So Troy and I were early adopters of the iPad. He being an arch geek had one on order for six weeks from Apple on line, myself being a retail supporter bought one from Myers on the day of release. I think I beat him to ownership by an hour or two ... The immediate implications for our business of the iPad are through it's Control 4 and Crestron home control applications.

Previously a remote touchpad for controlling ones audio visual, lighting, etc could be something like a Crestron TPMC17 which is their top of the range 17 inch tilt panel touch panel media centre with a retail price of .... $22,387. The Control 4 10.4 inch touchscreen is retailing for $5749 ... we can do nearly all that these touchpanels have to offer with an iPad, the top of the range 64GB version with 3G sells for $1049 ...

Thats not to say in any fashion that Control 4 and Crestron systems core business is going to be endangered, quite the contrary in fact as the pricing and availability of the iPad will make these control interfaces available to a great many more people I believe. So whereas before only a privileged few had access to touchscreen integrated home control systems, it is possible that the iPad will now allow the great majority of Australian consumers to have access to Crestron and Control 4 type capabilities.

For myself the iPad is a terrific way of watching Youtube in inappropriate places and will be an excellent substitute for the cumbersome laptop that I am otherwise forced to carry when travelling. I've put my digital music on it and consider it a great way of reading newspapers without the paper. I already have a Kindle for digital books which is a lighter and more legible device for daylight use although I resent its intrinsic connection to Amazon and its limitations of content by ones nationality. Fundamentaly I remain tied to paper publications for novels and magazines.

The iPad is a particularly interesting product from a CE market viewpoint I believe; for the first time we have a mass market release of a device with a very unclear target of use expectation and the actual applications for consumers are going to rapidly evolve and expand as the product becomes domestically established.

I note with interest that the Herald Sun has been running articles on iPad appplications on consecutive days this week which is indicative of the burgeoning useage of this product, unless of course you live in Israel where the product has actually been banned due to concerns over it's powerful WiFi ... or perhaps they are worried that people will smuggle them into Gaza ....