Yesterday I got to play with a coworker’s iPad. Awesome! Apple has once again created a game changer. The realization hit home this morning while I was at the health club working out. I was reading a technical periodical and saw a picture of another, very different, new tablet computer. This is the kind with the keyboard and the screen that flips around and can be in either laptop mode or in tablet mode. When I saw the picture I had an emotional reaction: old, creaky, inefficient, ugly, etc. ”What?!? It has a keyboard? And look at the ugly hinge where the screen flips around!” Up until I played with the iPad, I would have welcomed the chance to play around with (and own) one of those tablet computers. Now, I just don’t care anymore.
The iPad brings an elegance to the field that will set the standard for all other tablets. Just as the iPod was not the first portable MP3 player, the iPad is not first in the field. But it will redefine the field, just as the iPod did.