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.
I’m torn on how it will effect teens - Say in two years when they are $2xx-3xx, would one buy this for their household primarily for their teen instead of a 500$ laptop? a 200$ netbook? They can read books on it, thats a big plus vs a netbook. My sister just went off to college and got an eee PC, seems to work well for her. I don’t think the ipad would work for her as a college student due to the form factor.(and the fact that colleges are tossing out their computer labs) Maybe for a 13 year old to share in a household with a shared family PC to type up homework?
My other question is will they just drop it and destroy it? They have been around all this amazingly cool, now comoditized technology all their lives, I’m curious how they might treat it(physically).
What if a parent bought one for their child instead of a television? A study reported in the NY Times showed 70% of children have a TV in their room. Why not an iPad? Children are already switching to the web (Hulu, YouTube, ABC.com, iTunes, Netflix on demand) for their video consumption, and the iPad is a perfect fit.
