On Friday, Apple announced a sale date for its eagerly awaited iPad tablet. The magic day is April 3, so you still have about a month to wait to get your hands on an iPad; even longer, if you want the more-expensive 3G wireless version, which won't be available until "late April," according to Apple. Incidentally, AT&T, the iPad's 3G-service provider, seems to think that the iPad will be more of a Wi-Fi device.
When the iPad was announced back in January, reactions to Apple's self-described "magical" and "revolutionary" tablet was mixed.
We really liked what we saw in San Francisco. In his hands-on report, PCMag's analyst Tim Gideon was impressed with the iPad's overall feel and speed, and he was optimistic about potential iPad apps. But despite dynamite hardware and killer software, you have to wonder if there's room for a third device that falls somewhere between a laptop and a smartphone. Netbooks, anyone?
Who will be willing to spend $500 at the starting point – or upwards of $800 for the largest-capacity 3G tablet – on an extra gadget? It's still unclear who the target market is for this device. John Dvorak is convinced that iPad is destined to fail, just like the rest of its tablet brethren.
Since the unveiling, many have lamented the iPad's missing features, including a built-in camera for video conferencing, multitasking functionality, expandable storage, and support for Flash, just to name a few. While others have argued that missing features won't matter, most everyone wonders what the emergence of the iPad will mean for the Amazon Kindle and other e-book readers. And whether a single device is capable of singlehandedly saving the entire publishing industry.
It might take months to get answers to all these questions, but it will all become a little clearer after April 3, when we see if anyone actually buys the device that no can stop talking about.
