The early reviews are in for Apple’s much-hyped iPad -- and they’re downright glowing.
That the iPad is garnering mostly raves from the select few critics Apple allowed to preview the device before it hits stores April 3 is surprising, given the rather abundant skepticism that followed Steve Jobs' January press conference announcing its launch.
Here’s a selection from around the Web.
“Laptop Killer? Pretty Close,” Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal:
After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades.
"Verdict is in on iPad: It's a winner," Edward C. Baig, USA Today:
Months of speculation, feverish lust, an überhyped prize that could disrupt the status quo of computing. You wouldn't be the first person to compare the run-up to Saturday's arrival of the iPad to the prelaunch mania that surrounded the iPhone. Apple's freshly conceived slate-style computer promises to influence the media, mobile entertainment and publishing industries the way its close cousin the iPhone has affected wireless.
The first iPad is a winner. It stacks up as a formidable electronic-reader rival for Amazon's Kindle. It gives portable game machines from Nintendo and Sony a run for their money. At the very least, the iPad will likely drum up mass-market interest in tablet computing in ways that longtime tablet visionary and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could only dream of.
“iPad is pure innovation - one of best computers ever,” Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times:
No company can generate as much hype around a product launch as Apple. But that’s perfectly OK because no company is also nearly as successful at producing a new product that can justify almost any level of excitement that precedes it.
They don’t do it with every product launch, but bloody hell: they’ve done it with the iPad.
It’s a computer that many people have been wanting for years: a slim, ten-hour computer that can hold every document, book, movie, CD, email, picture, or other scrap of data they’re ever likely to want to have at hand; with a huge library of apps that will ultimately allow it to fulfill nearly any function; and which nonetheless covers the dull compulsories of computing (Mail, the web, and Microsoft Office-style apps) so well that there will be many situations in which this 1.5-pound slate can handily take the place of a laptop bag filled with hardware and accessories. In fact, after a week with the iPad, I’m suddenly wondering if any other company is as committed to invention as Apple.
“Apple's iPad is a touch of genius,” Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing:
It strikes you when you first touch an iPad. The form just feels good, not too lightweight or heavy, nor too thin or thick.
