One of the most interesting parts in the article is towards the end when the author describes how you can paint yourself into a corner so effectively just using a browser, that you have to plug in a keyboard get unstuck.

That type of thing is exactly why I always imagined that when the time came for Apple to bring out a larger iPhone-like device, it would be running iPhone OS (X).   As Steve Jobs mentioned when he first introduced the iPhone, it runs OS X, with an interface that is adapted to touch based controls.  Anything else would not provide a user experience on par with the iPhone which is what everybody would be expecting from a device such as this from Apple.

The iPad runs the best operating system available for a touch interface computer, right now.  In the future, I’m sure that iPhone OS and Mac OS X will converge as desktop computers with a touch interface become fashionable.

I, unfortunately, will have to wait to get one in a store, as I’m not in the US.  Otherwise I would be hitting that refresh button right at 5:30AM.

UPDATE: This information seems to be confirmed as it seems that is contained in an email that Apple is sending out to those who registered to be notified about when the iPad would go on sale.

The new service is called Google Reader Play and I’ve played around with it a bit today.  It was only a quick once over, but it truly seems like a more interesting interface for people using their fingers on the screen.   The one thing that bothered me a bit was that the suggestions it was presenting me, which were supposed to be based on things I liked in the past, didn’t seem to really match what I would expect.

If you’ve got a Google account I suggest you take Google Reader Play for a spin and see how it feels.

The ModulR system is composed of: a case, a screen protector, a stand, a car mount, a wall mount and shoulder strap.  All the other accessories combine with the case in order to let you use and carry your iPad in pretty much every conceivable situation.  (And probably a few we can’t conceive of yet, too.)  While I find the idea of a shoulder strap to carry a device with a such a large exposed screen unlikely to be a hit, the other accessories seem to form a rather interesting set.

I have to say that this is the first wall mount for the iPad  that I’ve stumbled upon, but the idea might really have some merit and might actually finally be a step bringing to reality all those computer in the kitchen and refrigerators we keep hearing about year after year.  You could, for example, do the dishes while watching the latest episode of your favorite show, and without really running the risk of getting your iPad wet.

The car mount may actually lead you to dispense with a portable DVD player to entertain the children when you’re travelling or driving over longer distances.  As you can see in the picture above, it mounts on the back of the forward seats and with a 9.7 inch screen capable of playing for say 8 hours it makes for a pretty good distraction for the kids.

*Images: ModulR Inc.

Just yesterday I read an article on Wired about how the iPad might come to face as many as 50 competitors this year and how Arm had rented out more floor space  at the Computex trade show in Taiwan in anticipation of this.  This got me into thinking about how this market is going to play out.  I have very little doubt that the iPad will be a hit product, as the number of posts I write about it should indicate, but obviously there will be space for other players in the market.  We are going to see a large number of devices come on the market and I’m sure we’re going to see several companies offer several different devices and form factors for tablet devices.  Once the touch interface genie is let out of the bottle, there is little chance that it will ever go back into the bottle.

But lest look back on the mp3 player market in 2001, when the iPod came out.  Every company that produced any kind of electronic device was either producing or thinking about producing an mp3 player.  In fact in the next couple of years the number of models available was so great you could never hope to have even a faint notion of all the options available.  Over the next several years, mp3 players from all those competing players steadily increased in capacity and lowered in price, but still the iPod marched steadily upwards in market share.  Several factors were involved: simplicity of use, media availability, Apple’s marketing, etc.

Now, let’s fast forward to 2010: the iPad enters the stage.  With the iPad simplicity of use seems almost guaranteed as the iPhone has shown itself, by a long shot, the easiest smartphone to use in the market.  Media availability is much greater now with iTunes being the leading digital music store and not only Apple but Amazon, FictionWise, Barnes & Noble and Kobo offering access to the users ebook collection on the device, not to mention all the eBook applications available on the AppStore.  I guess we can skip going into the power of Apple’s marketing if you’re reading this blog right now.

So, the stage is set for the iPad to be the iPod of tablet devices, but will it work out this way?

A lot of people are still coming up with lots weird arguments against the iPad, but the chorus of voices speaking favorably seems to be winning.

The case can be used as a stand both in landscape and portrait mode and comes in several different colors.  When closed it has the familiar “book cover” look that many of us have come to expect for a device with such a large screen which would seem to present a greater risk of damage than the smallish iPhones and iPods.

