Normal Human Being™ reviews the iPad

The Register ^ | 6th April 2010 | Rik Myslewski

[Wooly]

The iPad has inspired yet another high-powered business type to make a mobile-device purchase. Of a netbook.

As you may have heard, Apple's iPad went on sale last Saturday in the US. Since - and even before - that momentous event, boundless bloviatory bytes dissecting Cupertino's "magical and revolutionary" device have engorged the interwebs, with pundits and pundit-wannabes weighing in with both pros and cons (but mostly pros).

Over at The New York Times, however, David Pogue made the reasonable observation that while a tech type might see the iPad one way, a Normal Human Being™ might look past its lack of Flash support, lack of multitasking, lack of a removable battery, lack of a camera, lack of standard USB ports, lack of an SD card slot, and any other lack you might want to mention.

[Wooly]

I thought that this was a really good review by the author who realized that his opinion was jaded due to his area of reporting. The iPad is still just a flashy toy in the real world and for way less money you can get a REAL Computer (netbook), running a REAL COMPUTER CPU running at 1.66 GHZ instead of a phone processor, with 250 GIGs of storage instead of a max of 64 GIGs, up to 2 GIGs of RAM instead of 256MB, USB ports, a keyboard, camera, removable battery with 14 hours of time, a card reader and you can run real business software that is the same as the ones on your office computer.. The ipad is a toy for surfing the internet and a gimmick to keep Apple in the news.

[Travis McGee]

I think it will win or fail based soley on what teenagers and twenty-somethings think.

If they take to it, it will be the future. If not, it won’t.

Tech analysis of its attributes won’t matter compared to their cultural affinity for the Ipad or lack thereof.

[Izzy Dunne]

Once again, somebody faults the iPad for not being something that it's not trying to be.

It's NOT a netbook computer!

It's an appliance.

Business types are not the market they're going for.

The same stuff was said about the iMac (no floppy drive? but I can't ...), the iPod, the iPhone.

[scoobysnak71]

[Wooly]

It is not an appliance it is the bastard child of a Gameboy and an Internet connection in a shiny case with an Apple logo on it.
As such it really has no market niche and like many of these devices will disappear into history.

[DB]

It still sounds like a feminine product to me...

[norraad]

There great metaphorical depth to what you say, the actual reality of the level of sophistication matters not.

It's what the larger numbers of monkeys with cash desire.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Love my iPhone. The iPad’s stupid.

[Rammer]

And the Newton.

Oh wait...

[Slings and Arrows]

[ConservativeWarrior]

Let’s just cut to the chase here.

What everyone really wants to know is:

Is the iPad worthy of being gifted to heads of other major nations?

[RC2]

It may disappear in time but Apple has sold close to a million of them. When it does disappear, I’m sure Apple will follow up with something else. In fact, I would bet that something is in the works as we speak.

[EyeGuy]

“It’s what the larger numbers of monkeys with cash desire.”

####

Never underestimate the power of “cool”.

For a long time, Apple has been playing that shiny but vacuous angle, with many of its often overrated devices.

[youturn]

I love my Acer Aspire netbook. Slips conveniently into my purse.

[Vision Thing]

This article is quite a critique, not because it’s written by a techguy, but because a techguy has documented the reactions of someone who represents the iPad’s target market. And these reactions were bad.

[Wooly]

I actually thought that the article would be a good answer to those people out there who are now, thanks to Apple's iPad release, looking into getting a netbook. I know that I have had several people approach me about what I think of them, and I tell them that if they are wanting something to use in the classroom or for business travel to skip the iPad and go with a netbook computer.
Most of these people think that the iPad is a fully functional netbook, when it is really just the guts of an iPhone in a larger more expensive case. Add to this to the fact that there have been security issues with the iPhone OS and this product makes no sense for a person needing a real computer.

[scoobysnak71]

>”Is the iPad worthy of being gifted to heads of other major nations?”

Do the English like DVD sets?

[70th Division]

Is this the next 8 track?

[norraad]

That’s about all it is good for.

[Wooly]

I would not say that this is the next 8 track, but I will go as far as to tell you that if you want an iPad, that in a couple of months there will be a bunch of them on Craigslist and EBay, due to buyers remorse and misunderstanding of what it is, at very low prices.