H Songhai's List: iPad

• Some specs: The device has a 9.7 inch display, weighs 1.5 pounds, and is half-an-inch thick. It is powered by new chip made by Apple itself, a 1 GHz A4 and will come with 16Gb to 64 GB of storage. It supports WiFi, has an accelerometer, compass, and built-in speaker and microphone, just like the iPhone. The screen is a full capacitive multi-touch screen. Battery life is supposed to be 10 hours. In addition to WiFi, it will have a 3G option from AT&T. The Wifi-only version, with 16GB of memory, will cost $499. A 32GB version will be $599, 64 GB will be $699, and with 3G from AT&T it will cost $829 (for the 64GB version). AT&T will offer two data plans: $14.99a month for 250 MB of data or $29.99 for unlimited. All the 3G iPads, however, will be unlocked, meaning they can be used on other carriers as well.

• 
• Part of the challenge for Apple will be beating the prodigious hype which accompanies any product it makes. Indeed, the prospect of a tablet computer from Apple for months had been the stuff of rumor and mystery. Some letdown was inevitable and so it was that after watching Apple CEO Steve Jobs' performance, Newsweek's technology editor - and Fake Steve Jobs author - Dan Lyons declared "I haven't been this let down since Snooki hooked up with The Situation." Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer was even blunter, dismissing the iPad as "a big yawn."

• 
• The iPad is actually an answer to complaints from iPhone and iPod Touch users. The larger screen and ability to attach peripherals are the only real differences between Apple’s current touch screen devices and the iPad.

• 
• Don’t think about the iPad as just a computer. Its true potential lies in its potential as a communications device. Already, it functions as an electronic reader, helping to bring the world of books to computers. But there is video and audio too, with the potential for VoIP apps and even one day a camera for video messaging. The artificial walls that separate our notion of communications and computing are being broken. It is time for the dawning of communications apps. Think about it.
• Here’s another prediction: the coming iPad and next iPhone will have a front-facing camera and rest assured it will be put to good use. The lines between a device you put up to your face (a phone) and a next-gen communication device you speak at will continue to collapse. The fact you put it in your pocket or carry it around will also not define it as a “phone” anymore. In many ways the legacy technologies are coming full circle. You can be sure that when the inventors of the Internet sat down and brainstormed the topology of the network they used the metaphor of a phone number to explain the notion of it being a phone number of a computer. Now the phone number is the IP address of a person. It follows you in a nomadic form that is true to the human condition.

1 more annotation...