Does it?

I missed that bit

As soon as I saw it I thought Steve Jobs was going to hold it to his ear and say "Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune".

I hope that isn't lost here.

I too am confused by the product. I don't think it expensive for what it is. It is almost exactly twice the price of an iPod Touch and you seem to be getting a lot more processor, screen and functionality for your money.

It will act as a digital photo frame when not in use.
It will make a more than adequate Ebook reader.
It will no doubt be popular as a games console with bargain bucket priced games for it.

It is not a computer in the sense that a laptop is. It is something else. Something that a commuter may value. It could find a place in lots of classrooms too.

I guess on reflection it is an iPod Touch but bigger and faster. Those things sell well, maybe this will too.

The greatest draw of an iPod? It fit's in your pocket, music on the go for the modern generation and all the crap. It's just too big to be portable, it doesn't fold like a lappy or netbook so is it more susceptible to be damaged? I've lost count of the amount of times I've given my laptop a pretty hefty thud while on the go, I get the feeling if I did the same with an iPad on the screen it might not survive.

It's an iPod for REALLY big people with REALLY big (and deep) Pockets.

Can I point out that I also think the iPod touch is an expensive premium product. Very nice, but very expensive.

I can't immediately think of a comparable competitor though.

An item doesn't need a "comparable competitor" to be "expensive"

Expensive is an absolute term meaning "loads of money". The relative term is "better value" or "more expensive than comparable competitors".

Does anyone else doubt how often you'd wanna play games on it because of it's size?

I would also be worried about breaking it accidentally, in a way I wouldn't be with a netbook/laptop

It's nice and all, and I would like one.

I just can't justify it to myself.

Annoyingly to develop apps for the ipad you need an intel-based mac (which obviously by this statement I don't have). Which is stupid, because the bloody thing uses an A4 chip! I reckon that's just Apple wanting to sell more of their premium hardware!

I've just had a thought - that it would be nice to have a VNC client on it, so you could remote in to a PC/Mac somewhere on the network whilst sat on the sofa if you want to do something that stretches the iPad's abilities.

But they can't show 720p, because it would have to chop of 236 horizontal pixels out - or downscale the video to fit; which you can do with an 800x600 screen as well... Downscaling is downscaling, it doesn't matter how much you downscale, it isn't HD any more...

That's true but it doesn't NOT play HD movies. It plays them but downscales/crops (as an option) them.

Look. Go to Apple.com/ipad and read this on the features page



Its sooooo misleading. They use the word 'perfect.' How can a device be 'perfect' for watching HD movies if it doesnt bloody well show them in their native 720p/1080i/1080p formats the way they were designed to be watched. I mean come on, you cant argue that its not a bit misleading surely? The fact they also throw in the word wirescreen when the device is in fact 4:3 is laughable. Widescreen just means its going to put whacking great black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

It might be able to technically play scaled down HD movies but it is not as the description states perfect for watching HD movies. It wouldnt even qualify for an 'HD Ready' sticker. I'd like to see the TV manufacturers get away with the same thing.

OK, "perfect" isn't the word I would use to describe it and it is a bit misleading when you read it.

However, all I am saying is that they haven't actually lied about what it can do. Yes it can play them in widescreen format (just like my old style 4:3 TV did by putting black bars on it. Yes it can play HD movies but they are down scaled.

It is definitely "sneaky marketing speak" in that it never says it can do something that it can't do but yes, it is misleading.