop.”
That is terrific.
Next up . . . TowerTone will claim Texas had no involvement.
This is all so silly.
> “It’s strong adoption in Asia means…”
Surely “Its” not “It’s” – as in his, hers, its.
de V
I’ve written before that iPad and iPhone would be big in Asia (even in the days when Wired said iPhone would fail in Japan. It’s now 70%+ of smartphone market there). Why? One big reason: because you can WRITE KANJI type characters on them!
Not having a keyboard has been lambasted by some in the West but in Asia keyboardless input is an advantage. Try writing Chinese characters with a keyboard vs your finger.
Years ago Apple realized this and bought Chinese character recognition Tech HWPen from a chinese company. Also Apple hired Andrea Jung to Board of directors and is planning 25 Apple stores in China (a big chunk of their world total). IOS will be very big in Asia.
I now use my iPad for my presentations built using iPad’s Keynote. Simple and beautiful. Hardly ever touch my notebook anymore.
Before this device was launched I argued that it had massive potential in business as a tool anywhere where interaction with the public takes place and that Apple will use that precise tactic to open up a new and little defended front to get the Mac generally into business. It seems that this process is likely to have an even bigger impact and sooner than even I anticipated. I suspect the smell of fear is strong over Redmond.
Just smell the cushions on those flying chairs.
@ob1spyker
It sounds like you are having serious trouble with your iPad. I’d be glad to take that piece of junk off of your hands if you want….
I always felt that the iPads would be very successful in asia due to how easy it is to compose documents in asian languages in iOS. If there is a better input method, I have not seen it.