Apple has announced its new iPad tablet computer, marking the dawn of a new kind of device that bridges the gap between phone and laptop. Last November I wrote about the possibilities of this device for the print world over at Big Hollywood. In short, the potential is there to revolutionize the way we read print, from newspapers, books, magazines and comics?

The cost of paper, shipping and distribution are a problem for publishers. So is making their products easily available to consumers. Stores only have limited space and money to carry books. The internet has been a great boon in that regard in terms of sales, but reading on a computer screen can be an unappealing prospect to most people. The iPad is designed to change all that: a hand-held, touch-screen device that is high resolution and extremely light (about a pound and 1/2). It’s not only lighter than a book, you can carry hundreds of books and magazines in it and read them anywhere you’d take a book.

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The print business is salivating over this device, seeing it as a platform that will do for print that iTunes did for music. Except iTunes has sold a lot of songs, but it has also impacted the music business in ways few could have foreseen. Industry insiders think it destroyed the album as people started buying songs separately.  Moving their content to digital it could have similar effects on publishers and the press, but the fact is, times are changing and print has gotten very expensive.

By taking away warehousing, shipping and printing costs, a publisher can see greater profit as well as passing this along to the consumer in lower prices. The downside is it can affect retailers and distributors. In the music business, the record store is a dying breed. The same can happen to book and comics stores.  But times change.

The iPad isn’t without its faults. The big one is a lack of multitasking. You can only use it for one thing at a time. It has no USB connection, leaving out a lot of useful devices it could connect to. It has no VoIP capability, so no free calls over the internet (they don’t want to hurt their iPhone business). But it is internet-capable. And unlike the iPhone, it isn’t locked into one provider.

Apple should clean up in the first year or so, but competitors won’t take too long to come out with their versions. Microsoft has been trying to sell tablet computers since 2000. They are bound to do something along the iPad’s lines now. And unlike Apple, which uses a proprietary operating system (OS), others will likely turn to something like Google’s Android or Chrome OS to run a competing tablet. The costs will also come down, while the memory will go way up. Right now you can only get it up to 64 GB, which is decent but rather small in today’s terrabyte world.

Like the early iPod, expect this first one to be crude in comparison those that follow. And a lot more expensive. But they’re off to a great start.

The print world is embracing e-readers. They are the future, and they will come in many forms. The iPad is basically a large iPhone. Which is where computers are headed. Soon your phone and computer will be one and the same thing. We’re watching it all converge before our eyes.