There has been a great deal of media hoopla about how the iPad will supposedly change everything, and all sorts of publications have been hastening to prepare iPad and other tablet editions.
However, here is a video from the Association of Online Publishers in which a number of its members express doubts that the iPad and e-readers will have any significant impact in the short term of 2010.
Anyone expecting the world to change within months of a product release is expecting too much. How long did it take before the PC changed the world? It was at least five or six years before they became a staple on every office desk.
That doesn’t mean a portable, always-connected device with full reading capabilities won’t change everything eventually. One consideration, the PC makes everyone both a consumer and producer (at least potentially). A tablet, it seems to me, is a consumer-only product. Is this good?
Rob Preece
Publisher