Comment: Derek Wyatt

 

Derek Wyatt was Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey from 1997-2010
Visit Derek's new website here

Former MP, IT enthusiast and APDIG Member Derek Wyatt reviews the iPad


For a company that have a hold on the letter "i" - as in iMac, iPod and iPhone - I watched from the sidelines with amusement when Apple set a hare going on their new "tablet" a year ago. I gave up on the number of classy pundits who guessed wrong. I called it the iFad and in the end was only a letter out. 

The iPad, as it is better known, has been another Apple phenomenon.

It might have happened 20 years ago. Apple toyed with a hand held device called the Newton, but at the time the pressure on designers was to build something that would recognise handwriting and morph it into text. Gil Amelio, the last head honcho before the return of the prodigal son, liked the Newton - but in the end it bit the dust. (I can't recall whether utlimately it was Amelio or Jobs who pulled the plug.) This was in the days when a company called Go raised $75 million in the same space as the Newton, yet still failed to bring a product to market before it was closed down!
 
I bought an iPad on the day they were released in the UK. I'd had some light-hearted emails with its designer, Jonathan Ive CBE, in Cupertino: I was hoping it would have 3D animation, a phone and video conferencing. It doesn't - yet, but I am sure these will come. And already it has sidelined my old computers, including a relatively new Dell net book, fast gathering moss on my study table. 
 
We are moving to the mobile cloud and the iPad is the first chic and friendly machine which has understood how to exploit this development. Yet again, Apple has shown a clean set of heels to its rivals - not least Microsoft, who have brought out a dreadful tablet that you simply could not swallow. 
 
We are now in the App world. Upwards of 30,000 are being commissioned a month across the English speaking world. We could, as a Government save a significant sum if Whitehall and local government moved swiftly to the iPad and Application solutions. 
 
Now wouldn't that be fun?
 
--Sent from my iPad
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