All publicity is good publicity, so the saying goes, but the build up to the launch of Apple's tablet computer, the iPad, was so prolonged and hyped that when the thing turned out to be, on first sight, a jumbo sized iPhone on steroids, the media reception was mixed.

On the plus side, there was surprise at how reasonably priced the device is going to be. For the standard WiFi version, the price range quoted is $499 to $699 (depending on hard drive size), while the WiFi plus 3G phone connectivity option is going to be priced at $629 to $829.

Prior to the launch, expectations were that the standard device would be priced at around $700.

Companies and/or UK retailers seem to have difficulty with fractions when pricing US goods that are sold in Britain, so do not be surprised if the $499 model retails for nearer to £499 in Britain than the £300 or so suggested by a straight exchange rate conversion.

The US pricing point is still above the sweet spot of $250 to $350 for the netbook market, but history suggests, that customers are more than happy to pay a premium for Apple products.

Not a netbook killer

It is not entirely clear, however, whether the iPad is intended to be a 'netbook' killer. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has described it as being a 'third category' device, which could be interpreted as confessing it is neither one thing (a lap-top) or another (a palm-top).

Emphasis may be far more on multi-media (music, films, Internet browsing, gaming) than on business related uses, in which case the likes of Sony and Nintendo may have more to worry about than the netbook makers, as the iPad could eat into sales of their hand-held machines, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.

Not that Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, would ever admit to such a thing. His reaction to the release of the iPad was a bit sniffy.

Itoru was quoted by Forbes magazine as saying he did not think the iPad would be a game changing device. 'It was a bigger iPod touch,' he suggested. 'There were no surprises for me,' Iwata added.

Back to the future

What did surprise some pundits, however, were some technical deficiencies inherent in the iPad design, though bearing in mind Apple's iPhone only started featuring 'cut and paste' functionality last year perhaps we should not be surprised at some aspects of Apple products still being stuck in the nineteen eighties.

The iPad is supposed to let the user 'see web pages as they are meant to be seen' but literally tens of thousands of web sites want their pages to be seen with Adobe Flash content - and the iPad does not support Flash at present.

'Without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web,' said Adrian Ludwig, a contributor to the Adobe Flash Platform blog.

'If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab - not to mention the millions of other sites on the web - I'll be out of luck,' the not entirely disinterested Ludwig added.

The iPad, like men, also has trouble multi-tasking.

Quicker than you can say 'attention deficit disorder' the average teenager is going to twig that any hopes of using the iPad to watch a film, play a game of Football Manager, stream music and bash out a few wkd msgs on an instant messenger app all at the same time is a non-starter. You can bet the kids will just "h8" that.

This may not be a deal breaker for everyone though, and if it is, it's a fairly safe bet Apple will fix it in future versions.

Buy the book

The iPad will, as anticipated, pose a serious threat to electronic book readers such as Amazon's $259 Kindle.

More importantly from Amazon's point of view, it will threaten the online retail giant's 90% share of the e-book market, because, to no one's great surprise, Apple has gone for a proprietary e-book format, meaning e-books sold on Amazon will not work on the iPad; the iPad owning bookworms will have to buy their electronic books from iTunes (and Apple will get its 30% cut of the total price).

Here's blogger Adrian Ludwig's take on Apple policy.

'It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers,' he wrote on the Adobe Flash Platform blog.

'Unlike many other e-book readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple's DRM [digital rights management] technology on devices made by other manufacturers,' Ludwig claims.

Cui bono?

Having examined who might lose out as a result of the iPad, who benefits?

Unfortunately, the identities of companies that provided outsourced technology for the Apple product are closely guarded secrets, but two British companies - ARM and Imagination Technologies - may have cause to hope for bumper sales of the iPad.

Broker Panmure Gordon has speculated that the device's system-on-chip is most probably 'ARM based, like the processor in the iPhone', while the chip 'also includes an integrated graphics engine which it is extremely likely is based on Imagination Technologies IP [intellectual property].'

Panmure reckons the iPad could shift around 4m units in 2010 and twice as many in 2011, but concedes this estimate is just 'an initial stab'.

Whether it becomes a 'stab' that wounds the likes of Amazon, ASUStek, Acer, Hewlett Packard, Dell and Sony remains to be seen.

If you build it, they will come

It could be that the iPad is a great product in search of a market, and success or failure could depend on how many software companies flock to provide apps (applications) for it.

Tablet computers have been around since the eighties - the term was coined by Microsoft when it issued a PC in 2002 that had a digital pen interface - but they have never really been a mass market product.

Apple has been on a roll for a decade or so now, and high on success it seems confident it can grow the tablet market. Alternatively, it could go the way of the Apple Newton personal digital assistant, a product that obeyed the laws of gravity and sank like a stone.

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Imagination Technologies (IMG) share price
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