What the iPad means (as of this week)
It begins.
One of the fun things about a big tech rollout is watching the smart-money boys start to coalesce around What It All Means. Three sharp guys — Dan Moren, Fraser Spiers and Steven Frank — have posted think pieces on the iPad in the last few days, and they share some provocative common elements. To boil it down: The iPhone was Apple’s stalking horse for a contemplated move in the direction of a closed computing system that trades file-system access for simplicity and directness of interaction; the iPad is the company’s big bet that computing will move increasingly in that direction; the backlash against it mostly comes from geekboys, who have become the tinkerer shamans of a world in which computers have to be fiddled with before they really do what you want.
Are they right? Who knows? Most of the coverage pro and con so far has come from people who haven’t yet had the opportunity to get hands on with the thing, so there’s been little independent way to assess Apple chair Steve Jobs’ rhapsodic claims that the iPad brings a radical new tactility and intimacy to the computing experience. (And it ain’t for nothing that Jobs is the originating practitioner of the Reality Distortion Field.) But Moren, Spiers and Frank are thoughtful guys who write well about technology and its place in our lives. What they have to say is always food for thought.
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I am dead center in that Reality Distortion Field. I have no need for an iPad… but I WANT IT.
I’m not affected by RDF. I’ve built up immunity to the old man wayback when I first peered in to the window of the NeXT Computer factory in Fremont, CA so I can honestly say that the ipad is a piece of polished crap.
Let’s see here: $500 for a device that is unpowered, has no onboard camera, no memory expansion, has a large assed beizel around it and the kicker: 3G as an option for a few hundred more? Muhahahaha . . . . are you frackin’ kidding?
It’s a joke. Apple, take your FAIL! device and come back when you got something more substantial. For everyone else, buy a netbook.
Factual thing: The 3G option is $129 more.
Let me ask you something, because I’m truly curious about responses like yours: Why are you so inflamed about a device you’ve never tried? I mean, it’s a theoretical objection at this point, right? But how come? I mean, I won’t have an opinion on whether it’s a good device or a bad one until I get one in my hands– Why do you? And such a strong one at that?
Thanks for your comment.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bill, I wouldn’t be able to speak for those that already hate this gadget. I can only give you my feedback as to why I’m repulsed by this thing.
It is true that it may not be all that fair to make a judgement call based on technical information handed down from the press and various media sources but I also believe that once society comes to a certain saturation point of technology, people expect more functionalty from their devices that they plan to purchase and when a company like Apple releases a product that is blatantly designed with a limited feature set so to achieve maxium profit and satisfy its shareholders, someone as say myself will call it out and say “that’s bullshit”. I was expecting a tablet that was to nullify what the other companies already had on the market. Instead, what we got was a way scaled back version of what should have been and when the reasons become obvious as to why, it deserves all my distain and hate.
To put it in another context, its simular to one hating NASA for scraping plans to visit Mars or the Moon and pushing real healthcare reform off the table (again) and so on. You know in your heart we should have done right the first time but because the public at large doesn’t know any better, the people at the top decide to take advantage but thankfully not everyone is a fool. Certainly not me.
Really nice job distilling the controversy, made me realize why I want an iPad. Not because it breaks new gadget-ground, as juanstah makes unavoidably clear it does not. But it does break new user-ground. When the Kindle came out I thought it would be useful if it also had my calendar and instead of having to go over to my laptop to check on something I was reading I could pull it up right on the same screen.
Since watching the iPad demo I’ve caught myself saying, “wish I had my iPad” right now instead of phone or laptop. I don’t think I’m a fool for wanting something that will make my life $500 dollars worth of easier.
Yeah. I honestly don’t understand the fervor of people like the guy above — I mean, you don’t want it, don’t buy it. It’s not like Apple’s spinning a big hypno-wheel and forcing the masses to trudge like zombies to the stores and plunk down their cash. (… right?) But yeah, the issue for me isn’t what it has or doesn’t have. I mean, I don’t care that it doesn’t have a camera (it doesn’t look like the right device to do video chat), and I’m glad Apple isn’t baking in the resource-hungry, system-crashing Flash. The issue for me is the user experience. And although I won’t finally make up my mind until I can get my hands on one, I’m prepared to buy the argument of people who did get a hands-on in San Francisco: It potentially represents a new kind of approach to computing. That’s not about what it has or doesn’t have, or does or doesn’t do. It’s, as you point out, about how it does it.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bill – do you expect the iPad to replace your Kindle?
I do. Unequivocally. On Day 1. I’ve been unhappy with the Kindle, as I’ve written about here, for a lot of reasons that have to do with usability. And iBooks appears to be a big improvement. My sense just anecdotally is that there are a lot of people like me — people who find the Kindle lacking but have used it because it was more or less the only game in town. iBooks is a good example of what Apple does really, really well — take a population of people who are in a market they don’t really like much yet, along with perhaps a group of people who’ve been on the sidelines waiting for a reason to jump in, and give those people something highly functional and beautiful. That’s how they ended up owning the digital music market — not by inventing the MP3 player (they didn’t) but by making it so highly usable that mass adoption inevitably followed.
Or — Oh. Sorry. Were you saying you want to buy my Kindle? Because I think I’ve already promised it to Coates. Tell you what: Steel Cage Death Match!
In response to another comment. See in context »