The option of having the case work as a stand in both orientation modes seems very interesting as I’ve noticed in comments and posts on the Web that I don’t seem to be the only one thinking  of using the  iPad as an auxiliary computer for using Twitter and casual browsing while working on my primary computer.  In this role, the iPad could be used in both orientations, depending on your preferences and it seems interesting to have a case the makes it easy to use it so.

*Images: Quirky.

There are staff meetings, board meetings… and when the company is spread out across several buildings or even just across several floors on the same building, carrying a notebook around all the time is a lot hassle.  Generally, notebooks weigh around 2 to 3 kilograms and or they’ve shrunk to netbook size for something which is a bit over 1 kilogram with a substantial performance hit.  That performance hit is mostly okay when you’re just browsing the Internet or replying an email, but when it takes you several minutes just to get your netbook up and running, it can be a pain.

There is no sense in pretending that this situation doesn’t happen with netbooks.  If they are running Windows it certainly will, just as with any other Windows computer.  As anti-virus software, instant messaging, drivers, and all kinds of crappy little things attach them selves to your system tray, boot and wake times continuously increase.

Look at the happy fellow in the picture… Do you think he is really that happy to be holding that heavy notebook with one hand?

Behold, now enters the iPad.  Just for the sake comparison let us consider it a bit iPod Touch as many critics do.  Have you ever unlocked an iPhone or iPod touch?  Did it take more than one second?  Did it get slower over time?  It doesn’t.  In my case, my iPod Touch takes as much time to unlock today with five pages of application icons as it did when I took it out of the packaging.

So… you have a device which weighs 680 grams, about half of what a good 10 inch netbook does, which is instantly on and which through either Wi-Fi, or a 3G connection can give you access to your inbox wherever you are, all day long.

Let’s face it, most executives and managers spend most of their day going over information available from corporate systems, which mostly have a web interface, these days and writing and replying to email messages.   Both of these activities can be taken care readily through an iPad, with minimal fuss.  What is still to be seen is how the iPad will handle corporate documents which mostly tend to be in Microsoft Office formats.  This is an area where Google might be coming in handy for Apple, as many companies have been choosing to move to GoogleApps and leave the local Microsoft Office applications.

On another point, in the mid-1990’s I remember seeing many companies making a concerted effort to move TO an all Microsoft application suite, coming from a past of multiple vendor applications.  Depending on just how much an iPad does appeal to a company’s upper management we might just start to see some companies making the effort to move AWAY from that all Microsoft Office position.  Remember how the iPhone wasn’t really dear to IT departments, but executives would get them anyway?

I believe that we are soon going to be seeing a lot of that happening again.  What do you think?

While I have been in the second category from the start, I was quite impressed with the rumored movements of several sites to go the flash-free route.  I guess, the nice folks running these sites got to thinking that they might not want to have potentially millions of iPad users who could not access their websites.

Things start to get really interesting when it becomes clear that Adobe is reeling from the blow.  A video made available by HP on YouTube is presented by Alan Tam of Adobe Flash Product marketing  and goes to all lengths to convince you that what you really need in your life is HP’s Slate tablet, running Windows 7 as well as  Adobe Air and Flash, instead of an iPad.   Let’s get real!

I’ve got several Windows computers, running XP and Windows 7.  While I can boot up Windows 7 on a partition of my MacBook reasonably fast, it won’t be winning any races against my iPod Touch as far as waking up the device goes.  My Asus netbook sometimes takes so long to wake from hibernation that I just prefer to turn it off and reboot clean.  Now, I know that that happens when I put it into hibernation with a ton of things running, but that too is among the reasons pointed by iPad critics to prefer other devices: user controlled multi-tasking.  Yeah, right…

Of course, as the iPad is not even out yet, it is too soon to foresee who will be left standing in the battle for the attention of Webmasters and web developers everywhere.  On the other hand, if I was responsible for a flash-dependant website I would not be happy to be betting all my chips against Apple and the iPad.

If you are curious to see the video, check it out bellow…

The case in this picture is one I might choose to pick up, once I can manage to pick up an iPad.

Belkin, a traditional computer and iPod accessory vendor is also coming  out with its first iPad case as well, as you can see in the following picture.

As the iPad’s release date gets nearer we should be seeing more and more accessories such as these coming out. Let’s hope that in the end there will several models which are not only good looking but dunctional too.