iPad FUD Ping!
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Posted on 04/07/2010 3:12:46 AM PDT by Swordmaker
I don’t get it. It costs $500 for the basic model, when you could get a laptop with a lot more functionality for about the same price. The iPad hype machine has been in full effect this week, and I still think it’s just that—hype.
As I wrote previously, nobody has ever made a commercially successful tablet computer. The iPod was not the first portable MP3 player, but it was the first that got widespread appeal for its simplicity and superior storage capacity for the cost. The iPhone was not the first smartphone, and it still faces fierce competition from rivals at Research In Motion (RIMM) (the maker of the BlackBerry), Nokia (NOK), and HTC.
While mainstream media has been ecstatic about the iPad (it made the cover of both TIME and Newsweek), it’s been blasted by tech critics. Gizmodo, one of the most popular tech websites, wrote their analysis with a succinct headline: “8 Things That Suck About the iPad.”
What is this thing?
So, why then is there so much hype? It’s not just a rhetorical question. For one, even if you are not a Mac user, everyone loves Steve Jobs. He has been a visionary in the computing industry and made computers accessible to the masses with the old Apple II. Steve Jobs also turned Apple around completely from the 1990s, a time when an old computer science professor of mine said that “Apple tried really hard to go out of business.”
That said, Steve Jobs has been wrong before. One of his earlier projects before he was ousted as the Apple CEO (and obviously before he was re-hired later) was the Apple Lisa. It was a computer built in 1983 with a graphical user interface and features now associated with a modern computer—significantly ahead of its time in 1983. Unfortunately, it was horribly expensive and ended up as a commercial flop.
The iPad could be even worse. At least the Lisa was ahead of its time. The iPad isn’t ahead of anything, but it’s certainly expensive. Tablet computers didn’t flop when HP (HPQ) was making them because HP lacked vision or creativity; they flopped because tablets were a bad idea. They’re not as useful as a laptop, and they’re not mobile enough or cheap enough to replace a smartphone—and of course, they can’t make phone calls.
In short, tablets try to fill a niche that doesn’t exist.
What I find most amusing about this is the talk that the iPad will “save the media industry.” No, it won’t. It is just another means to distribute media. If customers are not interested in watching something on a computer, they also won’t be interested in watching it on a tablet. As far as the iPad being a “Kindle Killer”, that may be so, but both Kindle and the iPad are competing against another format for books, called paper. I don’t buy the iPad hype. Analyst expectations for iPad revenue are way overblown. If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll gladly eat my words, but I’m pretty sure that I’m not wrong.
Update: Here's David Letterman's take on the iPad. Watch the whole thing; he nailed it:
Alex Cook is a graduate of the UNC and studied economics. In college, he founded Tar Heel Business, a print and internet publication focused on business and economics. Alex now writes for frontieroutlook.com. Check out that site for macroeconomic trends and investment ideas.
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Hope the iPAD works better than the 27Inch all in one that 300,000 plus customers are having screen flicker problems with
One must have a very dull life to pay $500,00 for a toy.
Go here all MAC purist:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2330035&tstart=0&messageID=11331025#11331025
And you evidence that 300,000 iMac customers are have this problem is??? The ones at my customer's workstations don't seem to be having it... and I have not seen it. So, exactly what is YOUR expertise to claim this???
Interesting. I have been reading some very negative reviews, and all I can conclude is:
There are people who are scared to death the iPad will succeed.
I don’t know why. Maybe they have stock in subnotebook manufacturers. Perhaps they have Kindles and are worried they will be displaced or rendered obsolete.
I find it puzzling, but that is the conclusion I come to. It isn’t that the product doesn’t have shortcomings, heck, no 3G out of the box is a serious one in my opinion, and it isn’t the only one.
Like Thurrott (who calls people with the opinion that the device could be transformative “tools”) I think this guy is missing the point.
I spoke with a Freeper last week who was an intelligence analyst in his former life, and you could tell that his synapses were firing with the possibilities of a device built from the ground up with a touch based interface (as opposed to a standard tablet, which is basically just a desktop computer you can carry around a bit more conveniently)
The device itself doesn’t really have any transformative powers in it. It is an evolutionary device, not revolutionary.
But the way it will be used may well be revolutionary.
The models that went on sale Saturday were not intended to have 3G... the models that have 3G will be going on sale at the end of the month. There are WIFI and WIFI/3G models available. If you wanted the one with 3G, then you had to wait for the FCC to finish the certification.
And your point is?
Sure. Which is what I have done. Just using 3G as an example.
Not me, buddy. Jobs is one of the biggest assholes ever hatched. He's a successful asshole, but still an asshole.
"...Go here all MAC purist..."
That was a REALLY strange quote coming from the author of this review. Everyone “loves” Steve Jobs???
Heck. I don’t even really LIKE Steve Jobs. But in my world, personal likes or dislikes have nothing to do with the products and services his company produces.
He isn’t even consistent...he is a supreme capitalist, but is socialist/marxist as many rich people seem to be.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect him as a capitalist and businessman. I wish he were as conservative as Rush Limbaugh...:)
Okay, let’s hear some reasons why someone SHOULD buy this thing and not a netbook or a laptop instead?
As the iPod rendered CD collections obsolete virtually overnight (a thousand songs in your pocket was the first slogan), the iPad will do the same for all the rest of the media.
The only gaffe Apple made was initially releasing the product with no 3G. They should have waited until 3G was ready as the device is essentially crippled where there is no Wi-Fi. People that rushed to buy one first will be disappointed later when people who waited are able to download media from virtually anywhere.
If the media downloads are going to be proprietary from Apple then this thing only further enslaves users to Apple it doesn't free them up.
Apple created the successful online model for music downloads and changed the face of the music industry. No one else did. They didn’t even get it at the time. You’re about to see the same with other media, any time, anyhwere. And still, no one else gets it.
It’s also a USB peripheral device, not a hub. That’s a difference that is not appreciated, yet. It’s the first out-of-the-box completely untethered device with enough screen real estate to provide some approximation of the full “internet” experience. It’s about as large as you’re going to get with a fully portable device. Combine all this with the best touchscreen interface in the industry, and there are quite a few interesting possibilities.
Say what you will about Jobs, he’s a control freak, he’s this or he’s that, but one thing he’s remained true to for his entire professional life is the philosophy that he espoused with the original Mac. He’s fundamentally subversive in favor of putting computing power in the hands of people. That does not always mean literal computing power, or peripherals, or any established construct. It can mean a disruptive, innovative application of existing technologies and networks.
There’s a Zen aspect with the man; he prefers elegance in the sense of idealized form with no excess. You’ve seen it with the then-bold move, of removing the floppy disk drive. You’re seeing the same squawking today and for the same reason. There’s nothing there with this device that does not need to be there, with the exception of 3G. I question the absence of it, but there are product rollout schedules to uphold and federal agencies move in their own time, so I suppose I understand.
Wait and see.
Nah. You could always rip your CDs and use them. Jobs lobbied the music industry for a couple of years to drop the DRM and they finally agreed so the iTunes music store was able to drop DRM quite a while back.
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