Thousands of Americans queued to be the first to get their hands on the touch-screen machine, which is set to revolutionise the mobile computer market.
Like Apple’s iPhone, users download software for the machine through an online applications store. Cobra Mobile – based in Dundee – has seen games it developed for the iPhone downloaded millions of times from the online store.
Yesterday they launched three new games in time for the iPad’s release, with their managing director Mark Ettle saying they “saw it as a fantastic opportunity”.
Mr Ettle said: “As soon as the iPad was announced we saw it as a fantastic opportunity. Other developers were a bit hesitant, but we saw it as a fantastic new platform.
“Whether you’re browsing the web, playing a game or working on a document, the experience is so much richer and so much better. It’s like going from a 14-inch black and white TV to a 50-inch plasma.”
The iPad, which is expected to come to stores in Britain at the end of this month, has a 9.7-inch screen, wireless internet and weighs just 680 grams.
Unlike traditional laptops it has no keyboard, with a touch screen taking its place. It is expected to sell in the millions.
Cobra Mobile has spent months developing three games designed to take advantage of the machine’s features.
Low Grav Racer 2 is an action game, where you steer by moving the computer. Numba is a number puzzle game and Pukk is a two-player game, which would not have been possible on the smaller iPhone.
“One of our games for the iPhone, iBomber, was downloaded more than two million times so we hope these titles will also be a success,” said Mr Ettle.
“We’re confident the iPad will take off around the world, which seems like a pretty sure thing. It’s a case of keeping our fingers crossed and seeing what revenue we generate.”
Cobra Mobile, which was established in 2005 and has just 11 members of staff, is also busy preparing a suite of other games for the iPad.
Eager customers intent on being among the first owners of Apple’s iPad, some from as far away as Europe, queued across the US to buy the newly-released tablet computer this weekend.
They seemed willing to buy first – and discover uses for the iPad later, in a scenario reminiscent of the excitement surrounding the 2007 launch of the first iPhone.
The difference is that people knew then that the iPhone would replace their existing mobile phone and the appliance has become a must-have for everyone from geeks to stay-at-home mums.
With the iPad, which fits somewhere between phone and computer, Apple must convince people who already have smartphones, laptops, ebook readers, set-top boxes and home broadband connections that they need another device that serves many of the same purposes.
Many of the earliest iPad buyers say they will have a better idea of what they will use it for only after they have had it for a while.
Beth Goza, who has had iPhones and other smartphones, along with a MacBook Air laptop, believed the iPad has a place in her digital line-up, likening it to a professional tennis player owning different shoes for grass, clay and concrete courts.
“At the end of the day, you can get by with one or the other,” she said outside an Apple store in University Village mall in Seattle, Washington.
She said she was already dreaming up specific uses for her iPad, such as knitting applications to help her keep track of her place in a complicated pattern.
The iPad is essentially a much larger version of Apple’s popular iPhone, without the calling capabilities. Just a half-inch thick, the device has a touchscreen that measures 9.7 inches on the diagonal – nearly three times the iPhone’s. Also, like the iPhone, it has no physical keyboard.
Source:http://business.scotsman.com/news/It39s-touch-and-all-go.6203226.jp
