A friend writes…
“I watched the keynote last night (or 40 minutes of it). It’ll be very
interesting to see how well this product does. For the first time I saw
Steve Jobs, who I put high on a pedestal, look uncomfortable and lack
credibility. He looked fine, health-wise. But he was selling
this thing so hard, making it sound like surfing the web was something
nobody had ever done before. The audience was dead silent. Generally
Apple leverages the rumor mill to their advantage but in this case I
think the rumors far exceeded reality. There’s no camera, there’s no 3g
on the base model, you still can’t multi-task applications and it still
doesn’t run Flash.
Having said all of those things, I think people will buy this because it
really does have value, even if it is just an oversized iTouch. Plus
Apple’s cool factor will sell enough of these things to keep the
category viable and help them cross the chasm and add the necessary
features when they do.”
Yesterday’s coverage was also fascinating. Not one of the dopey business networks was smart enough to just run the whole presentation live. With all of their resources, CNN couldn’t even run the whole event live on their website, but at least they made every effort to get the video out there…
On one of the dopey business shows they chose to interview some Apple fanboys, outside an Apple store — during Jobs live presentation!! Based on the rumored price of $1,000, they were unwilling to buy it. Imagine if the network had chosen to run the whole video, then interview the fanboys once the actual price was known!! Just an odd story to watch unfold.
As for the iPad offering itself, I agree with “friend” above. People will buy it. It will certainly give Amazon fits and make the publishers happier. And there will be a whole new generation of apps that will really be remarkable. I’m most disappointed by the lack of a forward-facing video camera. I had a feeling that video chat would be the “killer app.” iPad II will certainly be a fascinating product to see. Maybe the networks will even choose to cover that one live, unless they are just too in love with the sound of their own ignorant voices…
Please tell me, what’s the killer app that you thought the iPad would deliver but didn’t?