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| Does this iPad thingy have a purpose? Just to preface, I dumped my iPhone in favor of the HTC Droid from Verizon. ATT's limited 3G coverage made me want to stuff my iPhone in a shredder every time I tortured myself by trying to browse the Web. Btw, love, love, love my Droid.
That being said, I am in the market for an eReader. I own a computer consulting business and depend on my books, manuals and subscriptions to keep up with what's going on. In addition, sometimes I even admit in public that I absolutely love to camp out on the beach on vacation reading my latest technical novel. (I have ASP.NET 4.0 queued up for Maui in two weeks and I'm very excited!)
Closer to topic, I don't worship Apple and have never owned an Apple computer. However, comparing eReaders, the iPad is big enough to read full page documents in their original form, small enough to be portable, has enough battery life to handle a moderate day of usage, is back-lit, and shows color. The iPad also runs iPhone apps to read documents in PDF, iBook, Kindle, and Nook formats. These features will definitely help it to very quickly position itself as one of the premier eReaders on the market.
Justifying the price is a personal issue. No denying it's more expensive than other products that perform similar tasks, but these other devices only perform similar tasks. None of them combine eReader, email, browsing, multimedia, application set, portability, and connectivity anywhere near the capabilities of the iPad.
Certainly, not everyone wants all these functions in one device nor are some going to want to pay the price. However, the iPad has found a niche. Only time will tell how many people are in that niche and it's likely that the iPad won't be the next gen iPod, but business isn't about hitting a home run every time up to bat. Many games are won with just base hits. | |
| Let us know how reading that iPad on a sunny Maui beach works out.... Man I know if I was in Maui I certainly would not be be spending my time reading on a beach 
I'm sure having a full color LED screen in proper lighting conditions is nice but I'm venturing a guess that you'll be dealing with eyestrain and reading difficulties trying to see the iPads LED display in bright tropical sunlight as compared to using a comparable device with a sunlight-friendly E Ink display. | |
| Haha, I've had a lot of those same thoughts about the E-ink. My wife has a Kindle and it does work very nice outside. Unfortunately, because of the iPad release date I will be lugging good ol' paper books this vacation so my update might be a while.
Not sure how long I'll wind up holding out, but I would like to see the Apple products available on the Verizon network. I also checked out the Notion Ink referred to earlier and thought that looked pretty promising. However, I've been burned a few times by going with gadgets that weren't center stage. Tough to beat the social network that comes along with the Apple iProducts.
Regarding Maui, I'm sure I'll find the time to take a few shots of some hot bikinis. Luckily, my wife has quite a few.  | |
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