What the iPad Means

Ah, the iPad; I was right along with everyone else mocking it before it released.  The tampon jokes were uttered, the snide remarks made, and I was fully willing to believe that this thing was going to be a one-off failure.  I was actually hoping it would fail.  It would give Apple a good dose of humility it's needed since the iPod took off.

Look at it, I said, it's just a giant iPhone that doesn't make calls.  What kind of impact will it possibly have?  No one will buy this, no one I tell you!

Well, I was wrong.

Apple's loyal minions (i mean *ahem* fans)  came out in droves to get their hands on Apple's overpriced hunk of uselessness.  Not only did Apple's customers take interest, but so did their competitors.  And so, bring on the iPad imitators: The Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Motorola Xoom, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and many more yet to be announced.

You often cannot be sure how important something will be in the long run until some time has past and the ramifications if its existence have truly been felt.  We are starting to see this with the iPad, and we can now judge what it means in the broad scheme of things.  The iPad represents something now; it is the first shot fired in a full-scale takeover by cell phone companies on the tablet PC market.

Tablet PCs have been around for quite a while before the iPad.  Of course, no one ever saw them unless they were on an episode of "Pimp My Ride," but they were around.  These were basically laptops with a touch screen instead of a keyboard and mouse, and they were put out by computer manufacturers such as HP.

The iPad did not posture itself in the beginning as a competitor to these devices, instead going after the market share of much-better-known e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle.  Nowadays, though, you'll rarely see footage of any e-book reading on commercials for the iPad or it's competitors, so it's become clear what these devices are now focusing on.  They are the new tablet PCs, plain and simple.

The question now is what other tech markets will cell phone companies invade?  Cellular service providers are already locking horns with cable companies over the ISP market.  Random Aside: it's kind of ironic that cable companies, who originally were in competition with phone companies as ISPs, are now facing their toughest competition from what are ostensibly phone companies again.

When will we start seeing laptops or fully-featured computers put out by Motorola, BlackBerry, HTC, and the rest of the gang?  Car GPS's?  Washing machines?  Only time will tell.