Flat out brilliant

Finally after years of rumours and speculation about a mythical Apple tablet, their elephant in the room has been unveiled and boy is it sweet. If you haven’t already seen a demo of the iPad, you seriously have to check it out.

So how did Apple deliver on my wishlist of what I’d like to see in the device…

• a parallel SDK for the tablet/iPhone: ✔ Check
• long battery life: ✔ Check
• speedy processor: ✔ Check
• front-facing camera: ✘ No cigar
• but ultimately, I want to be surprised (as only Apple know how): ✔ Check

One of the most common questions floating around has been “Will it be useful?”. In other words, is it an answer looking for a problem that doesn’t exist? Well, you be the judge – but watch it in action first. I have to say, I was more than a little blown-away by Apple’s work on the software. That is after all, where the device either wins or loses in the area of usefulness. The beauty of this device is that – just like the iPhone – it’s a whole new product every time it opens up the latest and greatest software release, be it OS-based or third party.

And what about the price? US$499 for the base model? *jaw hits carpet*

Netbooks aren’t better at anything. They’re just cheaper. Steve Jobs

Apple are clearly taking it to the streets and aiming for big… no, huge… no, MASSIVE sales. Why else would they price it so aggressively when it has no competition? Think iPod infiltration levels all over again.

It’s great that it runs iPhone apps straight off the bat, but I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the decision to include a 2x scaling option for iPhone sized apps on the device. It’s not like Apple to blow up pixels bigger than they were meant to be. Interesting decision, but I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve seen the results. It’s great that the SDK tools are available straight away though, because designing for this size screen is going to be awesome.

It’s a shame about the staggered release timing. There are three wifi-only models (16Gb, 32Gb and 64Gb) all available in two months from today, but add 3G into the mix and it’s an extra month on top of that. I may be wrong but it seems that if developers (who will need the device in their hands for testing purposes) are to try and get their apps ready for the initial flood of dedicated iPad app sales, they’re forced into getting a non-3G model, or buying both.

But that’s a minor quibble. It’s a flat out brilliant new device in a segment all of it’s own and I can’t wait to start working on a bigger canvas!

What do you think about Apple’s new baby?