The challenge is over, and we’ve been so busy I’ve generally shirked my blogging duties over the last few weeks.  Change is coming- both via Steve Job’s WWDC speech coming in 15 minutes, and from us here at Dacha Works.  We’ve got a new iPad product that is going to change the way you see accessories… but more on that when it’s released later this summer!

So, what we learned during the iPad challenge:

1. The lowliest Verizon feature phone beats the iPhone 3GS for phone service, hands down. Lets hope “one more thing” is a new carrier.
2. For long-form writing on the iPad, a bluetooth keyboard definitely beats the keyboard dock. We love the dock, but the iPad just isn’t a desktop device.  At least as a vertical screen…
3. The iPad is a couch device. We predict the rise of “couch-icles” replacing cubicles in internet start-ups everywhere.
4. Numbers and Pages are actually pretty good, and multitouch was made for spreadsheets. In the past, Apple’s consumerization of PC products has sometimes led to frustratingly limited programs (iMovie, I’m lookin’ at you).  However, since we are neither accountants nor professional writers, we are SO happy to use more intuitive and simplified versions of spreadsheet and word processor apps.  There are still a couple of hiccups in figuring our the multitouch interface, and a few apparently missing tools (fonts, anyone?), but the baby was definitely not thrown out with the MS Office bathwater when making Numbers and Pages.
5. This is just the beginning, and the beginning is pretty alright. The best analogy I’ve read yet about the app-tablet v. PC divide comes not surprisingly from Steve Jobs himself.  When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were pretty much trucks.  As autos be came more for people than supplies, smaller cars became the norm, and trucks stayed around as specialized tools.  To do most things, all anyone will need is a sub-PC (not a netbook!), with apps for whatever the latest need is.  For real meat-and-potatos work, PCs will still flourish.

I find the most promising part of the iPad revolution is not the iPad itself, nor a clear future to be gleaned from its introduction.  The iPad and app-tablets in general represent a faster, more agile world of computing competition, innovation, and evolution.  Lets see where we go.