Apple is attempting to create a new market with the iPad. That means that they will need to spend plenty of time and money educating their customers on benefits and uses of this new product. It’s unfair to criticize a product that creates a new market until sufficient time has been given to allow that market to mature and develop and users have time to learn new forms of interaction with the product in their daily lives.
Example: blogging and micro-blogging (Twitter). Both took over a year to be in use amongst early adopters and several years before adoption in the mainstream.
I don’t know if the iPad will be a success. I think it will be, especially amongst the generation younger than us who don’t remember a time before wifi and cell phones as they grow up and go to college. Either way, it’s unfair to judge the iPad against existing market needs when in reality Apple is attempting to create a new market entirely.
