Take the "i" out of iPad, and replace it with "we" or "share" and it might become obvious why Steve Jobs is right, this will be the most important and influential offering of his career.
Well, I watched this video, and it suddenly dawned on me. Steve Jobs is right, this is the most important thing he's ever built...only he forgot to tell us why.
Its a show and tell device, a sharing device. Something you would use to show content to someone else. Something to interact with content with someone else. One hand holds it, and three others can poke and prod at it.
As this time article points out, creating content is likely a futile exercise on the iPad, the mouse and keyboard are far superior to a multitouch interface for drawing pictures, writing a blog etc. BUT, if I want to show someone else my blog, or my latest picture, or movie, or whatever...the iPad is far superior to any PC as a show off my stuff device.
PC Gaming is generally a solitary experience although wii really introduced the idea of playing games with your friends, and the iPad really puts people together more intimately and outside of the livingroom/couch context.
I can see the iPad being an excellent and unequalled device for showing people photos (probably most importantly), exploring a map together, playing head to head games like chess, putting together a puzzle with your friend, watching movies or TV in bed, showing plans for architecture onsite, all kinds of new collaborative musical instruments, or working with someone else to organize information IE looking at my accounting spreadsheets with my accountant next to me.
The perfect configuration would be an iPad that doubles as a computer monitor, you plug it into a base that has a keyboard and mouse and all the computers heavy lifting processing power (until that becomes more portable), then you pull it off that device to take across the room, on the train, over to your client's office, to your friends house etc. to show off what you made and maybe get their input.
Steve Jobs device will, in my opinion, appear crude and almost comical in as little as 3-4 years, but the influence it will have on how we will interact with information and each other over the next several years will be huge. Steve didnt invent the tablet PC, but he was the one who got us to try it out...together. Only he didnt know that at the time.
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