Bad Name, Bad Product?

Today Apple unveiled the horribly named iPad to the waiting arms of the Internet. Now once we move away from the "sounds like a maxi pad" jokes (yes finally, iTampon is a trending topic on twitter) we can begin to see what this new Jesus device will mean to the gaming world as a whole. Both to the game companies, the game developers and, perhaps most importantly, the gamers.

I'm not one to talk about specs because I didn't waste six years of my life getting a political science degree so become an expert on fancy computer words so lets talk about the looks and the possibilities. As was expected its basically a big iPhone, it looks like a big iPhone, it comes with pretty much the same built in features (except no camera on and phone so really its a big iPod Touch) and can run all the apps that are currently available. It can also be catalogued as half a laptop but that's not exactly true.

Because it can run any app it already has a huge library of games before its even launched. More games can, of course, be downloaded at a price that is way cheaper then other handhelds. The drawback? well like its smaller cousin it has to buttons. The iPhone can work its way around that with screen joysticks and other nonsense but the iPad is bigger and will be more clumsy when it comes to playing games in this manner. Games in which you tilt the screen or slide shit across shouldn't be such a big problem, just a matter of getting used to the device's bigger real estate.

The iPad can play games with the screen size the size of an iPhone or the screen can expand to cover the whole iPad screen. How in the hell one plays a joystick game with the small screen centered on the tablet is beyond me. There's also the issue of the games themselves, their small price and indie nature usually mean that graphically they're not the greatest. The iPhone has its limitations game wise and bringing those to a bigger screen will make them, well, bigger. Not to say that indie equals bad, on the contrary indie usually equals innovation, but does the absence of actual legit developers demerit the system? does it demerit the industry? it might. But then again graphical improvements and all that hoopla should be the domain of Microsoft and Sony.

As a handheld console it doesn't pose much of a threat to the DS and PSP. Why? because the iPod touch and iPhone already do that. The tablet will be a sort of middle ground between the handhelds and the home consoles, not quite fitting into either category. Think of it as a Virtual Boy without its doomed limitations. Yes it will eat its share of the market but its not an alternative to any of the handhelds, its a lot more and it appeals to a completely different crowd. This isn't something some dude will get for their nine year old to keep him quiet during car rides, this'll be something that dude will buy for himself for other reasons and use it for gaming only because it has the feature.

What about the device as a substitute for everything else. FUCK! think about reading a book, a magazine, a comic on it. Think about watching TV, a movie, surfing the web. When the iPhone came out it was the greatest thing ever (it still is) because you can do all the above stuff on a device that fits in your pocket. Now take the iPhone and make it bigger and suddenly watching movies and reading your rss feeds dont require you to squint at a small screen anymore. But it also no longer fits in your pocket so dragging it around with you is a real commitment.

So whats the verdict? I have no fucking clue. I havent seen it, I havent used it. I've read great reviews but also feel its not exactly groundbreaking, astounding or necessary. The miracle was the iPhone so this is mainly a beefed up version of the miracle. It also doesn't fix the iPhone's biggest problem: multitasking. This might be its downfall. It's not a motherbox, its not war machine designed to guide missiles into enemy territory (though I'm sure therell be an app for that) what it is is a piece of nerd porn, a status symbol which screams you're either part of the it crowd or you just drank the kool aid. It's a non entity which doesn't belong to any category but doesn't fill any need.