My thoughts on Apple's iPad

First, I hate the name.  iPad - it is the New England pronunciation of the iPod.   Confusion in Boston will abound.

Right now their target market is pretty saturated - Kindle, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, Netbooks, other book readers.  If they can get this to be the platform of choice, eventually people will replace the above items with it, but I can't see it being a game changer like the iPhone or iPod was.  There is just too much overlap with this product.

Sure it has a cool factor, but that is a steep price to pay to be cool if you own another device already.  Plus this first generation is missing a lot of things that I think they'll eventually add.  This seems like a product where early adapters will have some buyers remorse when the subsequent generations come along and are a far greater product at a better price - see the original iPhone for exhibit A.


I'm not an Apple hater, so don't read that into this.  I love my iPod, and if T-Mobile offered an iPhone I'd seriously consider it (but only if they figure out the battery life problem.  2 hours of run time is unacceptable.).  I'd consider a MacBook if it weren't twice as expensive as a PC.  But I don't think there is room in my gadget lineup for an iPad any time soon.