Apple iPad Hits The UK Today — Derek Clark Photography

The Apple iPad arrives in the UK today, but I still can't decide if I want or need one. The starting price is £429 for the 16GB Wifi only model and the most expensive is £699 for the 64GB Wifi +3G version. The later needs a sim and the average cost of that is £15 per month for 3GB (3 Network are doing 10GB for £15).

On the plus side, it would be a fantastic tool to hand to clients to view their photographs for the first time and also to use as a portfolio to gain new clients. I also like the idea of picking it up and checking email or a website without having to boot-up an operating system.

On the minus side, it's expensive. I thought that Apple's website blurb "A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price" was pretty funny! The iPad and iPhone (or iTouch) need to be able to sync all Apple and 3rd party apps with each other. I don't want to pick-up my iPhone at a meeting and then realize that the information that I'm looking for was input into my iPad. Syncing Calendars wirelessly between iPhone and iPad would be the minimum I could live with.

Apple products are well made and well thought out, and I know the iPad will be a great piece of kit and very useful. The thing that's putting me off the most, is that it might make things more complicated than they are. I get annoyed that I can't sync apps like Bento between my iPhone and PC, because it's Mac software. Adding another device might not be the answer...yet!