iPad !!!

Like many faithful, I had reordered an Apple iPad. Since we have a MiFi Mobile hotspot, 3G did not seem necessary. So I ended up in line yesterday morning at around 10am. The experience was well orchestrated, and a painless 15 minutes later I walked out of the store with my 64GB iPad. I had prepared some apps the day before, and a few minutes later I was in a coffee shop setting it up. I have been using it ever since...

I have used computers since the 70's, and PCs since the 80's. I have several Newtons, Palms, a Mobile PC (that got the least use of any system I have ever owned), and a couple of iPhones.

Apart from my experience with my Atari and first Mac, this turned out to be one of the most fundamental changes in using a computing device - more amazing than the iPhone. I can predict now that this will replace about 90% of my computer use, and I tend to take my MacBook Pro everywhere. Interacting with information on an iPad is much less intrusive somehow, more like carrying a book than a computer. It is clearly more for consuming information and interacting with people than creating, but that might be just a matter of size and the current apps. Brushes clearly is an example of a creative application that already excells, and the keyboard is more efficient than my current hand scribbling would be for typing. But I would still prefer my MacBook Pro for serious authoring, it is simply the more efficient tool for that. A MacBook Pro makes a great iPad accessory.

What is amazing is the maturity and loving detail in iPad interaction. You have to use it to feel it. The dynamics are deep, feel natural, and are very compelling. Information becomes physical, it has weight, inertia, behavior, symbols become physical objects.

An amazing achievement for a first generation device.

It is hard to fathom, how this category will evolve. It clearly has to be completely untethered from the desktop, right now it cannot exist without iTunes. It really wants to be a network device. My next one will have 3G for sure, and it needs a camera. And it needs a mini USB, perhaps as a slot adapter, similar to the camera adapter, but acting as a full host. Most peripherals will likely be networked, my current, favorite peripheral are BT headphones from Sony, but I really do not want a laptop on my travels...