iPad: True "Home" Computer?
A couple of colleagues and I have been talking the last couple of days about Apple's new iPad in an effort to figure out what we think the real market for it might be. We've reached a consensus that I think might be useful in discussing this niche-creating product.
The iPad may be the ultimate "Home Computer" in the sense that it really integrates unobtrusively into the home environment in ways that no computer ever has.
My wife, e.g., is a fairly sophisticated computer user. Short of software development and scripting, she's knowledgeable about how to run a wide range of applications, interface with several peripherals, and get a lot of work done with minimal support. She has long said that she'd allow a computer into her home, outside of our office areas, when one became available that didn't have a bunch of wires and cables dangling from it and that didn't look like...well....a computer. The iPad meets those conditions.
The three of us agree on a couple of things. First, we're not the demographic for the machine. Second, it's not going to be a useful replacement for a good laptop but it might provide some utility for a person with no laptop and minimal portable computing needs. So we see this as perhaps a "coffee table computer."
How often have you put a TV show or movie on hold while you went to grab your laptop and turn to the Internet to find out the name of one of the actors or whether she is the person you saw in another show last week? What if the answer to that and many similar dynamic questions were sitting on the coffee table instead of in the next room on a laptop that needed to be plugged in and that occupied more space and couldn't be use nearly as portably or easily as the iPad? I could see such a device having a lot of value in the home, room to room, couldn't you?
