What is the Apple Ipad?

Is the iPad a Netbook/Laptop Killer?

Let’s answer that question straight away. The iPad is not a netbook or laptop killer but experts expect it to have a significant impact on that market for a variety of reasons.

Firstly those who use their computers in ways that overlap with the iPad’s functionalities will find the iPad to be an irresistible alternative. Though the iPad only performs a certain subset of the things you can do with a PC, it does those things extremely well. People whose computing needs are light and lean more towards entertainment will find the iPad more than sufficient for daily use.

The iPad has many limitations that need to be addressed before it can oust laptops or netbooks. You can’t do many of the things that you take for granted such as listen to music, while keeping Skype & Twitter on and writing an email or copying files from your USB drive. Nor is it comfortable to type on it for long periods of time (but the same could be said for netbooks) and you can’t browse any flash-based websites at this point – so forget playing Farmville on Facebook!

Since you can only use one application at a time on the device, it means that everything you do is restricted to a jump-into and then jump-out experience. While you may not want to multitask all the time, we’ve all come to expect having options which isn’t possible on the iPad. However, this may ultimately not prove to be a big stumbling block depending upon the kind of functionality provided by the applications Apple has developed for the device.

Right now, the way the iPad handles notifications makes for a difficult user experience. A message pops up to notify you of something which has to be dismissed by you every time.

However you can make some leeway for iPad with respect to these flaws since the iPad does represent a significant advance in personal computing. It’s an extremely powerful, truly elegant device that’s quite revolutionary. It’s a fantastic touch computing platform that will only get better with time. The next generation of iPads will really give geeks something to talk about and even now some of the third party titles that are beginning to come into the market are nothing short of fantastic. If all that you do now on your computer is to browse, read news, watch video, play games, live on Facebook and tweet your friends non-stop then the iPad promises you a computing experience like no other.

It's not a laptop or netbook replacement in the sense that you can’t work in Excel, Word or any of the dozens of applications you are used to, and the operating system can't really do everything that those devices can do. However it may not need to. The iPad is for those who are excited about the potential of such a device and who can afford it or those who don’t have a lot of requirements out of a system and prefer to have a simple, fast, easy computing experience.