The iPad!
Usually, I'm overly verbose on just about any topic. But it's simple. With the 24 hour news-cycle, where every moment of the President's actions, thoughts, and possible inklings are reported ad nauseam.
The big pitch. The iPad plays videos, displays pictures, checks e-mail, displays photos... and of course the apps. Damn freaking apps. Sorry, I don't have an iPhone or a Blackberry so I'm not addicting to apps but it is all you hear about. Apps, apps, apps. The apps are supposedly to be able to run on this 1/2 inch thick, 9 plus inches tall. A screen 3x the size iPhone, got the standard sleek, touch screen.
It is the beginning of the advanced portable media device that is sleek, fashionable. It's an Apple product so it's gotta be cool, right hip Mac addicts?
The iPad is just a more advanced iPhone but early adopters be warned. You'll look good but you will really want the iPad 2.0. You know, the one with the bigger memory, at a better price, with improved features.
For once, the price really is right. The smallest iPad unit is $499. That really is the magic number, the perfect price point. At that price they are holding something back, in order to make this more palpable especially in this kind of economy, not like that really matters. If people want the new toy, they come up with money for the new toy.
The Kindle has books in B&W at the same price. Awesome!
You can say bye bye to Kindle, unless they drop the price to $100 bucks, not $489. It's screen is the exact same size as the Kindle. Bon voyage Nook, we hardly knew yee (Barnes & Noble's book reader). The LA Times writes about this and the new iBooks store. NY Time's Brad Stone disagrees.
In my opinion, this is not just a Kindle Killer, more a Kindle Mass Murderer. This ends the short era of the e-reader only phenomenon, except for a small niche crowd who want to keep the internet, emails, & pictures away from their books. The Kindle will be for the purist who like the crispness of the reading, because the kindle does have that. Get ready to start paying Apple for books too. I haven't seen anything about it specifically but I hope that unlike the Kindle, you can read any format book on this thing but I doubt it. It would be nice to get something for free.
Don't worry if you haven't heard much about "the Pad" because in the next few months it will fill the mouths of the techie world. Some are already calling it a disappointment but they'll all get one anyway. This is no Apple TV.
Did I forget to talk about the State of the Union? Didn't see it. Maybe I'll watch it later. I'm sure Obama talked about health care, jobs, economy. The answer is that it's all fucked and will get somewhat solved in perpetuity. Thanks Barry.
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iPad to transform media (NJ.com)
Can iPad save media? (Wired's Epicenter)
