iPad: A Tablet Computer

The iPad is touch screen tablet computer meant for consumers who want to carry with them their movies, TV shows, music, games and reading material when they are on the move or around the house.

This device designed and marketed by Apple, intend for Internet browsing, media consumption, gaming and light content creation.

Unlike other tablets, this gadget allows you to use your fingertips for input instead of a stylus and bridges the gap between a smartphone and a laptop.

Similar to iPod Touch and iPhone, the iPad runs the iPhone OS and uses a multitouch LCD for user interactions.

Apart from running iPad specific applications, it also runs applications written for the iphone and iPad touch as well as ebook readers.

Using WiFi or Wireless WAN you can browse the Internet, load and stream media and install software in the iPad.

But is Apple’s iPad the real “third device” that fills the gap between a smartphone and laptop. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, argued it; such a gadget would need to be better than a laptop or a smartphone at email, videos, music, photos, games and ebooks to justify its presence.

It found that the cheap iPad is better at these things, but the device is bigger and fundamentally, much improvement was not there.

When the iPad launched, it was innovative enough and familiar for people to accept it. Apple marketed this perfectly crafted device to guide people into a new media way of life and wean them away from old media ways, which still work and is cost wise more attractive.

If you are a paper lover, it will entice you by installing your reading library in the device, so that you can carry your reading materials like your music.

As a gadget, iPad operates very fast. The browser pages open instantly with command. Swipes transition happens exactly when they should.

Compared to the iPhone, this device does things on a grand scale and unlocks immediately to present you with icons to get to your destination in a snap.

Migrating from the iPhone to the iPad is seamless.

Though all these things were as expected, for the iPad to be the future of media, it will have to be a friendly reading device and it will take some time to get a feel for that.

The other determining factor is the cost of the media itself. We know what movies, TV shows, books and music cost; but we do not know what the newspaper and magazine publishers will be assuming the market will bear.

As a first periodical on the iPad, TIME magazine is asking USD 5.00, same as the newsstand price, without offering a subscription.

The Wall Street Journal is charging USD 18.00 a month more than the paper and for the current bundle of newspaper and digital offerings.

It is expected that ebooks should be cheaper than their printed counterparts. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether it can be a sustainable model.

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