All period jokes aside, I've been thinking about Wednesday's introduction of Apple's new tablet sized color media reader.
I think there is definealty a place for a color e-reader. While I love the Kindle immensely, its no eyestrain e-ink screen isn't suitable for magazines, content rich web browsing, fancy applications, etc.
That's where the tablet comes in, I guess. Looking like a iPod touch that's been expanded in size, early reviews say it is fast, and looks great. It certainly has a great cool factor, and with support from the Apple App store and the iPhone like interface it will have some good traction to get into the market.
There are also a lot of things this device does NOT have. USB, Camera, Media card slot, DVD drive... If you want all that stuff get a tiny laptop, right. That's the message there. This is a simple device meant for accessing one piece of content at a time. No multitasking, or abilivty to see web pages written with flash animation, either.
Then there's the question of the monthly service for the wireless access. I would be hard pressed to want to pay a second monthly fee for wireless access on my pad. I am already balking at the idea of getting a wireless anywhere card for my laptop. Could this device replace my laptop for taking on trips? I seems to lack some support that I might need... so maybe maybe now. I guess is depends on the user and what they like their device to do.
Anyone want to steal my free idea? Business plan consultants can have this for the price of nothing:
My dream device would have two screens, maybe one on the front and one on the back. One with e-ink screen and the other side a color screen for reading magazines and watching video. Still small and not with the screens facing each other - that's too distracting. Maybe even one screen that you can change from e-ink mode to color mode at will. That would be cool.
