So, yesterday the inevitable happened. We all knew that it was going to happen sooner or later, and yesterday it did. Apple have announced thier latest device, the so called Apple iPad was revealed.

Billed as the device that’s better than netbooks, yet not as powerful as a full notebook – the Apple iPad has a 9.7 inch capacitive display, and runs on version 2.4 of the iPhone Operating System.

So, what do I think about this new “magical device” (as Steve Jobs put it)?

Well, my take is twofold.

On the one hand, the Apple iPad is everything that Apple want it to be, a great handheld device, that is not only capable of consuming media through its onboard ability to handle music and HD video through iTunes, and its position as a truely first rate internet browsing device – but is also capable of creating content, through the new iWork suite of applications, which promise to turn the iPad into a multi-purpose device, rather than the one-trick pony it may appear.

However, that’s exactly my problem with this device. To me, it feels like a half hearted attempt by Apple to create yet another device that people feel the “need” to own. In reality, what actually is it? It runs the iPhone Operating System, which yes, has its perks – for example the ability to run each and every current iPhone application currently in the App Store – however with the Operating System comes the problem.

The iPhone software is notoriously limited in what it can do, for example – it can’t multitask (at least, Apple cripple it to be so), and that’s the real kicker here. Apple have given the iPad a 1GHz processor, which is, again in el Steves words, “screamingly” fast – so why insist on holding the device back?

I think a lot of people will be dissapointed with the device in the sense that it doesn’t live up to the hype, but the fact of the matter is that NO device could live up to the hype which the iPad achieved before launch. I think the truth of it is that I, like many others, were hoping for a device that ran a REAL operating system, and could do the things that I’d been hoping for – think MacBook sans keyboard and plus touch amd you’re getting there.

Rather than buying an Apple iPad, I’d rather be buying a tablet from these guys: http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook