I’ve already explained why I personally think the iPad is a solid/useful gadget for my tastes. But of course there will always be people in the “other camp” that disagree; people who think that the tablet is utterly useless because of how “limited” it is compared to a laptop, or comparing it to the competition which “does more.”

To all those who think that way, and are trying to understand why people like me think otherwise, I present to you three articles below. I believe that all the points/concepts in these articles give a good overall picture of what people from “our side of the fence” are seeing.

• The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This
• A Message to the Internets regarding the iPad
• Old World vs. New World computing

Bottomline is, that you can have all the bells and whistles in hardware, but your device will always be as weak as its interface. And historically speaking, choosing the best “interface metaphor” to use for different devices has always been Apple’s forte.

Is anyone surprised that I¹ have a post on the iPad? Thought so.

A good articulation of the concern I’ve always had since rumors of the tablet started, would be from an article at GDGT:

Will people buy it in droves? Is there actually room for a device between smartphones and laptops? That I don’t know — I’ve always been skeptical there’s room for a third category in there. But if there is a contender for this space, the iPad is it.

My knee-jerk answer would be “no” as far as how much people would actually prefer using this over laptops and phones. But then again, Apple has been known to be such a great “game changer” in any industry that they might just successfully create a new “perceived need” in the minds of the people.

However, having said all that, I still am getting one ;) Not only because of the hype; but I really feel this is exactly the type of “large factor” mobile device I would like to be lugging around instead of a laptop.