Mixed reviews

Within a day, some of tech world’s elites were sniffing disapprovingly at the new Apple iPad. One succinct critique came in a Jan. 28 posting by the influential folks at Gizmodo, who set out to list eight major problems with the iPad – and couldn’t stop at eight. Read.

Joshua Benton, writing on the site of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard Jan. 28, analyzed the iPad’s potential impact on publishers, concluding that: “The commerce proposition hasn’t changed.” He observed:

As long as a device is a great web browsing machine, and websites remain free, it’ll be difficult to push people into the walled garden of an application. Not impossible — difficult. And If you’re willing to put up a paywall on your website, then you have issues to consider much larger than the iPad.

He was more optimistic about the display possibilities of the larger and lovely screen, and enthused over the promise the big screen offers, in particular, for advertisers. He also noted that, as with the iPhone, the iPad’s features may improve significantly with future software and hardware upgrades. Read story.

Still and all, we stand with those who call this a revolutionary device. Stephen Fry (yes, the British actor, now turned technology pundit) was at the launch and he, like others, stressed the elegance and ease of use of the device, which set it apart from mere tablet computers and netbooks:

The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the responsiveness, the smooth glide of it, the richness and detail of the display, the heft in your hand, the rightness of the actions and gestures that you employ, untutored and instinctively, it’s not just a scaled up iPhone or a scaled-down multitouch enhanced laptop – it is a whole new kind of device. And it will change so much. Newspapers, magazines, literature, academic text books, brochures, fliers and pamphlets are going to be transformed (poor Kindle).

Read his excellent article.

Game-changer or too much missing?

Feature-rich and aggressively priced, iPad is here

But there’s so much coverage elsewhere that we’ll refrain from being redundant. Other than to say that, given the price and the features, big changes are coming to publishing. In stores in March. (Jan. 27, 2010)

Five industries an Apple tablet could revolutionize

Mashable analyzed the Big Bang impact of the forthcoming tablet in a Jan. 15. article. The five industries are:
1. Publishing and media
2. Healthcare
3. Entertainment
4. Finance
5. Computing
On the publishing and media aspect: “While the Kindle has done a lot to bring print into digital form, a tablet could be far more suited for reading the newspaper, opening up your textbook, and even sharing notes. ”

And commenters came up with more to add to the five. Great piece for getting you doubters pumped up. See article..