[miffed]

Look at what the experts on the internet had to say about the 250,000,000 selling iPod when it was announced

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=500

...not a lot to add really is there :D

[gorilla]

Didn't read it all, but it's interesting that even then people wanted a fancy PDA. Imagine if Apple had have announced in 2001 the iPod Touch, would people have been satisfied?

[miffed]

Course not !! they'd be moaning that it didn't have a floppy drive or Serial port !

[Ben]

I love Thread 500. It's a little piece of interweb history :)

[The Mullet of G]

Not sure if I'd class any of the people in that thread as experts, on anything. And to be fair sticking a hard drive in an mp3 player wasn't exactly revolutionary, more evolutionary. Had Apple not done it, someone else would have as it was the next logical step. What was impressive is the way Apple built an infrastructure around it, and made the whole thing work seamlessly, while most other mp3 players were still messing around with clunky software, and using fragmented online music services.

For me Apple's strength is its ability to take the seed of a great idea and grow it into something that works the way it should. Its one of the advantages they have with iPad, the software is tailor made for the device and as a result works seamlessly, as opposed to PC based tablets and netbooks which are built by one company and the software provided by another.

I personally think iPad is a great product from what I've seen of it, and I'd love to have one, but would I buy one for £400? No, and that I suspect could be the stumbling block, as I've asked a lot of people that question and the answer tends to be no. A more interesting question I feel would be "how much would you pay for an iPad?" At which price point would it become a must have? I don't have an answer for that yet, but for me I'm thinking around the £250 mark or bellow.

[Ben]

At which price point would it become a must have? I don't have an answer for that yet, but for me I'm thinking around the £250 mark or bellow.
You may get your wish, albeit at operator-subsidised prices on the 3G.

Lets hope the tariffs aren't too insane.

[3GScottishUser]

I think it's going to be a hard task for Mob Ops to develop a market for what is primarily a secondary device as most will probably still want to own a mobile phone for reasons of compactness. Netbooks and laptops have driven sales of dongles and therein may be the niche for the iPad. Price will be vitalally important though once the device has to compete next to the bewildering array of netbooks and laptops currently available and the avalanche of new touch screen products we are likely to see before the end of this year.

[Hands0n]

Yes but ... I think that the rival touchscreen 'Pads will have to rub up against Apple's "infrastructure" that Mullet mentions above.

It is the lack of such infrastructure that is giving all of the other touchscreen handset makers so much trouble creating the so-called "iPhone killer" - a creature as rare as the Unicorn itself. That infrastructure creates the illusion of simplicity of use that appeals to the masses who do not want to fiddle around with their technology just to listen to some music or watch a video. And Apple's iTunes has been a superb example of how to do it - despite the wails and shrill screams of the anti-everything-Apple brigade.

Yes, it sucks, it really and truly sucks that the likes of Sony cannot create a simple music player infrastructure. They went wrong [for me] the day they invented "Music Manager" software for their MD player that would only install on factory-built PCs. Thats right, the same software refused to install on a perfectly legal copy of Windows XP on a home-built PC. The software manual even warned of this fact - only found out when you get home and try to make it all work.

I have yet to find one single MP3 device that has an infrastructure as capable and coherent as iTunes, and that extends out to the iPod Touch, iPhone and Apple TV devices - all controlled from a single application. And now it will also support the iPad when that finally arrives.

If other manufacturers want to get this right then they are going to have to do the hard thing - and that is to create a similarly strong infrastructure to support their family of product.

But are they up to the challenge? So far, it appears the answer is "No"