The Apple iPad will be launched in america in early April and then to other countries later in the month, but will the iPad succeed in the market? We try and answer this question in the following paragraphs.

Firstly, lets check out what the iPad is. In his keynote speech that launched the service, Steve Jobs described the iPad as a "third category device". By saying this, he was positioning the product between the iPhone and a laptop. It has to perform better than an iPhone and almost better at most of the laptop capabilities to succeed, he said.

Better at what though? Steve Jobs pointed at web browsing as a key capability. The iPad has to be spectacular at browsing the web. Well it is certainly larger than an iPhone and has the very sexy and useful capability to be rotated straight into either portrait or landscape that the iPhone has. You may also use your finger to scroll and manipulate the web pages which makes browsing very intuitive and also uncannily interactive.

Yes, there is no question that the iPad is better at web browsing than the iPhone for one very good reason. It is bigger. I tried a search on Yahoo yesterday with an iPhone. It was almost impossible because the screen was too small and the web page sadly hadn't been designed to utilize an iPhone. The size of the IPad screen makes surfing the Internet far more enjoyable and fruitful.

What about comparing it to a laptop though? You cannot move a laptop around to change the display from portrait to landscape and you can't navigate with your fingers so you need to have either the built in pointing device or a mouse. The iPad probably wins with these features, but only if you should rotate the screen image, and we have all paid many years browsing the web not wanting, or needing to. Most laptops have bigger screens too and many have higher screen resolutions than the 1024 X 768 in the iPad.

Of course a laptop is more expensive than an iPad, but what about a Net book? These are highly portable mobile devices with WiFi and 3G access that can browse the web. They also cost around the same as an iPad will. there is less clear blue water between the capabilities of the iPad and a Net book. This is where the competition for the iPad is.

Will consumers choose the iPad sufficiently appealing that they would rather buy an iPad rather than a Net book? Time will tell.