Wow, what a day for Apple. I can honestly say that I may have just gotten over my iPhone envy. Why? you might ask...because of iPad. What does it do? you might also ask...to which I would reply, "What does it not do?" Seriously, how many devices would this replace?Netbook: Most people use a Netbook for web surfing and e-mail. The iPad excels at this and starting price is about the same as a high quality (oxymoron?) Netbook. I'll be generous and call the Netbook $200.
Music Player: If you have iPad, is there any reason to own iPod Touch? My own music collection requires a much, much larger memory allocation, so I generally use an iPod Classic, but I've thought several times about the iPod Touch. If I got one, it would be the top-of-the-line: $400
Photo/Video Viewer: Okay, so I haven't exactly been clamoring for something in this category, but it's still a pretty cool feature. I'll put the value/price at about what you would pay for a 7-inch photo frame: $100
PDA: Do they even make stand-alone PDAs anymore? I found a few on Amazon, but nothing I would even consider buying? iPad integrates with your calendar and address book functions very well. Even a dirt cheap PDA is $140
Book Reader: Finally doing what I've criticized Kindle and Sony's e-book readers for: bringing it in color. Let's face it, I'm unlikely to ever buy a lot of e-books, but electronic newspapers and magazines are a different story. And if you want magazines (or newspapers nowdays) you want full-living-color. Apple's solution uses the most widely used electronic book format and has some of the largest publishers around. By the way, if you are already heavily invested in Kindle books, Amazon already has an iPhone app that will work on the iPad--and I'm betting a dedicated iPad app is in the planning--so you would never lose you investment in those books. For a screen as large as the iPad (but in black and white), Amazon charges big bucks for the Kindle DX: $490
All those devices put together add up to a whopping $1,330, which is $600 more than I will eventually pay for the iPad. If I choose to get one with 3G cellular capabilities (allowing full internet access anywhere, even if it is with AT&T), it's $130 more plus usage fees when I want to use it. That's a quandary as in 90%+ of all cases, I would use the device either at home or another place where WiFi is available. Do I want to pay so much extra for such a minor feature? I'll have months and months to think about it, I'm sure. Even at a relative bargain price of $700 (or $830) I've got more important things to spend my money on this year...like CigarFest!!!
Ah, well, by the time I get ready to buy, at least they will have worked out any bugs...
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