By Jeffrey the Barak

The most polarizing computing device ever sold is spreading across the United States.

Long-time professional hardware reviewers have all published their opinions for and against  the wisdom of buying one, now, later or never. Some say it’s a giant iPod Touch, (as if that were a bad thing), others say it’s the most important breakthrough in personal computing for the masses.

The importance of this device is great, or small, depending on your personal point of view. A tablet computer is not new, the interface of the iPad is not completely new, and the concept of the device is not new, but it is here, it is enjoyable to use, and it is very useful.

Looking beyond this device, it is clear that in general there is a huge demand for a device that has the following qualities:

• Affordable
• Connected
• Easy to use
• Useful
• Enjoyable

Forgetting current issues such as Flash versus HTML, Apple versus Google (I love them both), Google Docs versus Microsoft Office, computer operating systems versus mobile device operating systems etc.,  The demand of the consumers will win out, as it always does, and the inventors and manufacturers will fill the niches.

One of the more promising roads to computers for all is the Google Chrome operating system, designed to fulfill the needs of the average person, offered at zero cost, and designed to run on low cost “Netbooks”. Plenty of money will be spent on high-speed Internet access, the Netbooks and their accessories, and on goods and services advertised on Google, to make it all worthwhile for Google to give us this system at no cost.

Clearly, the usual standard traditional option will remain for anyone with the money to get a full computer, PC, Mac, whatever, and run heavier applications to make music, movies etc., and to manage business. But once millions of adults and kids begin to use Netbooks, with Google Chrome or another OS, or iPads, the technical world will change as much as it did when everyone got a mobile telephone.

The Apple iPad is a hurdle and a challenge to Google’s plan for global domination via Chrome, because the iPad has such a beautiful design ethic as compared to any Netbook that exists today. Sure we may prefer to type on a keyboard and have the illusion of multitasking, but who really prefers plastic and fuzzy graphics to the chrome and special magic glass touch screen that is on the iPad? People may choose less functionality and go with iPad simply because of it’s beauty.

I think that Netbooks would have become much more widespread if they did not run Windows. Even the simplified version of Windows 7 that ships with most Netbooks today is pretty horrible and slow and well down a dark road of bad design. In this pre-Chrome era, the only alternative to Windows is a flavor package of Linux, but regular folks who are not computer enthusiasts tend to have no end of little problems with Linux, because it’s never really completely finished and tested. For success, a normal idiot needs to be able to get anything done, and that’s why the iPad is so brilliant.

Personally, to do any considerable amount of work, in comfort, I need a desk, and a large monitor with sharp graphics. I am very comfortable with my 27” iMac, but less so with my 13” Macbook.

For many years I was a Palm computing enthusiast, even before they became telephones. I upgraded and flipped my way though Palm (or Handspring) devices right up to the TX, then my eyesight became inadequate to really enjoy the size. Had my wife not bought me an iPhone, I might still be eschewing small devices, but with a good pair of glasses I can enjoy the excellent design of the iconic iPhone.

Today’s iPad has all the appeal of those Palm Pilots, plus the appeal of a paper based personal organizer, plus the power of an Apple computer plus more that we never dreamed of ten years ago.

Of course, a connection is required, but we can count on that becoming normal everywhere in the future. The point is, no matter what pros and cons the iPad and the Netbooks give us, it’s inevitable that millions of people around the world will have something that is greater than a smartphone, and not as great as a laptop. You can bet on it.

Every student in every school will have some device, just as they all have calculators today. Nothing will stop it.

Going back in time fifteen years to before the Palm era, our paper based systems were as heavy as, and much thicker than iPads. But they would not give us movies, games and other forms of entertainment. The entertainment factor is very important and many an iPad buyer will never do an ounce of real work on his or her iPad, but the entertainment is a distraction from the real importance of the format. Anything that makes computing an extension of our fingertips is world changing tool.

Like it or hate it, this is the iPad era, and soon it will also be the Chrome era. And as the Internet and Wi-Fi spread, more people in the world will be joining our world.

Jeffrey the Barak is not carrying a penguin