I think most of the critics coming to the iPad as a device come mostly from people who plainly speaking they do not like Apple.

Although with news, journalism and technology itself, every time there is a device that doesn’t appeal to the critics sense of what is right or wrong, it gets bashed, demoted or marked as trash and it shouldn’t be bought or looked at.  Some people find these new devices like a breath of fresh air, considering that there has not been a significant technology innovations since well the iPhone rolled out.  I am pretty sure if it had been Nokia, Motorola or Blackberry to name a few, the criticism and comments would be normal.  Apple is the mold breaker, and therefore they get all the attention good or bad.  Because they are different, and present to its consumers products that in the hands of other creative individuals, would seem mundane, boring and not thought out.

Apple has taken the lead again to appoint innovation and progress in not only technological aesthetics, but improvement as well.  Apple takes a lot of pride in keeping the products they develop secret, and out of the eye of journalism or critics so they can contain the “wow factor” they want to present to their consumers intact.

The iPad is no exception.  Ever since the idea of making notebooks more portable, mobile computing and the rise of netbooks as a product itself, if you have noticed there has not been much improvement in aesthetics and functionality.  This happened with mobile phones as well.  Up till the iPhone rolled out we didn’t have much of a mobile computing device as much as we had an extension of a peer to peer messenger service.  We had seen the ideas of Microsoft and Palm come in the form of Pocket PC and Palm devices years before the iPad, iPhone came out, but they were clunky, disorganized, non-user friendly and boring.  Even Microsoft left their Windows Mobile OS decay, because they thought there was nothing else to innovate into.

Apple is a people oriented company.  Even if you are not a fan, deep down you have to admit, they come out with nifty, cool looking devices and most of the time, very functional and easy to use.  When they design a product, they try to bring forward a closer interaction between the user and the device.  This kind of functionality is not seen in many products out there, and between Apple’s rivals the only one that has a “similar” sense has been Google.

This being said, a lot of people lack the understanding of what the iPad really is, and it’s not the same as what they wanted it to be therefore they don’t justify any of the modifications and additions it brings.  A lot of people label Apple to be a closed platform, while the “PC” has been more open all the time.  This is sort of right, but most people do not look at the benefits this “closeness” in design and implementation brings, again considering this is not a Netbook, notebook or personal computer.

The iPad is the in-between of a Notebook and a Phone (or portable media device).  I don’t include netbooks, because netbooks and notebooks aside from size, processor and size are practically the same.

Let me give you a real scenario as an example.

At my household we have 2 Desktop Computers (1 MacPro & 1 Gaming PC currently connected to the 46″ LCD TV), and we have 3 Laptops (2 Windows 7 and 1 MacBook Pro).  The laptops are 1 in the bedroom, and 2 in the living room, where my wife and I use them.  I mostly do my gaming on the Xbox360, and some other portion of gaming on our Gaming PC.  The MacBook pro is for programming for the web and other stuff and the Windows 7 Laptops are for meh. <– yeah meh.

If there were 2 iPad’s in our house, I can tell you right now, those laptops would be at our computer room, and the MacBook pro would be strictly for web work.

Why?

Portability & comfort.  I work as part of the engineering team doing IT infrastructure, when I get home, I want to chill in my couch as much comfortably as I can.  I also like to play some games that aren’t as active as ones I play on my Xbox360.  Currently I do that on my iPhone.  My Nintendo DS and PSP are currently gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, because I cannot interact with anyone else with them.  On my iPhone I feel connected to my friends who play the same games as I do.  When I am not playing games on the iPhone I am chatting with a distant friend.

Let’s get back to the Portability and comfort part.  Can I do that with my laptops? Sure, I lay back and use them in an orthopedic way that make my wrists hurt after using them like that for 4hrs.

If I am at an airport, I don’t have to take my laptop to remote into the office and do work, we use Citrix VDI and I can remote in easily, using a Bluetooth mouse to use Outlook 2007 or remote into my work PC at my office.  Time to board the plane? No problem, I got movies, games, books all at the flicker of a finger.  This is genius human design, and it’s catching on.  It is why the iPad even if your portray it as a Big iPod Touch or a Limited iPhone if you get the 3G version, is being so successful.

This is only the beginning for this device, comparing how long it took the iPhone to catch up to a couple more functionalities than it had when it began, the iPad will be more in tune to our need to communicate, socialize and work than any other device in the market right now.  The more people buy it the more it becomes a mobile platform you can think serious right now.

The only company who I think could bring out a serious device than can compete with the iPad and the line of thinking of Apple is Google.  But in my opinion, Android is still in its infancy and has to mature a lot.

But this is today, tomorrow my thoughts are going to be old and in a week they will be obsolete.  Technology is the same way, the only thing you can do is wish things get better and portability, comfort and ease of use become something truly spectacular in a device like this, and others.  I can’t really wait to see what kind of stuff comes out.  I have surely seen a lot of changes, in computing, a lot of powerful innovative companies rise and fall, including Apple that is enjoying of its second reincarnation.