After seeing a couple of blurbs today about how the iPad will crush or slay netbooks and e-readers, I just have to add my two cents and say that they're wrong. Whenever Apples comes out with a shiny new, cool-looking gadget, the Apply fanboys are all over it in droves. Of course, since Steve Jobs came out and said it was awesome and better than a laptop or a smartphone, that's just fuel for the fire. Let's get this straight. The iPad is an application device and not a computer. A netbook or notebook (or laptop by any other name) – they're computers.

I want an iPad!

I don't know how long it will be before the iPads make it to the Philippines or if I'll be able to afford one when they get here, but I want one. Not because it's cool or from Apple. Not because it's a computer. I want one because it doesn't cost much more than an E-Book Reader and can do a whole lot more.

By the way, this is NOT an iPad:

This IS an iPad:

The iPad fills a niche and that is all.

Sure the iPad is light and cool and it's made by Apple. Sure it's probably better than a bunch of other devices. It will not replace other devices – it will simply augment them or be a device for people who don't have computers and e-readers already.

This is something my 76-year old mother might buy as an Internet-enabled device and it might possibly be something that my computer illiterate relatives would want to buy, but hardcore computer users will probably just ignore it like they have for so many other devices made by Apple. At least, until third-party applications let you do everything on it you can now do on a laptop.

(iPad image cropped from Behold the iPad in All Its Glory)

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