iPad? How about the "sharePad" .

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.

The iPad vs flash issue is a red herring. The real issue is the iPad vs. the Keyboard and Mouse.

In a recent article shown to me by a co-worker, blogger and flash developer Dan Eran Dilger makes a case in support of keeping Adobe Flash technology off the iPad.

In the article, his chief arguments seems to be centered around UI elements such as mouseover, keyboard controls, and multiple mousebuttons so many flash applications depend on to function properly.

I would counter that the idea of slighting flash for supporting this functionality is backwards, instead, the argument should be leveled at the iPad for actively blocking this kind of functionality.

The fight of the iPad is not between it and flash, it is between it and humanity. It has thumbed its nose so to speak at the mouse and keyboard, and while multitouch certainly has much promise in adding significantly to the ways we interact with information, it is by no means an alternative for every user input device.

Further, flash is just a software development platform like C++, Java etc. The question isnt whether it will have multitouch and accelerometer support, the question is how will that become standardized across devices? Currently Apple is curiously vacant from Adobe's open screen project for example, and seems uninterested in a standardized approach to multitouch UI design outside of their own platform. This is shortsighted and disappointing.

Like Apple's "one button mouse" that looked like a hockey puck and every serious Apple user replaced the first chance they got with a real mouse, Apple is attempting to force users to interact with what is really the end users OWN content and information in a way Apple believes is the best, rather than providing end users with a pletora of tools and allowing them to pick and choose.

Personally, I believe Apple should jump off its "high horse" and simply support an external mouse and keyboard, and perhaps a small stand. That way, users could interact with the iPad like a normal computer OR use it like the tablet, depending on the context of the particular activity. That said, the list of things the iPad should be or should have is staggeringly long, so I'll cut it short there.

Apple, its not flash, keyboards, mice, or the internet that is being immature here, its you. You have some neat ideas but you need to grow up and share your toys.

What Apple should have introduced the other day.

Here is what truly would have revolutionized the technology world the other day. If I were CEO of Apple, this is what I would demand from my team.

1. A touch screen device that can interlock with another one, so they could be oriented like a keyboard/screen. This means you'd have one on the desk, flat, and the other one vertical on its wide edge held in place by the flat one. You could then have visuals by your hands using the touch screen to move around and manipulate the one that is vertical as a screen. They would interlock on any side, making all different kinds of combinations for use cases. Iphones could also interlock with the larger one for use together. Simple interlocking hinges use a "slide in" mechanism to hold themselves in place.

2. It should come with a bluetooth or wifi keyboard and mouse. AND the mouse should be flippable so it converts into a trackball.

3. The device should have the best possible CPU, Graphics, SSD memory, and power supply, and each of these major components should be easily removeable and replaceable without having to dismantle the entire thing. You should be able to exchange the CPUs of different devices for specific uses at any time. They should be mounted so they are similar to small plastic blocks with no visible pins when detached.

4. The device should include slots for every major kind of interface, including USB 2, RJ 45, optical, SSD cards, compact flash, memory stick, firewire etc.

5. The device should run every major operating system possible. Windows 7, Mac OS, and linux. The device should be capable of running an emulator for Mac OS 9 prior to carbon.

6. If the device could do all this, running the iPhone OS as an emulator would be trivial.

7. the device should have a camera that allows it to work like a transparent window, that is, you could hold the device up, see a picture, and capture that picture exactly as you see it framed by the device.

8. The device should be multitouch, be able to recognize cameras and download pictures from them when the camera is simply placed ON the device. It should also be able to synch contacts with any blue tooth capable cellphone.

9. The device should have an integrated cell phone, that allows one to keep the device in a backpack or on a desktop flat, while the user simply talks into a small bluetooth headset, which again comes with the device as standard equipment.

10. The device should support DVD's read/write and they should slide into the device's thin edge.

11. The device should cost NO MORE than $300 US. AND the device should be free for people who make less than $1500 a year via various charitable programs.

Unfortunately, all the big companies are developing products selfishly...constantly thinking about how the devices they offer will bring them profit, instead of thinking about how the device will make people's lives better. The Apple iPad is a primary example of this, as is the XBox, the Playstation, the iPhone, iTunes, Sony Home, pretty much every money-grubbing, locked down, proprietary platform that only "improves" in the direction of shareholders bottom line.

Many of us are disappointed because we know Apple can do better. Here's hoping they do!