The new Apple iPad: Like it or hate it, cool name or dumb, useful or not, regardless of your opinions I feel that it’s important to see this move by Apple as a great bit of marketing strategy.
For years, laptop makers have been trying to find the golden egg of tablet design. Nothing has really landed as the benchmark. Size and weight were generally overcome but they still struggle with input. Most notably, handwriting recognition still can’t produce the accuracy required for business. More recently, the e-book has shown consumers that ultra-light tablets can provide useful tools but as shown with the Barnes & Noble Nook, there is a near immediate desire for more functionality.
While the rest of the world struggles with design and development costs and issues, Apple sees the timing as ripe to step in, show the market how it can be done while at the same time, limiting their financial exposure by limiting the need for any truly new development. The iPad is not much more than a XXL iPod Touch. They can run the same OS, nearly all the same apps with little or no modification. Just slap a larger screen on it and boost the battery life and memory. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the new iWork functionality show up in the iPhone version 4.0 in the near future.
Apple has reduced the cost, provided a familiar platform, with a strong catalog of applications in a ready to go package from the industry leader in cool must have computing devices. Regardless of what the final format turns out to be for usable tablets, the next three years will have all their competitors chasing their model. At least until we get a strong economy where other companies can afford the heavy R&D to produce the next great thing.