iPad, Where Style is Substance.

My Twitter feed is going crazy with iPad updates. Everyone can't stop talking about it. I guess people really love the same old thing in a brand new package. It gives the impression that one is in the know and right on the cutting-edge, without the risk of being laughed at later for having caught the wrong train.

What is the iPad, really? A web browser? A news reader? Some have even suggested that given its name, one can assume that it was a new line of female sanitary products. You can hear Stephen Fry waxing lyrical about it on the Guardian talking about mixed nuts, the liberal arts, capitalism and how Apple covers them all, and more.

Personally, I'm just dying to own it. Sure, it's Apple, it'll be sexy, user-friendly, and unlike your girlfriend, it will probably shiver to your touch.

Market research has shown that if you had to choose between spending money on an experience and on a product, you should spend it on the experience for optimal happiness value. Apple has probably taken this into account long ago and designed all their products to ensure users experience high joy to minimal frustration. With the iPad, they have probably gone further. Ten gazillion Science Fiction movies can't be wrong, what we want is information that is portable in an interface that makes it easily digestible. iPad is lightweight, and has a good screen size. You can read it while having coffee at breakfast or share smutty PDFs with your lover in bed. Or, like Gwendolyn from The Importance of Being Ernest,  you can now deign to travel without your blog, for one should always have something sensational to read on the MRT.

I have already heard complains about it's size. That's it's really an iPhone, but bigger (and we all know that  bigger does not necessarily mean better). I beg to differ.

As an Apple fan, the one thing I am not crazy about is the iPhone. It's good fun, but I'm one of those annoying people that would call a spade a spade and use a phone as a phone. It's main plus is the ability to surf the web while you're on the go, but it takes awhile to load, the screen is limiting and the typing interface is too frustrating for my verbose Facebook status updates. (And I hate cryptic status updates! If I'm reporting on my devastating breakup, I will aim for the most detail to solicit maximum sympathy, so there.) I see the iPhone as a time sucker and an indiscriminate distraction at lectures. Great when you don't have to pay attention, devastating when you do (particularly when exam tips are being dished out).

The iPad would solve this problem. Screen size is a wonderful thing, and in this age, valuable digital real estate. While I would love to wax lyrical about the erogenous sensibility of the iPad, and the huge possibilities for third-party coupling and plug-ins, my main joy is that it's really great value just for the extra screen space when it comes to having portable information because the hand-helds just don't cut it.

But more than anything, the iPad is the thing of the future. The product we see in our Sci-Fi movies that we covet. A bunch of old things we love in a brand new sleek package that we would like to show of.