

Stross: Gadget Patrol: iPad, a month on - mikecane
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/06/gadget-patrol-ipad-a-month-on.html

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Anon84

        As for the big picture: this thing is roughly where 
        the Macintosh was in late 1984. Which is to say, a lot 
        of people don't get it, and think it's a toy — and in 
        truth, there's a lot of stuff it doesn't do properly 
        yet. But it's an astonishingly promising toy.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I've always said I think the iPad is more a bet on the future than it is on
the present. I wrote a post on my blog a while back that I think makes the
point pretty well(if I might be so conceited):
[http://tomstechblog.com/post/What-People-Donrsquo3bt-
ldquo3b...](http://tomstechblog.com/post/What-People-Donrsquo3bt-
ldquo3bGetrdquo3b-About-The-iPad.aspx)

The gist of that post is that the "Pad" form factor will succeed for two
reasons...

Reason #1 - Once documents start moving to the cloud people are going to want
a way to view those documents on the go. In the same way that people carry a
notepad to meetings now they’ll want to pull up documents in the future. They
need a device that focuses on being a "viewing device" (as opposed to PCs,
laptops and netbooks which make huge concessions for data entry). The same is
true of paper media like books and newspapers. People need a way to carry
around these digital representations.

Reason #2 - People aren’t going to redefine the page. Digital documents will
continue to be based around 8.5” by 11” dimensions just as Roman Chariots
defined the Space Shuttle’s booster rockets. So paper will be the form factor
that defines the mobile devices we carry around with us in the future.

To me that's the point. The "Pad" form factor is something we all know is
appealing (they were appearing in Star Trek back in the 60s). It was just a
matter of waiting for the right time and producing a quality device. I think
Apple's done both of those things with the iPad

~~~
gojomo
_just as Roman Chariots defined the Space Shuttle’s booster rockets_

Can you elucidate?

~~~
count
I think this is referring to the standard width of rail cars, which are
required to move some component parts. Very, very generally, rail cars are the
width they are because they started in Europe, and they had to fit on roads,
which were built to accommodate older cars, which had to fit in wagon wheel
ruts, which had to fit in Roman chariot ruts. I'm not sure it's fact, but it's
a common story. I heard it from Prof. Channing's ChemE lectures on Stanford's
iTunes U.

