The iPad has landed

07/04/10 posted by Liz Niland

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the iPad, and yes, it has finally landed in the US of A. While the land down under will be in darkness for another month or so, reviews are pouring in from across America about the fun, features and fails of the much-hyped toy of the future.

Criticised for being a true-to-form first generation Apple product (that is, not including a bunch of features that should have made the cut, like a camera and USB socket), the iPad has, not surprisingly, received a mixed reception.

Wired’s John C. Abell says that while the gadget itself is “familiar enough to help us accept it, and innovative enough to guide us into different ways of doing things”, the price of apps and content may prove to be a downfall in these early days. Paying the same price for an electronically delivered magazine as a paper-copy may be a little hard for fans of traditional media types but, as Abell says, the iPad is able to “make you forget about the device entirely, so you can focus on the content it’s displaying”.

It seems that a user’s suitability for an iPad is dependent on what the device will actually be used for. For high-intensity web browsing, precise work for tasks like web design or web development, or lengthy article creation, the iPad won’t replace your laptop. For an all-round entertainment device though, it’s well worth the money that may have been spent on getting a Kindle, gaming device and electronic picture frame. David Pogue, for the New York Times, eloquently puts it this way: “The haters tend to be techies; the fans tend to be regular people.”

But before you start thinking this is just another device that the kids will steal the second you glance the way of a paperback, let your mind run free thinking about the other ways the iPad could be used. Combined with Jack Dorsey’s Square, the iPad becomes an all-in-one portable cash register and business builder. We can see quite a few cafes and restaurants around Sydney alone that will snap this option up as soon as it’s available.

As we mentioned last week though, making sure your own website works on the iPad is the battle. Depending on what content and services your website provides, you may not see many visits from users of the device but, as with the iPhone, it’s really worth considering what your site looks like to other users. If you don’t have a Flash-heavy site, you’re halfway there. To test other factors - such as screen size and touchscreen-friendly layout - you may be interested in some iPad simulator tools unearthed by Webmonkey.