Apple IPad Will Need Content as Cool as It Is: Rich Jaroslovsky

With all due respect to Steve Jobs, he chose the wrong name for Apple Inc.’s new iPad.

A far better name would be iWonder. As in, it certainly is a consumer-tech wonder. And also as in, I wonder if the content providers who may determine its success are prepared to take full advantage of it?

The half-hour or so I spent playing with the iPad at its San Francisco unveiling yesterday was much too short a time to evaluate it authoritatively. What I can say is that it’s fast, beautiful and loaded with potential.

The half-inch-thin iPad looks something like an iPod Touch on steroids. While it uses the iPhone/iPod Touch operating system -- meaning it runs just about all the 140,000 or so applications already written for those pocket-sized devices -- you can sense a little Mac DNA as well in the machined aluminum back. It feels solid and substantial in your hand -- and also, at about a pound and a half, is considerably heavier than a typical e-book reader, one of its core functions.