I want to start this off by making one point clear.

I don’t want the iPad.

Well, at least not in any logical sense. Sure, there is a part of me that lusts after this device, of course, but logically I have no reason to want this when I already have an iPhone and a Macbook Pro which both serve me quite well.

That point being made, I still think this device will be a important, maybe even “magical” to borrow a phrase. Let me explain first why I don’t want it and then why I believe it will be an important device.

I don’t want a iPad because I don’t think a tablet computer should be limited to one task at a time, I don’t want to be crippled with an OS that I think is fully functional as an phone or PMP but not as a tablet “computer”. I don’t buy that it excels at any of what El Jobsieo says it does, not without multitasking. Even now, as I write this, I am watching a video, tweeting, and responding to email. The iPad may be fun, but I don’t understand Steves “third” device category unless it can at least have this basic functionality. To truly have made this device all it can be, they should have done what they did with the iPhone and iPod Touch, design a version of OS X that is tailored to the device…instead, they shoehorned that OS onto it with some updated apps and said “tada!”

This is not to say that I cannot be a great device…but unless Apple greatly revises its OS, which I doubt, then it is going to be up to developers to make this into a product I would want; there is not real core function, as much lauded as various aspects of it are, it doesn’t do any of them better than your other current options out there.

Now, I do think this device will sell extremely well, and I think it has to.

According to the experts, this will be the year of the tablet computer. I would amend that and say that this will be the year of the iPad.

Bold, I know, but hear me out. I will begin by comparing this to the iPhone, a device that I believe reinvigorated the mobile phone market, and defined what a cutting edge device would be. Would the mobile phone world be what it is today without the curve ball apple threw with the iPhone? Possibly, but can anyone really deny how monumental the iPhone was upon the world?

I believe, that if tablets are to move from the hands of the geeks and into the hearts and homes of the mass market consumers, then someone has to define the genre and make a device that changes peoples perspective from “why do I need a ‘tablet’ computer” to “why have I not had one of these yet”. I don’t see this happening, not in 2010, from any other company out there. Sure, plenty of them are developing or have developed their own tablets, but nothing that will ignite the market as I believe the iPad will, and needs to if this segment is to move out of a niche standing.

So, I don’t want the iPad. Yet I do. I think its OS is extremely limited, yet the device needs to succeed to further competition and spur development in this device space.