I admit it. I decided to buy that darn Apple tablet before I even knew what it was priced at.  I’m as susceptible to Apple’s marketing tactics as the next guy.  But am I the ideal audience for this class of personal hardware?  As a software developer? As a business person?  Not really.

From what I can tell right now, the Apple iPad is the perfect device for those who have lighter computing needs, or will serve as a companion device that covers the majority of your needs outside of the office -- books, magazines, movies, music, email, web surfing, and games. It is a great lifestyle device and Steve Jobs’ pricing strategy makes it clear he wants this to be a device for everyone. The possible competing hardware has a narrower audience. Netbooks for instance, I see more as an economical and light laptop alternative for students and business travelers who need to run PC software. The Kindle and other eReaders are uni-taskers.  No, the iPad is in its own class right now. Finally, we have a device for the glossy, full page, magazine style ad experience. We don’t expect advertisers will want to run simple banners here.

Crisp Wireless has been anticipating new classes of devices -- and their new audiences -- as part of our product planning initiatives for Rich Media Ad Unit technology.  Our innovative ad unit design concepts and ad rendering scripts work great on Android, iPhone and many other devices.  And we’ve done this work to date to fit within the CPU constraints and screen limitations of these smaller super-smart phone devices.