Some miscellaneous thoughts on the iPad while I watch the intro video

#1:  Clearly, there was not a woman on the development team. Already all the the “feminine hygiene” jokes have been made, and I am quite confident that a woman on the team would have suggested the “problem” with the iPad name.  But beyond that, note that this intro is a bunch of white guys.

#2: I still await a device where I can store, read and make notes on PDFs. I think.  As I have commented/posted about before, I don’t read that many “trade store” books of the type you’d read with iBooks or Kindle, but a device where I could access the piles and piles of marked-up PDFs of journal articles I use to teach would be very VERY useful to me.  I don’t think this does that yet.  On the other hand, since this thing is tied to the open-source ePub platform, I suspect that there will be some way to convert PDFs relatively easily relatively soon.

#3: I think this is more of a “netbook” than it is a giant iPod. I say that because you can add a keyboard and because the keyboard that’s built in for stuff seems pretty workable, and also because I think you’d use this pretty much the same way you’d use a netbook:  some surfing, some reading, watch some movies, some email, some facebook, some games, etc., etc., all in a very portable package.  Every situation I can imagine using a netbook would be a good one for the iPad, I think.  Or maybe the iTouch is just a tiny netbook.

#4: I’m pretty sure I want one. And I am also willing to be one of the first kids on the block with one at this point, even though I am well-aware that something much better will come out in about a year.  I want to play around with it and do some more research first, but the $500 entry-level price point surprised me.  Anyway, do me a favor and talk it up as a good idea with my wife.

6 thoughts on “Some miscellaneous thoughts on the iPad while I watch the intro video”

  1. I think you’re right on, with each of these points. And if you’re wife is reading this, $499 is a ridiculously low price for this functionality. My guess is that they’re selling these at a loss, to begin with. And I would say this is even MORE true about the $649 3G model. That’s just an insanely good deal.

    I just bought a Macbook Pro (this week) and an iPhone (this summer), so I’ll be waiting for iPad 2.0. By that time my phone will be up for renewal.

    Continuing to enjoy the blog.

    Trauman

  2. The ePub feature is actually the most attractive to me, but I don’t think I’ll be an initial buyer. I want to see how that market develops first. But, this is the one feature that could get me to pull the trigger in a couple of years. If I had not replaced my ipod touch last fall with the latest model, I might be singing a different tune.

    One other point. People complain about the closed nature of the whole i/Phone/Pod/Pad ecosystem, but the truth of the matter is that Apple is a leader in open web standards, allowing you to access a remarkable amount of material on these devices. I use my touch almost exclusively for Google reader and podcast listening. With ePub and a decent number of books, iPad here I come when the touch wears out.

  3. I heard a story on NPR talking about the iPad sketch yesterday afternoon. Hilarious! Even with a stupid name, I want one.

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