Fool's Gold At The End Of The iPad Rainbow? Not at all

Techdirt ran a piece today on the The Fool's Gold At The End Of The iPad Rainbow (see below)

The argument is that the 'iPad for Mom' is condescending and there's nothing about the apps that couldn't have been done with CD-ROMs but  hasn't.

Unfortunately this is nonsense in both senses. The key is the user interface, as I said with the iPhone.
Having the touchscreen with apps that make use of it is the key change - many, many people don't like using the mouse - that's the difference. Using a finger to flip through an online magazine or play a game IS a very different experience to using a mouse. That's the difference from the current online and CD ROM approach and it makes all the difference.
Plus there is already the ecosystem of apps that use the hardware, which there hasn't been with previous touchscreen solutions that ported business applications.

These together do make the difference and this is bigger than just the iPad. This is the tipping point for a range of new, touchscreen enabled, app supported devices (and not just with the Apple ecosystem).

As to de-skilling the hardware, yes, it would be good to have a replaceable battery but there have been lots of liability issues with third party and 'illegal' batteries, which I suspect is the key to the decision not to have user-replaceable power - that's a business issue.

Related article

• iPad Apps: The Next Gold Mine or Just Fool's Gold? (mashable.com)
• The Fool's Gold At The End Of The iPad Rainbow (techdirt.com)
• Cool Hunting iPad App (coolhunting.com)
• Apple Working on Gaming Accessories for the iPad, iPhone? (1up.com)
• Gmail Updated for the iPad (readwriteweb.com)
• iPad Gets a Split Screen Browser (readwriteweb.com)
• Before you buy: 10 things to know about the iPad (cnn.com)