So it’s finally landed, the most talked about gadget of the last year, decade, millennia even; Apple’s iPad, the most hyped invention since our ingenious early relatives made a rock round and called it the “wheel”. Web developers may bemoan it’s lack of flash (more on that later), snap-happy users the lack of a camera, and everyone who’s busier than they have any right to be the lack of multitasking, but at Mentor Digital we think that this might just change the way the world thinks about the web. The Apple iPad adds new meaning to accessibility, as all iPhone owners know it’s simply easier, faster and way less effort to check that film time or browse your hotmail through the gloriously slick interface than waste valuable time waiting for a desktop to start. Add into the mix a screen big enough to really read content or tick off the shopping list at ASOS and I simply can’t remember why I might need the desktop in the first place.

Yes the iPad just combines or mimics the functions of other technology and is still hobbled by not supporting Flash on websites* but as Stephen Fry pointed out in his Guardian blog, “iPad 1.0 is a John the Baptist preparing the way of what is to come, but… is still fantastic enough in its own right to be classed as a stunningly exciting object” I couldn’t agree more.