A lot of people will look back (and some already have) and say the announcement of the iPad 3 was not that exciting. Oh excuse me, The new iPad. As opposed to The old iPad.
Anyway, I have still not watched the actual presentation yet (just haven’t had time, to be honest). But I have certainly read about the specs and read (and listened to) countless commentary on it. “The retina display is unbelievable!” “Now we can actually use it as a camera.” “How will the other tablets catch up?”
In taking in all of that, something occurred to me that made me sit back and marvel. I am amazed at how many things Apple got right with the very first iPad. You know, the one that people kind of frown upon now because it’s so slow or it doesn’t have a camera or just has a “normal” display. Being the owner of one of those first-generation iPads, I can tell you that it still does work. And it works well. Is it as fast as the newer ones? No, of course not. But, I still use it every single day for a variety of tasks. And i still love it.
I think the fact that the past two iPads introduced have not strayed from the basic design of the first iPad should tell you how much they did get right out of the box. While other companies are (still) scrambling, changing, pulling their hair out to match Apple’s success with their own tablet, Apple just refines the market leader. Each time, making it better and better.
Will someone, someday, come up with a product to match the success of the iPad? Maybe. If (and when) they try, they will have a long, uphill battle on their hands.
