iPad, from a developer's perspective

When I watched Steve Jobs introduce the Apple iPad on Wednesday, my first reaction was, this is cool, but it really didn't move me. Like the MacBook Air, it impressed me as innovative and kind of "wiz-bang" but it doesn't have the horse power to replace my laptop nor does it have the communications ability of my smart phone, it just didn't seem to fit.

"Walk a mile in my shoes."

Then it struck me, I am looking at this from a developer's perspective. Face it were are not a mainstream lot. So I stepped out of my own perspective for a bit and tried to wrap my head around this new device from a run-of-the-mill user's stand point. NOW I get it! For the way the vast majority of my more "normal" family and friends use computers, this device is absolutely brilliant!

For example, my daughter went to Japan for three months and took my old MacBook with her. While this is a pretty easy traveling companion, the iPad would do everything she ever uses the MacBook for, and it would do it lighter, faster, better, and cheaper! I realized that Apple once again "Got It" - maybe even before the rest of us even knew what "it" was. I'd be willing to bet that 60% of the consumer market uses their computers for no more than what the iPad does, and the iPad does it in a new and more human friendly way. I feel a "I've got to have one of these" feelings coming over me!

What about our clients?

Then I took a moment and thought about our clients. So many of our clients have smaller "mom-n-pop" ecommerce sites for whom selling on the web is as much a part of their lives as it is a business. With an inexpensive, easy to use, access to the web anywhere, device like this in their hands, administering their web site, checking orders, adding new products and emailing customers just got a whole lot easier and more portable! And affordable! Our clients could literally be on a beach on Maui, or camping in the mountains of Colorado and with the G3 version of the iPad be connected and able to run their store and keep tabs on their business. For small one or two person businesses this spells freedom.

Social media on steroids.

Now that Social Media is becoming such a significant element in how we communicate and promote our business, the iPad's larger interface, compared to smart phones, will open things up and make staying current and connected much more friendly and therefore easier than in the cramped confines of even the best iPhone or Blackberry Storm or Droid. As we all know, when you make something you should be doing easier, you're more likely to actually do it.

A new category of computing & communications.

Like the iPod, and the iPhone, I think Apple has done it again. They managed to see just a little further over the horizon that the rest of us and identified a huge, primed and ready market, and got their first!

There's two things I'm resolved to buy now... an iPad, and more Apple stock. I'm 100% confident that these will both be expenditures that I'll be very pleased with.