iPad – a health risk – or a good business opportunity?

Am I soon going to become obsolete? Is there any stop to this technology evolution?

When I go on holidays, I love nothing more than to take time out and read a book. Maybe a couple. Ones that I haven’t had time to read during the year, but would have loved to. Laying in bed, on a couch or by the pool – there is nothing more relaxing.

I savour the fact that my finger tips become discoloured by the black ink on the pages or that sometimes I have to have more than one go at turning the page. I like the creases in the top right hand corner of the page when I have to rush off to grab something to eat, swim in the pool or go to the restroom.

I like the way I lay on my stomach with my book spread out in front of me and as the day goes on, move to my back , with a pillow under my head, my hair on top of my head and my book held up in front.

I even like the way I look over at others and see them absorbed in their books like there is nothing more important going on in the world.

Books like movies take you away to another place. It’s one of the few times that I really switch off.

Then, came the iPad.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the new and intimate iPad. Better than a laptop, lighter and apparently more intimate. Intimate - what marketing person came up with likening a piece of plastic and metal to something that is intimate?

Now, we can throw away our books, and replace it, like everything else, with a piece of technology.

According to Stuart Kennedy’s story in today’s Australian.

THE surprisingly low price of Apple’s iPad, a giant version of the iPhone launched yesterday, is expected to ignite the long-stagnant market for touchscreen PCs.

The iPad, revealed by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts Theatre, is 1.3cm thick, weighs 680g and has a 24.6cm touchscreen display.

It uses a new version of the finger-guided interface from the iPhone and comes with a ready-made software library, as it can run most of the 140,000 applications available for the iPhone.

It will come in two basic models: one with 3G-network capability and WiFi; one with just WiFi. The cheapest iPad, with 16GB of memory, will launch worldwide in late March for $US499 ($554), with the 3G version due in April. Users will also have to pay for a plan with a telecommunications provider. In the US, the 3G-enabled iPad will be available through AT&T for $US14.99 a month for 250MB of data or $US29.99 for unlimited data.

Call me old fashion, but I cannot think of a more disturbing way to read a novel. ‘Time out’ to me is not looking at a screen (hey, I do this for at least 10 hours a day in the office, I sure don’t want to be doing this in my spare time) nor is it carting around the ’steriod version of an iPhone’.

Has technology gone a tad too far? The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the iPad is that Apple has just ruined my next holiday. Whilst I will stay loyal to the old fashion version of a book, I will now lie by the pool at a resort perhaps in the Mediterranean, and see that half the people around me will be carting around the new and improved version of an iPhone and reading the latest novel on their new screens.

I will feel like I am still in the office! What holiday? Why not then just replace the ocean with a picture…

Fortunately, for some people and businesses, this new piece of technology is a cause of celebration.

Whilst the average novel according to google ways just 340 grams, the new iPad weighs in at double that. Medical practitioners will be celebrating all the way to the bank. More people will use physios, massage professionals and chiropractic services due to the extra strain on their bodies from lifting the extra weight. It might not seem like alot, but I am sure it will have impact.

Optometrists will be selling out of glasses because of the damage a computer screen does to eye sight, so there will be more business for them, manufacturers of glasses, eye creams, eye drops and anything else to do with eyes.

Today, is the day to invest in the health industry because the iPad has just given them the biggest opportunity yet. 

Oh, and it might also help the banks as the money to pay for this has to come from somewhere!