The newest member of Apple’s product lineup, the iPad has been recently introduced. It has a hard road ahead of it, needing to pave it’s own market niche.

Steve Jobs, upon introducing the iPad, spent a considerable amount of time trying to justify the its existence, explaining how it fits in between the laptop and the smartphone. He made sure to distinguish how the iPad is not in competition with Netbooks, the previous product existing in this segment.

However, the niche the iPad is trying to squeeze into is gradually closing itself. As technology advances, laptops are becoming more portable. As technology advances, smartphones are becoming more powerful. The need for and function of  the iPad is already questionable and becoming ever more superfluous.

Though the iPad’s redundancy is evident, I’m confident that if not in it’s current form, it will eventually succeed. The speed of Apple’s product upgrades, and the genius of it’s marketing will in time produce an iPad far more convincing of the public’s hard earned cash. Aesthetics and simplicity seem to win over, and create fans out of, many Apple-goers; the iPad will be no exception. The stumble out of the gates caused by awkward naming and schizophrenic positioning will find redemption.