Some believe the iPad may be the greatest piece of technology since the can opener. Others think it could be as superfluous as the animatronic singing fish toys that were all the rage a few years ago.
But whether Apple’s iPad flops or reshapes the entire technology landscape, one thing is clear. For a few days around Saturday’s launch of the iPad, you won’t be able to browse the Internet, open a newspaper or turn on the TV without being inundated with wonders and woes of Apple’s latest gizmo.
But opinions vary widely as to whether the $499 iPad will replicate the amazing success of the iPod and iPhone, or whether it will instead imitate the famous failures of other products once hyped by Apple as revolutionary, such as the Newton, Apple TV and the Mac Cube.
Newsweek was in no doubt about the outcome.
“The iPad will change everything,” proclaimed the print weekly, which like other old-media publishers must be hoping that the device, with its 23-centimeter touch screen and purpose-built apps, will finally persuade customers to pay for news content — just as Apple’s iPod and iTunes coaxed people into actually paying for music.
Companies like The New York Times hope to be among the first to show special editions for the iPad, while blue-chip firms such as Unilever, Toyota and Fidelity have already signed up for ad spots in each of Time magazine’s first eight iPad issues, paying 200,000 dollars per page. Six advertisers, including Coca-Cola and FedEx, have agreements to place ads in The Wall Street Journal over a four- month period that will cost 400,000 dollars.
But nobody is even sure what iPad owners will use their devices for. Given its lack of a physical keyboard, its inability to multitask or run more than one program at once, and its lack…