IPad appears to be clicking with seniors

Rita Schena, a 78-year-old retired teacher, is not the kind of person who waits in line for the release of a new tech gadget.

But there she was April 3, the day the iPad went on sale, queuing up at a Palo Alto Apple store. She had spent a short time playing with her son's iPad that morning and was instantly smitten.

"I said, 'Oh my God, I have to have one of these,' " said Schena, who lives in Menlo Park.

It's too early to get a demographic breakdown of the people who have bought the new tablet computer - more than half a million of which have been sold. But Apple's new gizmo appears to be resonating well with older adults, who see the 10-inch computer as a device that speaks to their particular needs.

Like the Nintendo Wii, which appealed to some seniors with its intuitive, gesture-based interface, the iPad is finding converts among older consumers who usually are not so-called early adopters.

Schena is a good example. The 1.5-pound computer is light enough to carry in her backpack but gives her a full-screen experience for reading books and doing e-mail. She's even started to play games on her iPad, something she's never done on computers.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/03/MNDT1D7JQP.DTL#ixzz0mssMSofK

that an older woman, I beleieve she was 100 years old, was crazy about her Ipad. She had been unable to read for several years because her vision was poor, but with Ipad she could read again.

And she was loving every minute of it.

That is so cool!

Personally, I would LOVE to see larger cell phones make a comeback...not the fold-over kind with microscopic buttons with even smaller/more cryptic writing on the buttons:)

From the hour I got to play with one, the interface is very well thought out.

I bought an iPod touch last year and it would be the coolest thing I ever owned - IF I could read the tiny words on the screen.

I have to make the letters so large I can only fit five or six words on the screen so I'm constantly scrolling back and forth across the document. Takes me forever.

I'd buy one of the 3G iPads if I hadn't spent 300 bucks on the iPod less than a year ago.

"100% accessible straight out of the box"

Totally blind person reviews Apple iPad - MacDailyNews
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/totally_blind_person_reviews_apple_ipad_100_accessible_thanks_apple/

Apple's iPad Brings Easy Reading to the Blind « Forbes.com
http://blogs.forbes.com/booked/2010/04/12/apples-ipad-brings-easy-reading-to-the-blind/

now if... mom could use this to print... what she needs to print... I'd consider one for mom for mother's day