While the iPad clearly has the potential to help drive online video and ebook markets, Screen Digest believes that the launch of the iPad signals the Cupertino company's attempt to redefine consumer computing. The iPad inhabits a new product category, while the device itself incorporates both new and old aspects. The form factor and interface are new - thinner than a laptop or netbook, a touchscreen rather than a mouse or stylus, an application-driven navigation system (like the iPhone) in place of a file system (like a desktop computer). But the tablets have been tried before with devices in similar guises from manufacturers including HP, Fujitsu, Samsung, and backed by software developers including Microsoft. Historically, tablets have failed to gain consumer traction. However, these were thicker, like conventional laptops, required a stylus and borrowed their UI conventions from traditional computing; they were often aimed at more specialist computer use cases than the consumer-facing iPad.

The iPad's interface and hardware-plus-software integrated environment, which make it easy and convenient to perform basic tasks and consume media, might appeal most to a less tech-savvy audience with little or no experience of Apple products or computing. Nonetheless, it is this portion which is least likely to understand the device's uses. Whether or not in the longer term the Cupertino company can successfully market these benefits to this portion of the population to persuade them to invest in the iPad over rival devices, remains to be seen.

Marketing the iPad to the mass market may prove more problematic for Apple than some of its recent devices. Unlike the first iPod, released in 2001, the iPad has no dominant selling point or use case (e.g. "a 1,000 songs in your pocket"). Consumers are still familiarizing themselves with what exactly the iPad can be used for. Ironically the lack of a single, easily definable use case for the device, beyond web browsing and media consumption, is due to the fact the device is far more broadly capable than the early iPod.

That said, the strong early sales results suggest that interest in the iPad may in fact already have spread beyond the tech-literate, and that prospects for the iPad look promising. A key driver to these initial sales is the halo effect of highly successful iPhone, iPod and Mac products in the market. The coming months will shed light on the iPad's performance against rivals such as Kindle ebook reader, owned by "millions" of consumers according to Amazon. The high-end version of the e-reader (Kindle DX) closely matches the entry level iPad on price, at $489. As for iPad sales in the longer term, if the pattern seen in music sales through the iTunes Store or in the first-gen iPhone sales is repeated, Screen Digest expects sales to build gradually over the coming months and quarters after the initial flurry of purchases.