After looking at the video below, which shows off the signature Apple User Interface, it’s very clear to me what Apple is doing here. The iPad is not a computer, it’s not a replacement for your netbook, notebook, or desktop. The iPad is a $500 entry into book publisher’s most lucrative category, the coffee table book.
Pay particular attention to the UI gestures that drive the photo album app. Forget those old photo albums you have lying around. We’ve all gone digital anyway and it was always awkward to hand a visiting relative a laptop to look at photos of their grand-kids. Projecting them onto the TV, despite the good intentions, always felt like the 21st century equivalent of the dreaded carousel projector slideshows that neighbors used to inflict on each other to back in the Sixties.
Early media tech media coverage panned it and I don’t blame them, the iPad is no replacement for your computer. This device, as the iPod before it, was not designed for the techie. The iPad is not a computer, it is an animated book, an upgrade to the static kind. The iPad is going after the coffee table, photo album, scrapbooking markets all rolled into one. It’s appeal is to those that like to curate and display. It’s a glass showcase for your memories which are, more often than not these days, in digital format.
And it plays games.
– video from engadget.com
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