[NTLK] hello iPad

[J.S. Hohner]

Well, it's official. It's called the iPad. You might not like the  
name (I do) but there's so much more to it than the branding.

It's packed with features. All the iPhone apps have been retooled and  
optimized for it. Safari, Mail, Maps, iTunes, etc. It's looks like an  
incredible surfing machine. The multi-touch appears to have really  
come into its own with the big screen. The interface is more  
intuitive than ever. Looking at the NYT on it looks like looking at  
the real thing. Newspapers are going to love this thing. There is the  
predicted ebook reader and ebook store too. The 5 biggest publishers  
are all signed up. It is a sad day for the Kindle, but a great day  
for book publishers.

But Apple didn't stop there. The calendar app rocks. I think this  
thing will be the first electronic daytimer to be as easy to use as  
the paper one. And they retooled iWork so that the iPad also has a  
full word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation maker. They demo'd  
touch typing on the onscreen keyboard and it appears to work well.  
The keys are large but there is no tactile feedback as had been  
speculated. Just like the iPhone and the Newon, everything is super  
integrated. Contacts, notes, mail, pictures. everything flows.

This thing really reminds me of the Newton right down to the optional  
dongle for connecting your camera's USB cable (look for programmers  
to go crazy with that port if Apple let's them). The OS is soupy. In  
portrait orientation, the dock is reminiscent of the button bar. The  
range of built-in apps is similar. Yippee! The long wait is over. The  
promise of Steve Job's return to Apple is fulfilled. When Job's  
pulled the plug on the Newton to help resuscitate Apple, I felt a  
pinch. I forgave him though, because I knew it was necessary and  
because he gave us the iMac. I forgave him in my head. Today, my  
heart swells and I forgive him there too.

Today also reminds me of the introduction of the original Macintosh.  
The Mac, the Newton, the iPad, three systems designed as tools,  
comprehensive, versatile and easy to use. The first flew, the second  
flopped, the third takes to the wing. This is STEVE'S version of the  
Newton. I predict the iPad will become Apple's biggest seller yet.  
Sure, it's a perfectly timed synergy of technologies and features  
that the market is craving and ready for. Sure, that synergy nails a  
functional sweet spot not met by any other existing product. Sure,  
this same synergy has a gentle potency that transcends the sum of its  
parts better than any sum heretofore tried. All these things were  
true of Macintosh too. What sets the iPad apart, is today's 'one more  
thing.'

It is cheap. $499! What a shadow that's going to cast over net-books,  
e-readers and other tablets!

Apple, for the first time in history, has introduced a product that  
boasts 'predatory' pricing. Perhaps they've forgone their traditional  
healthy margins. Perhaps they leveraged their iPhone success with  
suppliers, or are riding recent breakthroughs of theirs in  
manufacturing. It doesn't matter. They are doing something different.  
And they are going to sell store-loads of iPads. There is a synergy  
(ya, i know, enough with the synergy) to Apple itself at this moment,  
not just to the iPad. It consists of their base of stores, this  
pricing, the iPhone prepped public. their manufacturing and marketing  
power, their alliances with content providers, their environmental  
leadership, and of course this product that rolls the best of all  
their previous work into one sublime whole.

It's almost as if this isn't a first generation product. It's  
inexpensive, it's polished, it even has a nice line of accessories.  
For instance, an optional accessory dock that holds it upright so  
that it can also be used as an electronic picture frame or with a  
wireless keyboard. It also has a second dock that includes a built in  
keyboard. When you pop you iPad into it, you feel just like you're  
working on a laptop. The iPad is still a closed environment like the  
iPhone; apps don't have the power or scope available to them that OS  
X apps do, so the iPad will never be a full replacement for a laptop.  
But Apple clearly isn't afraid of cannibalizing some of it's laptop  
sales. They want this device to soar, to be as versatile as it can  
be, and to take over the world.

I feel like this is the device Steve Jobs has had in mind from the  
beginning. What a master. Slowly, over time, he accrued capital and  
expertise by selling useful products that built one on the other,  
until he was able to roll out this, a computer for the rest of us, a  
data appliance that anyone can pickup and learn to use in seconds.  
With the iPad and the Internet we finally have the fabled Dynabook,  
the Knowledge Navigator. Thanks Steve. Get some rest.