Apple iPad. Who is it for?

Alot of buzz around iPad before and after it’s launch. Most of what I expected was there. Some missing features left me wondering why I would bother getting this.

Some of the expected features (I thought) would have been:

Webcam (if not 2 for potential 3D)
Why no webcam? I was even expecting 2. Wouldn’t it be great if this thing could be used for augmented reality?

Cellular voice phone capabililities
When paired with a bluetooth headset, you essentially have yourself a phone. I doubt that will make for a useful phone.. but at least it’s an option.

USB port
noticable lack of peripheral support unless it was an apple product. They clamped down on software and hardware. Worth noting though, with an adapter, you get usb port to use a webcam, however I don’t believe you get to plug ANY usb devices. This is basically an iphone OS after all.

Full Webbrowser
like the iphone, the browser in this is nice and slick to scroll around. However flash is absent, and DHTML and Javascript support isn’t complete. It’s enough to view most websites, but leaves me wanting a desktop OS with a browser of my choosing with all the bells and whistles.

Not a Tablet
No pen input. Therefore no handwriting. Buttons and inputting will be somewhat large similar to existing iphone UI.

So who is it for?
Really it’s just made for the print media businesses. They wanted a device that they can sell subscriptions of their content without direct competition from websites. Certainly with the crippled browsing capabilities and locked down approach to apps and subscription approach to content in itunes clearly works to limit the consumer of choice. The demoed subscription content looks virtually identical to a typical website one would see from the mobile safari if flash and video capabilities were available. Should this device captivate a large enough audience. We should see alot more iphone/ipad friendly websites.