My reasons for the Ipad

Around a month ago I posted an entry about my favorite E-readers and at the time I didn't write anything about this Ipad thing Apple is going to release simply because I didn't know about it. And let this be clear: I knew about the rumors (who didn't know about them if they followed tech news) but I wasn't convinced; I've been burned before by these apple rumors. However my expectation of these rumors being false were proven wrong and Apple released their mythical tablet: the Ipad.

I decided to wait before writing this article to overcome my excitement and to read the arguments against the iPad. And there have been lots. Personally I want to tell you folks why I think the product fits me. It may not necessarily be a perfect product or even a successful one when it comes out, but I feel it fits my lifestyle and I want to tell you why.

I feel that the Ipad really does fit somewhere between your main computer and your phone. I don't think it should or that it can even replace your main computer. However it may replace your secondary computer (laptop, netbook) or one of your additional gadgets (E-reader, MP3 player). For me it would be a good replacement of my aging laptop. These days I've been using it to play games on it, but waiting 10 minutes to start playing Civilization is just annoying. I think that the iphone games that are available and the ones that might come out for the iPad will be good enough and have the right price for me to relax during the day without breaking the bank. I won't be able to play Windows games, I know, but that's ok since I couldn't play any of the newer ones on my old laptop anyway.

Another use I might have for it is to show my artwork to people. It's a bit annoying to carry your stuff in a thumb-drive and have to pray that the person has quicktime on their computer or play them from my website and wait for the video to download. I feel that this way it would be like having a portable portfolio for my work. I could use an iPhone to carry these videos but then I would not have the screen size the iPad has to better showcase my work.

Now, I know that there's a lack of flash in the iPad/iPhone world but I don't see the point. I don't go to that many sites were the content is flash based, like in Hulu or Newgrounds. And the other sites I go to pretty much only use it on ads. Personally, I feel that unless there is a need to make the site entirely on flash, it should be used as little as possible on a site. So with web-surfing habits like mine where I don't absolutely need flash I can live with what the iPad offers for the browsing I do.

However one of the things I constantly do on the web is read articles through my RSS reader (I'm a fan of NetNewsWire). So with the Ipad and already available RSS readers for the iPhone I can read my articles without having to constantly use my Imac. Plus with the iBooks app they plan to roll out I can also get into reading ebooks on it as well.

Overall My reasons for considering purchasing the iPad are its gaming platform capabilities, using it as a portfolio and for reading my RSS feeds. However, since the product hasn't been released yet, I have no concrete way of knowing wether it can do these things adequately. I'll have to wait until I know for sure but I look forward to testing the device and putting it through its paces.