How ’bout them Apples

From the looks of Twitter, Facebook and Google trends, the Apple press conference, including the release of the iPad, is the only thing going on in the world today. Google news says something about a Toyota recall and Holocaust Remembrance Day, but it’s pretty clear that everyone in the world is interested in the Apple tablet computer, and only the Apple tablet computer.

How has Apple managed to grab so many people? For some reason people have been looking forward to the release of the iPad for months. It looks like a big iPhone, basically. Am I off track about this? Is everyone going to get a small loan and get one like other Apple products?

The price to pay

Prices for the Apple iPad range between $ 499 and $ 829 depending on features. So the low-end model still costs a bit more than a netbook. It isn’t easy to picture a lot of people using the iPad. It could certainly be used well for watching videos and so forth, but it makes for a lousy phone? Awkward.

There has been plenty of musings about educational uses and those sorts of things. However, I am still having a hard time understanding what it has that computers don’t already have. It is also a bit too big to carry around everywhere. It won’t fit in most purses.

Sellability

As New Jersey Business News put it, “Apple would have to show why consumers ought to pay for yet another Internet-connected screen, on top of the TVs, computers and smart phones they already have.”

Do you think Apple will be able to do it? What would you use an iPad for? According to NJ.com, tablet computers have already been around for a decade, but they haven’t been successful. Time is going to tell if Apple has figured out how to sell tablet computers.