The iPad – What is it, and why is it?

While I’m hardly an Apple zealot, those guys do make some very nice products. Every member of my family has an iPod, and half of the C/D/H staff use an iPhone, including many of our Microsoft zealots.

Apple’s newest release is the iPad, a tablet device. Here’s a nickel tour of what does and where it fits:

Apple's new iPad is a hand-held device designed for browsing the Internet, playing games, reading e books, and viewing video content. It is intended to fill a gap between the iPhone and MacBook laptop, and will certainly win fans among casual users and Apple enthusiasts.
One of the iPad’s most compelling features is its e-book abilities. Reportedly the best all-around device of its kind, it’s already forcing Kindle, Sony and others to rethink their design and functionality positions. Casual and textbook publishers could really mushroom this market segment for Apple, given the iPad’s rich audio/visual capabilities.
The Apple Store has a complete application library already available, 140K+, with more added all the time.
Given the device’s reported robust performance (it’s built around a custom 1GHz A4 processor), applications, including games, will be another market expander for the device. That will be even truer as a new wave of applications, written to take advantage of the iPad’s specific features, becomes available.

However, the iPad’s place in larger business environments is somewhat dubious, at least for now. It’s missing a number of key enterprise features, including security and control abilities, VPN capabilities, and the ability to manage/control/deploy applications uniformly. These shortcomings may be addressed by later add-ons or OS updates.

Still, the iPad will likely hold an immediate attraction for mobile workers who need large, portable touch screens. Sales and marketing people could leverage the iPad's graphics capabilities in presentations or other situations in which strong visuals (or a “coolness” factor) can influence decisions.

The health industry is another burgeoning vertical for the iPad. Many on-the-go health professionals have been early adopters of mobile technology. Given their success in using standard handheld devices (PDAs, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) that are tweaked for specific functionality, the iPad’s early adoption is a near-certainty.

In a break from Apple’s usual market buzz, most of the “talk” about the iPad has maligned the device – oddly, for both what it does and does not do.

Saturday Night Live poked fun at the device in its headline, “Apple released a thing that does stuff that its other things already do.” Some people are calling it an oversized iPhone -- one that doesn’t make calls.

Still, if the old aphorism that any publicity is good publicity holds true, even this public poking will probably boost sales.

There is a long list of features the iPad does not have, however these additions would bring it closer to a MacBook/Laptop in functionality and price, and take it out of its current market position.

Missing features include:

Multitasking.
USB ports.
SD RAM slots.
External keyboard.
Kick stand.
Camera.
16:9 video aspect.
Adobe Flash support.
Changeable battery.
Microsoft Exchange support.
HDMI output.
OLED screen.
(Perhaps most importantly) A choice of cell service provider. Like the iPhone, the iPad is only available with AT&T.

The cell service limitation is a potential problem. There are reports of AT&T network saturation resulting from the success of the iPhone. Bloggers and speculation chalked up a brief hiatus in iPhone sales in New York in December to AT&T network congestion, although AT&T denied the claims.

But many Apple watchers are wondering how successful the iPad can be if it’s tied to a single service provider that already needs significant infrastructure improvements, especially when competitors are offering NetBooks, that can use many of the major cell service providers.,

The iPad, coming soon to a store near you, is already making an impact. The device may initially only have niche fits, but it will find its way into business and the enterprise. Its true impact won’t be known for some time.

I am hoping it signals the beginning of an innovation battle: Imagine a large, folding iPad, with all the missing features, and running Mac OS X!

Now that would be something road warriors could wrap their heads around.