Much has been written about how the iPad is a great device for media or content consumption but terrible for content creation.

Of course you have the diehard Apple fans who consider it a heresy if you say anything negative about an Apple product, even if it's true.

I've had many online debates with such people who insist that the iPad is great for content creation. I have only one thing to say. Those people don't create content for a living. I do.

For the record, when I say ‘content creation’ I don't mean tweeting or posting a simple blog posting. I'm talking about writing long articles or editing images, audio and video. Try doing that on an iPad.

It's not just hard because there's nNONEo physical keyboard (you can buy an external keyboard though it's kind of smallish compared to a laptop keyboard) but you can't multitask by opening multiple windows. There's no USB port for you to transfer files easily. Even Google Docs doesn't work properly on an iPad.

Bottom line: It's a terrible device for content creation, tweeting notwithstanding. But I've just bought an iPad through a contact in Australia who was visiting Malaysia.

Why did I get it? Because besides being a content creator, I'm also a content consumer and the iPad  is great for that.

It is true that the iPad is something that needs to be seen, touched and experienced to be fully appreciated. Anyone who has played with an iPad would be floored by how elegant it is.

As a companion to the laptop - something to complement it, not replace it - it's far superior to the Netbook, which has been all the rage over the past two years or so.

Yes, I do believe it will hasten the demise of the Netbook, which is a neither-here-nor-there product. I bought a Netbook when it first appeared in the market and I quickly sold it.

As a content creation device, it's a tad better than the iPad - it has a keyboard, it has USB ports, it allows for multitasking and so on. But it's just too tiny on which to do serious content creation.

As a content consumption device it's handy but that's about all it has over the laptop, which has superior speakers, superior graphics cards and a superior processor, amongst other things.

So, what do you have in a Netbook? A device that's not very good for content creation and not very good for content consumption. That's what I mean by a neither-here-nor-there device.

Good and bad points

At least with the iPad, the strategic decision has been made to make it an insanely great content consumption device.

Unlike  the Netbook which is really just a miniature laptop, the iPad is very light and thin. Battery life for an iPhone might be terrible (my friends tell me when they are on 3G, their iPhones can only last them half a day), the battery life on an iPad is impressive, lasting easily eight to 10 hours.

Because the iPad's operating system is derived from the iPhone OS, it turns on instantly. There is no boot-up time.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having this kind of OS.

All programmes (or apps as they are popularly referred to) take up the entire screen and, as mentioned earlier, you cannot open multiple windows.

This might sound restrictive but from a usability standpoint, it actually makes the product more user-friendly for those not tech savvy.

In other words, the iPad - not the Mac - is truly the computer for the rest of us (or if you're a tech-savvy person, for the rest of them).

I'm talking about aunties and grannies and very small children. I have a friend whose five-year-old daughter uses his iPad to look for funny videos on YouTube.

But the iPad is by no means a device that geeks despise. Show me one geek who wouldn't like to own one. They're all dying to get their hands on an iPad.

That's the brilliance of Apple and  Steve Jobs. They are able to make devices that every day people and uber-geeks alike would like to own and use.

There are downsides to the iPad even as a consumption device. Apple has a proprietary culture and the only apps that work on the iPad are those approved by Apple and made available through its App Store.

Of course you can ‘jailbreak’ your iPad just like how many people jailbreak their iPhones, allowing their devices to use apps not downloaded through the App Store. But when you do so, you completely break the warranty.

And it's a risky thing to do. What if you install an unauthorised app that somehow messes up your iPad? Still, many people do it, which goes to show how unpopular Apple's proprietary approach is.

What can I say? Apple is Apple. It can get away with doing unpopular things because it makes products that are too elegant, too sexy, too cool to resist. I know, because I couldn't resist it.

OON YEOH's new social media book 'Like Me, Follow Me' is published by MPH. You can connect with him via Facebook and Twitter.