Gadget lust is abroad in the world, and it won’t be sated until Apple starts selling the new iPad tablet computer this spring.
There hasn’t been a torrent of news coverage like this since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. (Was that just three years ago?) There were some smirks and giggles over the product’s name, and Fujitsu (a long-time vendor in the tablet computer market) is claiming that it owns the rights to the iPad name. Apple was similarly challenged on use of the iPhone name, and it settled that claim.
Following the press conference, there was the inevitable blogging backlash against the product: “It doesn’t have a camera.” (Although the demo touted the iPad’s ability to organize photos.) “It’s too expensive.” (A common complaint about Apple products.) “All my friends will get one, and I’ll be stuck with this crappy Windows laptop.” (Sorry, letting my own thoughts in.)
The iPad is indeed a beautifully designed product, like the iPod and the iPhone — it weighs only 1.5 pounds, is a half-inch thick, and its touchscreen display is nearly 10 inches wide. That’s going to drive the gadget lust.
“Apple is a mobile devices company,” Steve Jobs said at yesterday’s rollout in San Francisco (South of Market, yo!). Noting that the company has sold 250 million iPods, Jobs added, “Apple is the number one mobile devices company in the world.”
He posited that the iPad represents a new niche of mobile devices, somewhere between smartphones and portable computers. Jobs scoffed at netbooks, the low-priced versions of notebook computers that are limited in their functionality (strictly confined to e-mail and Web browsing).
As a former semiconductor reporter, I was most interested in the microchip at the heart of the iPad — the A4, a 1GHz processor. It is a custom-designed chip and the result of Apple’s acquisition of P.A. Semi nearly two years ago. P.A. Semi, a processor design house, specialized in low-power chips for embedded electronics. The iPad is specified to have up to 10 hours of battery life before recharging, thanks to the A4, which combines a microprocessor and graphics processing (among other functions) on one chip. Intel, which supplies the microprocessors for Macintosh computers, cannot be happy about this.
The many potential functions of the iPad, such as serving as an e-reader for textbooks and other reading materials, will drive sales of the tablet. Is it a Kindle killer? Probably not in the near term — the Amazon.com e-reader is less expensive — but we’ll see in a year or so which e-readers will dominate the market.
Apple’s done it again — turned months of breathless speculation into an eagerly awaited product launch. Now, time will tell if the iPad approaches the success of the iPod and the iPhone.
Oooooo, I want one! But as you know, I will most likely wait til v2… giving Apple a chance to at least add Flash! Despite the lack of Flash, kudos to Apple for continuing its hot streak.