iPad the larger iPod for who?

Ok, so Apple is about to ship their iPad. Aside from the rather unfortunate name in so many ways, what do people get? An iPod with a larger screen and wifi connection for sure, if you pay $130 also 3G connectivity, for data only though. So it’s not an iPhone. It’s not a netbook, it’s not even a real tablet. You can’t phone with it, you can’t take pictures, you have no keyboard, you have no removable battery (again). The main thing here though is that it will just barely survive a day in use (nothing new there either) before it needs a recharge.

Will Apple sell them? Yes for certain. Will they be the next big thing? No.

While the phone part was rather restricted, in this niche they are aiming at here, there already is a large selection of many different things going on. The most prominent spearhead there would be the Amazon Kindle. It’s about half the price of the lowest version of the iPad, holds out on it’s charge for an eternity (thanks to the display) and already has a massive backing of books and papers. It has it’s own shortcomings, but for that price and that niche, it does just brilliantly.

Others aren’t sleeping either. MSI is preparing one, HP said it’s gonna do one, Dell is on it too and so is ASUS.

Especially the ASUS DR-950 has a lot of potential, coming with a lot more punch to the game, while being also a lot more open.

The question is for whom is this iPad exactly? It’s not useful as a phone. Anyone needing something more, usually goes for the macbook (if you want that apple logo on your gear). So unless you just want another toy, who is going to use it? The only real use seems to be books and news papers, but for that it’s not really very well equipped either. It can’t play flash, so you couldn’t even see anything from any video streaming site. Using it as an iPod will suck the battery dry even faster.

I keep using my Palm TX for now and wait what happens with these devices.