Saturday 3 April 2010

A few words about the iPad



With the world buzzing about the iPad launch I couldn't help but to drop a few lines about Apple’s latest marketing proposition as well.

When the iPad was first unveiled a lot of people where asking: what is this device actually for? To be honest I don’t understand what is getting all the people so confused.

First, Apple done a very good job when they said at the outset that iPad was neither a smartphone nor a laptop. This was a brilliant move because straddling would most likely not lead to the product being viewed as a legitimate player in either category.

Second, there is a very powerful consumer goal that the iPad satisfies, namely, casual use of the web and media. Yes, casual - a lot of people seem to overlook that there is a growing crowd out there that doesn’t use computers for work, but for communication and entertainment. The iPad finally gives those folks a way to do this comfortably rather than being confined to maladroit desk- and/or laptops. And with the snowballing use of the Internet in our daily lives I can only imagine this group of people become larger and larger over time, making way for a good source of revenue for tech companies in the years to come.

With the iPad mystery put to rest, I am now a lot more interested to see how the competition (Google, MS) is going to respond!