I wanted to underline something with the launch of the new iPad today. And no, it's not Apple total lack of imagination naming all their new product i<Put your appliance here>.

Some people feel that their product should be "first to market" to get ahead of the competition. In Apple's case, they are not "first to market" but "best to market" with some of their best products of the last decade.

iPod

The first MP3 player was invented by Tomislav Uzelac of Advanced Multimedia Products in 1997, 4 years before the launch of the iPod which sold more than 240,000,000 units worldwide.

iPhone

The iPhone was not the first touchscreen mobile phone. The Nokia 7710 was the very first one with a touchscreen interface back in 2004. Once again, the iPhone was not the first on the market but it was the best for the market.

iPad

And now the iPad. It's not the first ebook reader released on the market. The most popular device is the Kindle by Amazon which was released in November 2007 and sold completely in 5 hours. In this case, Amazon is a supplier of books with its Amazon.com web platform and the Kindle was supposed to sell more ebooks from this platform. Obviously, things didn't go as planned and Apple felt the customer need to read ebooks was mature but not satisfied with current products. Hence, the iPad.

Conclusion

We could go back in time with Apple's famous Powerbook and find out it wasn't the first laptop on the market. Once again, I would bet the market was ready for laptops and Apple was capable of nailing how customers wanted to use a laptop.

But my point from these 3 cases is that it might not be that important to be first to market. You might need more time to better understand your customer and do trials with your product. The important thing, is that you don't end up being last to market.

Let me know how the iPad works for you.