Desire

There are many objects of desire nowadays. Witness the crowds at Electronics and Computer shows. It is common for these shows to take up 3 - 4 levels of a convention centre, specifically the Suntec City. Chief among these objects of desire is the cousin of the wildly successful Apple iPhone - the iPad. It is not available  yet, commercially, in Singapore but a friend of mine had brought it in and I had my first touch and feel of the device yesterday. My immediate impression was that, like all Apple products, it was beautiful. There is only one colour - white. Add in the gloss and the contours and you have a winner on your hands. No wonder Apple has sold a million of these devices within a month of its launch. It felt heavy at first lift and your arms will tire after some time. This is probably more pronounced for the fairer sex. 

There was free wifi signals around and the iPad just took to it, without any fuss on set up. Actually when the device was handed to me for a spin, it was already on wifi. I was surfing the web as if it was the most natural thing for this device. I didn't test how long the battery would last, but was told that it had a pretty good use-time.

Text characters were big enough to read an e-Book very comfortably. It had a useful zoom function to enlarge or reduce the size of what you are reading, with all the intuitive touch-screen navigation that is the hallmarrk of Apple products, and in particular the iPhone. Actually, the iPad is a bigger version, size-wise, of the iPhone - the same styling, the same feel, the same user interface, the same touch interface, the same buttons (there is only one). So if you have not laid your hands on a iPad, but you have and iPhone, just imagine your iPhone with a bigger screen, a heavier feel and probably longer battery life. Everything else is the same, except you can't talk through an iPad, not yet in these first version devices. 

Hmmm, as Will Smith would say, I must get me one of these. But I was told to wait for the next generation 3-G version. But truth be told, the one I had on my hands was probably good enough. But it isn't cheap. I was told that it is going for S$1,500 now in Singapore, and maybe even more depending on how much you are willing to pay. Compare that to the US$499 price of a basic iPad in the US...

OK, I'll wait.