Well the time has come for Apple to reveal the tablet that everyone has been waiting for. Even Bill Gates said that
“the future of computing lies in the small genre of portable computer called a ‘tablet PC’.”
back in 2001. In an interview in 2007(at around 3:28) on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart he went on to say that he uses a tablet in meetings. But I digress, the Apple Tablet is here and now.Apple is a game changer and there’s no doubt in my mind that the game will change in some way. The tablet, based on the iPhone OS, which in itself revolutionized the mobile phone industry, is bound to have the same, if not a greater impact than the iPhone. The tablet industry has been awfully clumsy and filled with really expensive devices. Devices that offered nothing special when compared to other computing devices, only compromises in an attempt to cram a lot of technology and power into a very small space.
Technology has evolved over the years. A quote from a Popular Mechanic’s article on of James Cameron’s Avatar movie applies to tablet computers up to now:
“the project was so ambitious that it took 10 more years before Cameron felt cinema technology had advanced to the point where Avatar was even possible.”
Under that same light, technology has advanced to a point where tablet computers can be. That is in terms of several factors including computing and graphics processing power, price, battery life and more recently, purpose.
E-book readers have really taken off as evidenced at CES 2010 and with the popularity of products such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook. This market is still relatively young but promising. Most popular e-book devices use E-Ink technology and there’s really no perfect e-book reader out there. That’s not to say that Apple’s tablet will be perfect, but it will change the landscape and redefine what people expect from e-book readers.
An innovative and attractive user interface and a massive applications store, coupled with support from major media publishers such as McGraw Hill and others, guarantee that Apple’s tablet will live up to the hype. There have been many attempts before it, dating back to the 90’s and even beyond that. Recently, it was the Crunch Pad, which had crashed and burned before it became the JooJoo and the slates demonstrated by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010. All these are interesting devices, but Apple differs in how much passion, innovation and hard work they put in their devices.
There’s no point in doing what we’ve always been doing with books/news papers/magazines etc. on this new technology. The innovation brought by Apple will create a whole new frontier in content distribution. That’s the key. It could potentially change all these industries as we know them forever.
At the end of the day, the success of the device is out of Apple’s hands. It depends on whether these industries can adopt to the changes, if they want to adopt to the changes and most importantly whether or not consumers are ready.
Specifications: 9.7″ 1024 x 768 resolution capacitive display
16GB to 64GB storage
1 GHz Custom A4 processor
Bluettooth 2.1 + Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
Assisted GPS + Digital Compass
3G UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) + GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz)
Running a more advanced iteration of the iPhone OS
Support for all iPhone/iPod Touch apps
Video playback up to 720p
Introducing iBook Store
You can get more information from the iPad website.
The best part is, it’s starting at just $499. $499?!?! Wow.
Awesome 😉
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