Apple's iPad will kill the iPhone -- and the mobile Web

Achieving Steve Jobs' long-held dream of creating a tablet device as cool and useful as the one we've seen for years on science fiction shows now appears to be a dream realized, in the form of the iPad.

Ironically, the iPad makes the iPhone -- Apple's game-changing technology of 2007, whose impact still reverberates through the wireless, mobile, and computing industries -- obsolete. And as the iPhone fades away as a short-lived marvel, so too will disappear the mobile Web. Think about it: The iPad does all the neat stuff of the iPhone (OK, except for the camera), and it does so with a big screen that allows even richer applications and more compelling media experiences. It also works as a laptop replacement for the kind of basic work we do most of the time when we're on the road: working with email, Web pages, and Web forms; creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations; catching up on our reading; and handling work tasks like order entry that today's iPhone apps only hint at.