Today, Steve Jobs announced the long fabled Apple tablet.  Known as the iPad.  With years of rumors and hype leading up to today's event it was very easy to be disappointed at first with the iPad's announcement.

Sometimes you need let the news digest for a few hours so you can get a fresh perspective.  Apple is positioning itself as a mobile company, which completely makes sense.  The Apple iPad is the next step in the company's mobile strategy and it is a pretty smart play.

The iPad may fall short to an Apple Fan-Boy's lofty expectations, but Apple has developed a product that addresses several key customer segments.

Professional

For the professional that is in and out of meetings all day, the iPad is a great device.  Weighing in at 1.5lbs and only being .5 inches thick, the iPad will fit nicely in any run of the mill leather portfolio.  I think the iPad will be terrific for taking notes, checking your schedule, and responding to e-mails between meetings.

With the announced iWork apps becoming available, the iPad is really positioning itself well for this market segment.

Business Travelers

In the same manner that the iPad is great for Professionals.  The iPad takes it to another level with the option of an integrated 3G Cellular Radio.  Coming in at $30 a month for unlimited data, the iPad will be a cost effective way to maintain connectivity while on the road.  With the iPad's 10 hour battery life it will be a great device to fly with.  Even my Mac Book Pro with a brand new battery will only get 4 hours on a good day.

College Students

The tablet will take over college campuses this spring.  Again I think the big advantage with the iPad is obviously eTextBooks, but also its small size, integrated iPod, HD YouTube videos, downloadable apps, and web browsing. For the last 2 years the iPhone and iPod touch were the "it" gadgets, not any more.

Baby Boomer

Baby Boomers are a huge market segment in which the Apple iPad serves well.  The iPad is a simple appliance that you can turn on and have the internet at your finger tips.  Also, Apple's new iBookStore and iBooks app appearing on the iPad doesn't hurt either.  This segment wants something easy to use, and the iPad delivers in a far superior way when compared to a net book.

Casual Reader

Sorry Amazon, but Apple just dropped a mountain on the Kindle's road map.  Admittedly the Amazon Kindle does the eBook thing very well.  Apple's iBooks app looks like it accomplishes what the Kindle does but adds interactive content integrated to the book.  Add in all of the other things the iPad can do and makes it extremely hard for Amazon to have any value proposition in the market place.

You can argue all you want, but the iPad is going to be a game changer.  This is just the beginning, give companies a few months to generate apps for it and we'll begin to feel the magnitude of the situation.  When the iPhone's app store was launched it seemed like bit of a novelty.  3 billion app downloads and 140,000 unique apps later, you can see that notion is wrong.

The only disappointment that came from today's event didn't have anything to do with the iPad. But the lack of improvements (I5 processors) in the Mac Book Pro line up, and no new iPhone OS update.  With the Mac Book Pro update, I foresee it coming some random Tuesday in the next month or two via press release.  It isn't a big change, not warranting an event on its own.  For the iPhone OS, we'll see some innovation at WWDC in June for sure.

I already signed up on the iPad waiting list, have you?