Have A Good Sandwich

I don’t believe the hype.

Let met be clear – I think the iPad is going to be a success. Potentially a raging, game-changing success that the iPhone became. It could transform the way people interact with a computer.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

If you watched the presentation by Steve Jobs at the iPad announcement, you may have gotten the same feeling that I did:  that Steve (and thereby Apple) was trying too hard. The words “magical”, “revolutionary”, and other over the top superlatives were employed with the subtlety of high-yield explosives. Was the build-up and hype so much for Apple that they felt they had to live up to it with the product positioning? Was the Reality Distortion Field only operating at 78%?

Doubtful.

Apple and Steve do things their way. Never been a doubt about that. Rarely do they cave into public perceptions or explicit customer requests / wants. Which, interestingly, flies in the face of the voracious support they have from their fanbase.

Anyway, I digress.

I oscillated from being completely underwhelmed with the device to watching their promotional informercial video and immediately thinking, “Wow, maybe I do want one.” I know others that felt the same way. I won’t get into what I think is problematic about the device or what I think are probably unfair criticisms. Countless blogs and sites have already covered this ad nauseam.

That being said, there’s a specific claim that I do take issue with and have trouble believing. Apple maintains that you can use this device for your everyday work; the iPad can be your one device to conduct all your business. For several reasons, including the lack of multitasking and the potential challenges for typing on the virtual keyboard, I don’t think the iPad is usable as your main computing device.

But, hey, I’m up for a challenge. It gives me a good reason (re: excuse) to get my hands on one and see if I can use it for at least two weeks as my computer at work. I suspect that I will have to jump to my laptop no less than a half dozen times.

Part of the fun will be finding out.