I got a chance this week to play around with my son’s iPad and felt I should write about it immediately. Being a staunch blackberry supporter, I still do not want to concede defeat to the iPhone or the iPad as I can still debate my way around why it is not the right device for a hard core technology addict like me.

In any case, I do believe that iPad is the right device for any computer user and by far the best device in the world for a normal computer user.

A few months back, I had also contemplated if I need an iPad and decided against it.

Now that I have got an opportunity to actually spend sometime with the iPad, here are some of my initial thoughts.

iPad can be considered as a larger version of the iPhone. Some of the wonderful features I could notice in this device are:

1. Ease of Use: This device is by far the easiest device to use for browsing. I got a similar experience when I first touched the iPod, when I realized how much efforts the folks at Apple must have put into user friendliness aspects, in order to build a device that is extremely user friendly.

I compare this to a statement a friend of mine made about Google a few months back. He said, when I go to a site made by Google, when I think ‘I wish they had this feature’, 99% of the time, I have seen that they had the feature already available, which I could locate within the next few seconds.

Apple has made this significant accomplishment in iPod, making it the simplest music player by far, then followed it up with the iPhone, making it the simplest phone available so far and then reinvented the concept of App Store, which has become the defacto for all future mobile devices (Android is also moving fast along the same lines). iPad makes me believe that it is by far the most user friendly computer in the world for any kind of user.
2. iTunes, iPad and App Store: With iTunes account made mandatory for using the iPad, the linkage directly between the App Store and the iTunes user base, Apple has now officially tied up their users across multiple categories – their music player, their app store, their iPad users. This is a brilliant move from a business standpoint as it now helps them to leverage the user base across their products.

3. iPhone Features: iPad, being a logical extension of the iPhone (without the phone capabilities) has inherited the same functionalities available in iPhone. This makes it extremely easy for any user of iPhone to use the iPad with zero learning curve – which is one of the best things that have ever happened in computer world. Even when I made a shift from PC to the MAC, I had to go through a huge learning curve, but the jump from iPhone to iPad is without any learning curve.

Overall I believe that with his consistency in delivering such good quality products with best user experience, we are just experiencing Steve Jobs at his best.