iPad is the solution to Mobile TV?

Do you remember Mobile TV? In about 2007 it was going to rule the world by 2010. It didn't, of course - the form factor of a screen the size of a matchbox did for that, never mind the in-fighting among Mobile TV standards. The iPhone, with its 2x3 screen and Applegarchy approach to the delivery stack renewed hope, but its still not really there. Cometh the iPad and all were agog - Is it a table? Is it a Netbook? An e-reader even? Is it just a Fisher-Price iPhone?

No, its a TV - LonelySandwich!

And then it hits. The iPad is for the nightstand. And for the sofa, and for the places between where you stand in line and where you sit at your desk. That’s why every iPad poster and billboard features it on a lap or a knee. They’ve stopped short of showing it on a chest in bed, but that’s where mine gets its most use.

A new thing

My chest is where I first noticed that the iPad would make the most impact on me as a Video device. You see, despite Apple clearly signalling, by orienting its logo in portrait mode, that the iPad is for holding like a book or a piece of paper, it’s meant the most to me turned to landscape mode, where its dimensions replicate the video screen I’ve known my whole life. Turned to landscape, the iPad offers me the most comfort, the most passive participation, the feeling of Home.

The following may be a bit hyperbolic, but follow me: The iPad is the world’s first truly convergent TV/computer. It’s the device that’s been promised us for years, and its time has come, in 2010, within reach of a couple generations raised on TV and one raised on the computer. Yet it is neither a TV that computes nor a computer that shows TV. It is a new thing. The new thing, in fact.

I just loved this bit of ergonomic analysis:

However, when the iPad came, I found myself watching TV shows more often on it than on my TV. My preferred experience is to obtain TV content on my Mac, use software like the brilliant Air Video to convert it on-the-fly and stream it to my iPad, and watch in bed with my headphones while my girlfriend sleeps or watches her stories. If this isn’t the most thoroughly engaging way to take in video, I don’t know what is. And funny enough, when it’s time for a communal viewing experience, we’ll put it on the good ol’ TV.

The book at bedtime (and the girlfriend) being replaced by your own personal TV experience.

So there you have it, Apple have discovered the new form factor for mobile TVs.