Ipad - Thumbs up or Thumbs down?

I have now seen then Ipad a couple of times and had the opportunity to play with one and it has made me think. You might say that given the sales in the US and Apple's track record in general the question of success is moot, but that doesn't stop me considering it.

It us undoubtedly a sexy piece of kit and on many levels I want one. On another level I am not sure if I could justify it or if my interest would last. In many ways it seems to be a very large Itouch and in that respect it defeats one key feature of the Ipod and that is the small package used to deliver a huge amount of usable functionality. When I tried it the natural way to use it was to rest it on the palm of my left hand and operate it with my right. This highlighted a conern I have which is that it did not feel safe in my hands. The shiney finish, light weight and curves meant that it felt like it was always about to slip or be dropped. This was a criticism I heard of the Iphone and of course a rubberised skin could address the issue, but that reduces some of the design values.

It is also, I understand, still without multitasking. On the Itouch this can be a slight pain but is not a great draw back. However with the laregr device I wonder if the expectations naturally rise and this lack of multi-tasking would become limiting and annoying?

I did see someone using an Ipad on the train and its use for video delivery looked impressive as did many of the games, but the key for me was when they started looking at webpages and documents - I think I may have spotted the "killer-use" for the Ipad - as a document pad -esepcially.

For a long while we have tried to get away from carrying loads of paper around, but nothing has really been in place to make it really effective and practical. Laptops tak too long to fire up and by default dispaly in Landsacpe. The new Ebooks are really to small and the electronic ink only presents in black and white. Ok the battery life is longer for this, but if it doesn't work for you it doesn't work.

I think that I will start seeing more and more business people using it on trains and planes to view documents, in colour, in portrait!

We shall see, eh?