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iPad (and so will you)

At 10 AM this morning, Apple debuted its long rumored "tablet" mobile device, and with it, a limitless number of easy menstruation jokes. The consensus I'm hearing around Boalt today seems to be that it's underwhelming, primarily because it doesn't do anything you can't do with an iPhone or MacBook.

My response: of course it can't! Why? Because the iPhone and MacBook exist, and this doesn't yet. No software developer is going to create a program that takes full advantage of a large full-color touch-screen with good processing speed when no such device is even on the market. So, for now, we have a middle-of-the-road platform that does most of the things its cousins can do, but hasn't yet come into its own. That doesn't mean it won't.

It's just a matter of time before third party developers come up with all kinds of really cool, super functional programs for this new medium that we, in our limited two-device worldview, cannot even imagine yet. We saw one example today, with the MLB.com App that Jobs said was developed in just a couple of weeks. It allows you to watch LIVE HD BASEBALL with graphical overlays showing stats, links to other games, etc. You can do things like touch a player's image and reveal a baseball card showing his stats and bio, and I don't even know what else. My point is, once you combine touch-screen and full-color on a large enough screen that you will actually use it to look at things, a whole new world of possibilities opens up, and it's a fallacy to say that's not the case just because we haven't yet had access to that world.

My prediction: five years from now, you won't just want the iPad, you'll need it--and not just during your ePeriod. (Sorry.)

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).