iPad! Boy, does that Apple toy look amazing!   Yes I called it a toy, because the way it is right now it is just designed to be a toy.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with toys, I have some… just wish I had more time to play with them.  But what I see in this new product from Apple is a rehash of what is already out on the market; the iTouch and iPhone.

I love my iTouch, I got it as a present from a group that I worked with in my company.  I use it to listen to music, and watch the few movies I have in that format (wall-e is awesome on that little screen), sometimes I go and browse the web when I have Internet access (mostly at home).  But beyond that there isn’t much I do with it.  I’m sure I would use it much more if it was an iPhone, but I don’t have service from the phone company that the iPhone is contracted with (nor would I switch).

I see that the iPad is just going to be the iTouch or iPhone on a larger scale.  The major improvement would be screen real estate.  And that ties into what is certainly becoming important in the market; for book readers. 

That’s what I can understand is the draw of the iPad.  The ability to read books on it.  With a snazzy screen, ful color, multi-touch, and 64 gigs of memory it will stand out as THE platform for electronic books.  I still cannot find a need for it personally.  Sure, the iBook store will be awesome, just as the iTunes store is now.  Easy to use, very few if any problems getting product delievered.. it is proving that not only content is king, but DISTRIBUTION and CONSUMPTION PLATFORM are co-kings.

The down side, that has been touted about on the net is the fact that it doesn’t support flash.   Well neither does the iTouch, or iPhone for that matter, so that’s not new.  What makes that a bigger issue is the fact that the iPad has got some good usable screen size, and now you won’t be able to experience a large portion of the Internet on it.  Dang.

I have come up with an idea around that however.  Some company, say like Citrix, or Oracle who have thin client computing; which means the computer or device that you work on just displays, doesn’t do the computing, it also is an input device.  One of those companies with years of experience should create an app that would allow the iPad to also become a thin computing client.  Then you can, through another computer, bring up a browser and get all the flash content you want!  You can also use the iPad with ALL the applications for ANY platform.  Any platform that is residing on one of the servers you connect to, to be more specific.  Currently Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Solaris are all supported in one way or another.

Just think about it, how cool would it be to carry around what amounts to a data-pad unit that you see in Star Trek… and to use it as such!   You could connect to your home computer, the company computers and do work right there, where ever you are…   Never have to lug around a laptop, just have this fancy bit of revolutionary hardware and a connection to the net (wifi or 3g) and log right into and use your computer just like you were there.  And on top of that, you wouldn’t have ANY of the important data on the iPad, it would reside on the server or computer you are connecting to.. Super secure!

It is a possibility, I know that my iTouch has VPN capabilities, so connecting into a secure corporate structure would be a snap.  And I assume that the iPad will have the same VPN capabilities.

If there were an app for the iPad to make it the thin client it could be, the iPad would be the next hottest thing!  Until then, it’s just another toy…