I mean, I have a Mac laptop and an iPhone - do I really need an oversized iPod Touch as well? I can take my laptop (or iPhone) into the living room and surf while watching TV, I can stream all the content I want, control my iTunes with my iPhone... take pictures, connect to social media, Skype and IM where ever I am - so why the heck would any rational person $500-$800 for an oversized iPod Touch?
Answer: because they've used one.
This weekend my buddy Edward Callaghan (from London) came to visit - and although we gave him constant ribbing about being from "Great" Britain and for kicking England's butt in the Revolutionary war - he did bring 2 pieces of gear that I don't own: the iPhone 4 and an iPad.
I played with the new iPhone (loved it!) and also scoffingly gave the iPad a quick test drive. I mean, it was cool and all - the screen is great, it works (literally) like a giant iPhone (minus the talking bit and camera bit) - and was nice. I wasn't convinced it was $600 nice, but it was nice.
Then on Saturday morning when everyone (including Edward) was still asleep - I decided that I would give the iPad and extended test drive - and surf for the latest news, play some media files, etc.
Boy, was I surprised: that thing rocks!
The browsing is very fast (similar to my laptop's speed), the screen is beautiful and bright (like my laptop screen), the on-screen keyboard is big (and in landscape mode almost as big as a regular keyboard), it has all the same pinching and zooming and swiping controls as the iPhone (although no multi-tasking yet), and there is a special version of Apple's iWork suite that was optimized for the iPad.
I'm not running out to the store to get one (it's always good to wait for the 2.0 version of new Apple hardware) - but my kids will be needing their own computers soon - and once they get multi-tasking - I can get two iPads for the price of a single laptop.
There's a reason Apple sold 3 million of them in 80 days (and 1.75 million iPhone 4's in 72 hours)...
Looks like I'll have to dust off my "Objective C for Dummies" books and get to writing some code!
