On iPad and Business Opportunity

Like it or not - iPad is there to be unleashed on the consumer in less than 60 days.

Will it outsell its older diminutive cousins? Probably not. Will it sell in quantities? Likely so. Which leaves me wondering what kind of business opportunity lies behind the polish and gloss of Apple's latest brainchild.

iPad has a modestly good screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and sports a screaming-fast browser. All that makes it a good candidate for running web applications. While "native" apps will definitely run better and look nicer on the tablet, the web applications on iPad should be quite usable as compared to the experience on other mobile i devices.

Now imagine you have a web application...

All of a sudden your user base might expand into the segments you'd never thought of as your "customers". Those people are likely going to be less computer-savvy than you might imagine. Yet iPad will make it ridiculously easy for them to access your web application.

The moral? If you are a web application... Look good at 1024 x 768. Be utterly intuitive - no iPad user is going to read the manual.