iPad

I awaken from my winter torpor to note that Apple has released the iPad. Hmmmmm... Glitzy device. It's nifty, it's attractive, it's a neat idea, it's got that "cool" factor, as we've come to expect from Apple.

Though, you know, I can't see that the iPad does anything I'd want to do that I can't already do, and perhaps better and more easily, with my laptop. A fairly expensive high-end laptop, a ThinkPad T61, which I've got running under Linux. For many years now a laptop has been my main computer. The iPad is cool, and portable too. But I can already do everything I want, and portably, with my laptop. So... you get the idea.

Nonetheless, I suspect the iPad is going to be a smash hit. They're going to sell zillions of these things. The iPad does enough things well enough, things a lot of people want to do, that between cool and simple it's going to sell like hotcakes. Not everyone is a middle-aged geek running a maxed-out high-end laptop with Linux. Between cool and simple, the iPad is going to sell in the tens of millions: my informal prediction.