iPad Is A Game Changer

Like the iPhone, the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential. It may become many things. It may change an industry or two, or it may not. It may introduce a new category — something between phone and laptop — or it may not. And anyone who claims to know what will happen will wind up looking like a fool.

- David Pogue

David, you are paid the big bucks to actually prognosticate, not equivocate.

I will say it, and I am certain that I woun’t be considered a fool in posterity: the iPad is a game changer. It will certainly do the following:

1. iPad will carve out a new territory between palmtop (what we used to think of as cell phones, but which are moving past being merely ‘smart phones’, courtesy of Jobs & Co.) and laptop devices. Netbooks offer nothing very special, and they will be crushed by the iPad and its soon-to-be competitors, like 8-track once cassettes were invented.
2. iPad will breath new life into the paradigm of newspapers and magazines. Video embedded in every page? Social news? Brace yourself for a renaissance.
3. The battle for the living room: iPad may be the perfect home device. In the kitchen, viewing a recipr from Epicurious; in the office, as a PC; in the living room, plugged into your TV display, a game console and web TV box.

I don’t know how Pogue keeps his job. Is it the goofy everyman schtick?