Apple iPad

[Americano]

I don't know if anyone else has been following the saga of Apple's latest product roll out, the tablet iPad, but it looks like a major flop. Including a look-see about a question of false advertising regarding no flash capability. It's looking like an expensive dog for all but blind followers of Apple. They are as devoted to Apple as any Baptist is to Jesus.

This funny and very well done video explains the problems and disappointments:

Hitler on Apple (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4&feature=player_embedded)

[Americano]

Here's another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lui0-4IW64&NR=1

[Margot]

I'd never trade in my MacBook ever, but by the same token I'd never buy anything as retarded as the iPad.

I've been looking into ebook readers for a while now (I figure it'll be cheaper than traveling. I'll just buy one and pretend I'm on a plane), but when I heard that this bad boy was 400 or so on the radio I loled and turned off NPR.

I love my computer, but I don't get the apple obsession at all. I bought mine because it was exactly what I wanted- that it also happens to flirt for me in coffee shops and parks is just a perk.

[Zarquon]

My first reaction was ''what a pointless and unappealing gadget!''.
I saw it on BBC Click, and they expressed doubts about its utility, given that e-readers, smartphones, and netbooks already exist and do what they do fairly well.
Still, apple-followers will (in fact, are) lap it up.

[Americano]

I'd never trade in my MacBook ever, but by the same token I'd never buy anything as retarded as the iPad.

I've been looking into ebook readers for a while now (I figure it'll be cheaper than traveling. I'll just buy one and pretend I'm on a plane), but when I heard that this bad boy was 400 or so on the radio I loled and turned off NPR.

I love my computer, but I don't get the apple obsession at all. I bought mine because it was exactly what I wanted- that it also happens to flirt for me in coffee shops and parks is just a perk.

I can well understand why a flirting feature might be considered an attractive, perhaps vital option to some users.

However, when considering the people who frequent coffee shops and parks in my area I would balk at paying two or three times the cost of a netbook for such a feature unless it included the long range, high saturation pepper spray port with unlimited refills. As Apple is becoming internationally known for products that don't multitask, I see no need to switch from a netbook with the proved 9mm option for far less investment and superior performance.

[Donkey]

Seems pretty iNane to me.

[Americano]

Agreed. I could care less about the iPad but thought the video was funny as hell.

[andrewl]

I'm not sure what will happen with this - but i remember when the ipod came out it was heavily criticized and predicted to be a flop. (there were other far less expensive MP3 players on the market already).

We all know what happened with that. Im not saying anything close will happen with the ipad but one thing you gotta appreciate with apple stuff is that not everything the device is ultimately capable of is apparent at launch.

Andrew

[Americano]

I'm not sure what will happen with this - but i remember when the ipod came out it was heavily criticized and predicted to be a flop. (there were other far less expensive MP3 players on the market already).

We all know what happened with that. Im not saying anything close will happen with the ipad but one thing you gotta appreciate with apple stuff is that not everything the device is ultimately capable of is apparent at launch.

Andrew

I've read a couple of comments on pc oriented forums saying it has all the features of a 1990s product. Jobs seems to be cursing everyone in the industry for not raving about his newest child.

[andrewl]

I've read a couple of comments on pc oriented forums saying it has all the features of a 1990s product. Jobs seems to be cursing everyone in the industry for not raving about his newest child.

i don't remember touch screen computing with wifi and 3g from the 90's??

I agree the ipad (terrible name i think) does not seem remarkable right now, and it might never be, but i think its a mistake to write it off before it even hits the market, and indeed, its likewise a mistake to hail it as "the greatest thing ever" before it hits the market.

Andrew

[wphelan]

Seems pretty pointless to me. Why would I want a huge iPhone that I can't call or text with?

[Americano]

i don't remember touch screen computing with wifi and 3g from the 90's??

Touch screens were developed in the 1970s. Same five-wire resistive technology that's being used today. I remember them from the '80s operating under DOS and for mainframe access.

Wifi was late 1990s. 3g is third generation wifi from 2001.

I agree the ipad (terrible name i think) does not seem remarkable right now, and it might never be, but i think its a mistake to write it off before it even hits the market, and indeed, its likewise a mistake to hail it as "the greatest thing ever" before it hits the market.

Andrew

[andrewl]

Touch screens were developed in the 1970s. Same five-wire resistive technology that's being used today. I remember them from the '80s operating under DOS and for mainframe access.

Wifi was late 1990s. 3g is third generation wifi from 2001.

I still don't remember these being a feature in any 90's mainstream gadgets.

Andrew

[Americano]

I still don't remember these being a feature in any 90's mainstream gadgets.

Andrew

Aside from the touch screen, they weren't, unless one resided in a major city or was at a major university. As usual, it took time for infrastructure to catch existing technology for consumer market purposes. USB connections were popular in the 90s, handy for attaching say a printer.

The more I read about it, especially the Apple attack on Adobe's Flash, the more it seems like Jobs is believing his own dogma. His strength, including early graphics when Apple owned that market, has always been marketing. I've always admired Apple's business plan and found it difficult to believe it released the iPad to a wave of rejection. Who knows, perhaps it will corner that market but I find that difficult to believe with what I read.

[Michael]

Apple can make/sell any gaget they like. If it sells or not sells, that's Apple's business.

However, the ONLY reason this ipad thing is considered newsworthy is because the US newspaper and publishing industry believes it will deliver them the holy grail of a new high-tech platform so they can maintain their status quo business model and survive.

Bottom line is that the newspaper and publishing business model is no longer fully functional. No new consumer toy is going to change that reality, though the newspaper and publishing industry is deeply in denial about it.

As I've pointed out many times, the business model of the newspaper and publishing industry started to fail during the 1970's and 1980's long before the advent of the world-wide-web. Ergo, it is nonsense to consider the internet as a 'cause' of the downward slope of the newspaper and publishing industry. Ergo, a new internet method of maintaining the failed business model is doomed to fail. There is as mis-match between 'problem' and 'solution' here.

Newspapers and the publishing industry have a business model predicated upon a mass general audience. That model is dead in a world with 500 channels on tv and the endless internet. No new consumer toy is going to reverse that trend and create a mass general audience for mass general audience products in a world where audiences are fracturing smaller and smaller every day.