In the few days since the announcement of the Apple iPad, the jokes have come quite easily.

From a promotion point of view, that may be good.  Some of the best ads revolve around a decent bit of hilarity about a product.

It seems women have come up with the most obvious joke, the fact the name of the Apple tablet is reminiscent of a sanitary product.  Not being a lady myself, it did take me a while to get one joke.

"Does it have wings on it?"

Last night, the penny finally dropped there.  My own missus laughed at how long it took me to get that one.

Of course, a joke I heard a few days earlier was that we could now call the iPhone an iPad NANO.

There's bound to be a few more groaners before the actual release date and we'll most likely see a few turn up in the advertising.  I'm just waiting for the first public relations person to play on the name's similarity to a sanitary product to combine BOTH in the one ad.

Even a lady friend on Twitter got into the act mentioning the possibility of an iPad Ultraslim.  Not that you could get Apple's version any slimmer than it is.

Ah, sometimes a good product lends itself to some great jokes.

The biggest joke, however, could be on Microsoft.

I read last night that the target audience for the iPad is those people who just want to do their email, some writing and presentations, watch a video or listen to some music and play some great games.  Not on a small phone, but on a decent size tablet.

And without viruses, trojans or the usual problems associated with a Windows computer.

Oh, I almost forgot.  And those who want to read a decent ebook.

It's an interesting move.  The iPad does everything we do on a normal Windows computer at a fraction of the cost.  It does it minus the usual Windows glitches. And it does it at nearly A4 size.

If Apple pulls this off right, it makes a huge step ahead for the ordinary computer user.

Up til now, tablet PCs haven't really taken off when handled by Microsoft or others.  The netbook niche has shown people do want portability in their computing.

So Steve Jobs was right in saying the tablet would have to do something better.

It does email, video, music, games better than netbooks OR normal computers.  It does things the ordinary user wants.  Very, very well.

Even if it IS an iPhone Maxi...even if it does evoke jokes about wings.

I think Apple may well be the ones having the last laugh...and it'll be on Microsoft.

And Moses proceeded to come down from the mountain with the tablet in hand...

Or in this case, Steve Jobs did.

I watched the video of the announcement and contrasted it to Steve Balmer's announcement of a slate computer a few weeks back.  I have to say I'm more impressed with Steve Jobs.

Of course, the expectations for the iPad are various.  Some are happy with it, some have been expecting something different. There are also some jokes starting, like calling the iPhone an iPad Nano...

Let's remember this is the first iteration.  The next one will obviously add more features once Steve Jobs and Apple see the reaction to it.  Let's also remember it competes more directly against the Kindle.

When it comes to that, it's already a winner.

Of course, what sets it apart in my mind is that it will have a new iWork suite of apps ready for it.  Imagine REAL word-processing, spreadsheets and presentation software, as opposed to limited rtf variants.  Add that to the iPad and you've got a great portable tool.

The medical field will see an immediate benefit to it, since references will be more easily-readable on the iPad than on the iPhone.

I'm looking at it from an artistic perspective.  I've tried drawing apps on the iPhone and that's not the iPhone's strong suit.  You can't move your finger off a line on the iPhone, else you lose exact placing.

No, an iPad makes drawing with your finger a heck of a lot easier and more precise.

While I did favor WinMobile devices for their ease of drawing with a stylus, I hated having to draw in zoom so much on the small screen space.

So the iPad is already on my shopping list.

Will I be an early adopter?  Or will I wait till version 2?

That's already decided by my family.  The partner and the nine-year-old have already decided the issue.

Early adoption by a mile.

And besides, you need someone to play with that first iteration and tell you how it's going.

End of story.

UPDATE:  It seems there's some news of the iPad requiring a micro-sim.  More on that over at www.geehall1.com