TechGazing

It may not be as magical as Steve Jobs made it out to be, but we still think Apple’s iPad packs enough in it to turn the tech world upside down. And no, not because we got five of our seven predictions about it right. In fact, it is the prediction that we got wrong that might make the biggest difference.

1. Price warrior: Like most pundits, we were expecting the tablet to be priced at around $1000. But by pricing it at $499, Apple has pulled off a tremendous coup, offering staggering value for money, especially considering the fact that its rival tablets start at twice the price.  There are many people who have said that it is unusual for Apple to be coming in at a relatively low price - they clearly have not been following the company’s policy on the iPods.

2. The App edge: The first “wow!” moment of Steve Jobs’ Union of the Slate address yesterday was not his announcement of the tablet but the fact that almost every - yes, every - app in the App Store would run on it. Frankly, this takes the device to another level. Imagine an iPhone or iPod touch with that amazing screen, backed up by some 1,40,000 apps, ranging from the amazing to the trivial. Perfection!

3. E-book winner: Jobs small tribute to Amazon and the amazing work they have done in e-books was ironically followed by the announcement of the iBooks app, which we are sure will slaughter the Kindle. The Kindle comes at $250, while the iPad offers far more at around twice the price, besides an excellent bookreading facility. RIP, Kindle.

4. Netbook killer: It is lighter than netbooks (weights around 700 grams), has a battery life of twelve hours, has far more apps (including the recently launched iWork), an inbuilt 3G data connection, GPS…and yet costs around the same as middle-to-high-end netbooks. Call us cynics, but we really feel that this product is going to decimate high end netbooks, and perhaps even low end laptops. Yes, the practical minded ladies and gents will point out that those devices are more useful as they have better keyboards, but they are unlikely to pack in as much functionality as the iPad and are totally lacking the “style factor” that the latter has!

5. Portable entertainment redefined: We think that the iPad might have just redefined what portable entertainment is. The iPod touch and iPhone were pretty good at playing video, music and games, but let’s face it, the screen was a bit on the smaller side. But with the 9.7 inch dazzler that the iPad sports is quite another matter. Imagine being able to do everything - and more - that you could do on the iPod touch at a larger scale and you get what we are talking about. We are betting portable consoles and DVD players are not going to be the same again.

In sum, we have a gadget that can change netbooks, e-book readers and portable entertainment as we know it today. Typical Apple!