Musings from a confused Ipad

It's a cool looking device with an identity crisis like a lot of ABCDs (Apple Built Confused Devices). This is what its thinking:

• 'Am I iphone's big brother?' - no, sorry you are not a phone.
• 'Am I a macbook's younger brother?' - no, sorry - you don't have basic multi-tasking capabilities (well you do but your father Steve decided to hide that from you). So no listening to Pandora while surfing the web or chatting with friends. Cant really be a computer with single tasking capabilities.
• 'Am I going to become the surfing device of choice?' - no, you don't support flash which is used in some way by almost all websites.
• 'Am I going to replace the Kindle for serious reading?' - no, your battery life and color screen will make it impossible to read entire books; plus you are too big to be truly portable.
• 'Can I at least be used a photo viewer?' - sure but only as long as you don't try to transfer pictures directly from your camera's sd/micro sd card as you don't have a sd card slot. Of course, you can spend the extra money to get an accessory to give you a capability that was there in my $150 Nokia from 4 years ago.
• 'I can definitely replace iphone/bberry for emails' - This is a great way to sell more ipads. Encourage people to type emails while on the go on a device as big as this, and you will surely have people dropping it and then running to replace it. I will use my computer to send emails when I am home or the email is long. Or I will use my phone to send emails when I am on the go or the email is short.
• 'Can I become the management centre for people's digital files - cant. no usb/flash slots.
• 'Can I be a tablet pc for business users?' - you are losing it man - for any business user to take you seriously you need a way to input handwriting and the abilitiy to transfer files through usb ports (non-existent)
• 'Netbook killer then?' - seriously? my $300 netbook can multi task, has usb/sd slots, weighs about as much as you do but has the same battery life.
• 'I do have a cool map app' - well yeah, but do you see yourself being used in a car to find your way home. or do you see yourself being carried in my pocket when I am on my way to a party but dont know my way to the club from the subway station. or to be at hand when I want to find the nearest thai restaurant.

SO WHAT CAN I DO?

Well, you are to be used by iphone lovers who love their apps enough to want to use the same on a bigger screen. But not on the go as you are too big. You are also to be used as a browsing device by undemanding surfers who are happy to do one thing and one thing only while they surf. May be fun to read the daily NYT but at my speed, I may run out of batteries before getting to the obituary section. But most of all, you will be used as a show-off tool. No different than the the latest pair of limited release Nike kicks signed by the most popular athlete of the day. Its a dirty job. But someone has to do it.

From V.