Social levelling with the iPad

People with Fords wish they had BMWs; people with BMWs wish they had Porsches, and people with Porsches wish they had Ferraris.

Social class is alive, well and flourishing with cars, and also with clothes, with wrist watches, with holiday destinations, with all sorts of toys - but not with iPads.

If you can afford the iPad then you have one of the most desirable computing devices on the planet and are the equal of anybody else with one, whether they ride a bike, drive a Merc or Ferrari, or even fly a private jet.

Apple's sexy slab is the great equaliser, enabling a geek from Croydon to have a sensible and mutually respectful conversation with a billionaire from Vail. The iPad is a great leveller.

What other uber-desirable toy is so ridiculously classless and so affordable as the iPad? Of course it won't last, this commonality between billionaires, millionaires and salary drones, once the iPad becomes massively widespread and competing devices hit the streets.

But it will remain, like the BMW Mini and the original British Leyland Mini, a classless device.

That's a great design trick to pull off Mr Jobs, kind of a core thing for Apple you might say. ®