New Ways to Consume Media

There are at least 4 areas where the iPad shows its value compared with the iPhone and other smart phones. First, it serves as a color e-reader. Apple has opened its own iBook store, but you can also get iPad apps that allow you to transfer e-books from Amazon's Kindle store onto the iPad. This make a big difference since Amazon currently has a lot more titles available. Amazingly, the Kindle app will even sync the last page read among various devices on a single account, like switching between a Kindle Reader, a BlackBerry, a PC and an iPad.

The second big advantage for the iPad is video. Watching videos, TV shows and movies has been possible with the iPhone, but not very practical. The tiny screen makes it difficult to watch long-form video for all but the most hard core fans. The 9-inch screen on the iPad solves this. It's still a relatively small screen, but we're talking about portable DVD player small, not cell phone screen small. Plus, even standard definition source material looks very good, with really excellent quality for high definition content.