I have to stress that I'm writing this as I see the news come in about the iPad. Some of the things I might comment on may be due to the fact that I haven't researched enough. I'm really impressed by the iPad, disappointed also...and a bit surprised. I'll start with the disappointment. Adobe Flash. It's evident Apple's out to make sure that Flash isn't part of their platforms these days. Regardless of what sort of processor this thing has, it could, I speculate, handle Flash easily.

Surprise? No forward facing camera (oh, and no multitasking). I was sure a camera was a certainty. Why? Well this thing is going to be an absolute gem for the education sector, and a forward facing camera would make a superb device to give to kids to go off and hold video conferences...or heck, call back to the teacher whilst they are out and about surveying students in school, etc. I could have even seen myself telling my folks to ditch their Mac mini in favour of an iPad, but not now. The second surprise...where does this leave apps versus applications? I'll expand on this a bit more later.

The good news is that it looks amazing...and Apple have yet again shown that when the produce a product they think of it holistically...the whole concept for them isn't just the iPad, but everything that surrounds it...how to buy music, how to buy books, how to view them just looks amazing...and the fact that they have tied them back into the iPhone OS is clever. Just watch how beautiful the user interface is in the Apple videos on the product.....absolutely stunning.

Someone's not doing their maths right!! Or if it was someone in the States that did this...they're not doing their 'math' right!

In this news item....http://www.nzmac.com/news/apple/apple-introduces-ilife-09.html, site user Whitty and I have been having a chat. I confess I didn't really think much of the issue of price until I went and did some hunting around about previous versions of iLife and iWork and the exchange rate at the time....so well done Whitty. I knew that times are tough, but Apple's not playing fair.

August 07
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US Price for iLife '08 and iWork'08 is $79 each
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/07ilife08.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/07iwork08.html

At the time, $1 NZD = $0.7608157438 USD (thanks to http://www.xe.com). That works out at $103.84 NZD based on the exchange rate at the time.

The items go on sale at the time for $109 NZ...so a reasonable conversion

http://www.apple.com/nz/pr/library/2007/08/07ilife08.html
http://www.apple.com/nz/pr/library/2007/08/07iwork08.html

January 09
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US once again get either bundle of apps for $79 USD....
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06ilife.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06iwork.html

Today, $1 NZD = $0.595880 USD.

That works out at $132.58 NZD for the product at today's exchange rate.