I Agree With Nick Carr… Is That Possible?

I admit that I am frightened to agree with Carr, but…

- Nick Carr, Hello iPad, Goodbye PC

With the iPad, Apple is hoping to bridge all the niches. It wants to deliver the killer device for the cloud era, a machine that will define computing’s new age in the way that the Windows PC defined the old age. The iPad is, as Jobs said today, “something in the middle,” a multipurpose gadget aimed at the sweet spot between the tiny smartphone and the traditional laptop. If it succeeds, we’ll all be using iPads to play iTunes, read iBooks, watch iShows, and engage in iChats. It will be an iWorld.

But will it succeed? The iPad is by no means a sure bet. It still, after all, is a tablet - fairly big and fairly heavy. Unlike an iPod or an iPhone, you can’t stick an iPad in your pocket or pocketbook. It also looks to be a cumbersome device. The iPad would be ideal for a three-handed person - two hands to hold it and another to manipulate its touchscreen - but most of humans, alas, have only a pair of hands. And with a price that starts at $500 and rises to more than $800, the iPad is considerably more expensive than the Kindles and netbooks it will compete with.

But whether it finds mainstream success or not, the iPad is the clearest sign yet that we’ve entered a new era of computing, in which media and software have merged in the Internet cloud. It’s hardly a surprise that Apple - more than Microsoft, IBM, or even Google - is defining the terms of this new era. Thanks to Steve Jobs, a bohemian geek with the instincts of an impresario, Apple has always been as much about show biz as about data processing. It sees its products as performances and its customers as both audience members and would-be artists.

I don’t think that iPad is about foo-foo dust and dazzle, though.