Apple has, at its customary late January announcement, finally brought out the rumour of iPad’s looks, from the videos and photos that I’ve seen, like a very large iPhone. Apple shares soared as a result and most probably they will have yet another winner, because Steve Jobs, does not seem to have many losers. This is the man that founded Apple, then got the boot and went off and founded Pixar, which had such stunning success with animated movies, and went back to Apple when it was a complete flop and has brought the company back from the dead to a roaring success.

One would have to be foolhardy to bet against the iPad although I do notice that already they have said that announcements about international features and sales will only be made in June, so one wonders firstly whether South Africa will be getting it at all, in terms of being supplied on a 3G network, for Internet features and if so, whether it will be before the end of this year. That is not to say that you could not go ahead and buy one now, and use only the Wi-Fi features but with Wi-Fi being somewhat poor in South Africa, it really would not be impressive to show off Internet surfing only in your own house or office on your own Wi-Fi network. To have the real social desirability factor that one searches for in these devices, you need to be able to show it off in areas where there is no Wi-Fi as well.