A week after the iPad Keynote I would like to share with you few thoughts about it. I followed the presentation on Twitter. First time ever I followed a live event on it. Well all other media were pretty saturated, and I guess it was the best option to get a real time feedback on how people felt about the Apple new gold mine.

But it became quickly pretty clear that the main feature of the iPad will be its price. And this is very paradoxical coming from Apple. Remember the iPhone keynote ? Who would have care about the price ?

So what has changed in 2 years ?

We do expect more and more from those keynote. Apple and Steve Jobs were genius to keep all secret in the previous one, and it’s worked. During the iPhone’s keynote everybody was amazed. But now we expect not only something special, we expect something that will let us speechless. It clearly wasn’t the case last week. Expectations have grown and Apple should take it into account in its communication.

Price, Price, Price. I can not even imagine the people reactions if the iPad would have go on sales for a 1000$ as it was rumoured. The tablet does not embed what apple fans and late adopters seek. No iSight, No connectors, No Multitask. etc. etc. As a result Pricing became soon the main interest. Again expectations have grown.
But wait a minute…Is it that bad ? No of course no. The design is still fantastic, the screen seems to be very good and of communication seems also ok. So why to be so unfair about the Tablet ?

Simply because Apple isn’t the only one anymore to propose well designed phones or computers. Competition is harder and everywhere. Companies like Nokia are now delivering the Booklet 3G for 575 Euros. The Nexus One phone on sales for 500$. And I bet we will soon see more and more “Apple killer” products. Consumer now have some alternative to get a well designed and efficient product for a good price.

Despite all this, Apple still has its fans. The early fan and older. And I guess no other brand has been able to create such a fan community and has been able to keep it over the time. My best advice to Apple : Keep your fan happy ! Keep me happy !!!