In which I may be talkin’ shit about the iPad, but I still totally want one.
There are these awesome people I’m friends with on Twitter. Right now they’re all pissed off at me because I don’t agree with them that the iPad is the Bestest Thing Evar And Proof That Apple is Ascendant In All Ways, and I have to quit discussing it with them or they’ll all quit following me. One of them’s pissed because I called him an Apple fanboi, and another told me that the iPad is a “cultural phenomenon.”
Well, the iPad is not a cultural phenomenon. It’s a boutique social networking device for university-educated white people who can’t be arsed to carry their 17″ laptops all the way to the couch so they can check their Facebook during True Blood.
The iPad is shown here with the sold-seperately keyboard you need to buy in order to turn it a quasi-useful computing device.
Apple’s sold millions of iPads, sure, but it’s not like they’re evenly distributed. Households that own one iPad tend to own several, while households that own no iPads tend to stay that way. One girl on Twitter said that there were “three iPads in the line” she was standing in; I suggested that she go stand in a different line, because I can go eight or more months at a time without ever seeing an iPad in the wild. Meaning that, while they may be ubiquitous in your trendy little neighborhood, your neighborhood is not representative of the actual real world.
The iPad isn’t cornering the tablet market, either, because there isn’t a tablet market. There never really has been; Microsoft introduced the tablet PC a billion years ago, but how many people do you know with tablet PCs? Even nurses, who use them all day at work and therefore are most expert in using them, don’t buy them for personal use.
The tablet is a useful form factor only when the touchscreen capably replaces both keyboard and mouse; otherwise it’s nothing more than a castrated laptop. While Apple’s iOS touchscreen interaction model is utterly brilliant, it’s only brilliant on the iPhone. At the tablet size, it fails to replace keyboard entry and it sucks at basic drawing. Being able to make the water move in Koi Pond by dragging your finger across the screen is really cool, but it isn’t useful. If you want to do anything useful with the iPad you have to buy and haul a cover and a keyboard. Which means the form factor fails.
The word in the industry is that “there is no tablet market, there’s just an iPad market.” No one else can sell a tablet, not even at a “more reasonable price point,” because tablets don’t do anything you can’t do better with another device.
You’ll use your phone for hardcore portability, your workstation for real work, and your laptop for everything in between. Your iPad is, at best, “convenient,” and then only for the couch and the toilet. Maybe you like it as a media device while traveling (because at home you’d never choose the iPad over, say, a real plasma TV screen for video, or a real game console for leveling up, or a real sound system for listening to music… and if you say otherwise you’re a liar), or maybe you use it as an ebook reader (and you feel smug that your ereader multitasks, ignoring the fact that you paid an extra $350 for functions you never use). But whatever you do with it, it’s not game-changing.
iOS for the iPhone was game-changing. The incredibly simple button interface on the iPod MP3 player was game-changing.
The iPad? Is a toy.
Update 10/25/2011: I’ve decided I don’t want an iPad and that I’m going to get a Kindle Fire.
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🙂 -m
I will not pretend that a tablet is “Game changing” but it does do quite a lot of things that my phone does not, therefore making it useful and not just a niche social network device. I have a $10 wal-mart tracfone that does not play music, does not have portable e-book reading apps, or any of a dozen or so things that an android/iphone/blackberry can do. So if I were to go and say, get my oil changed and I didnt want to wander around wal-mart aimlessly, instead of toting around a 50lb alienware laptop I can carry a tiny by comparison tablet. But who knows maybe I’m the only person in the world with a Tracfone.
You’re an edge case. Everyone else has a smart phone. (I googled it, and you really are the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD with a Tracfone!)
Last year, I had a non-smart phone and an iPod Touch. I used the Touch like a tablet, and I loved the shit out of the thing. It was less than a quarter of the size of a tablet, though, and did exactly nothing different than a tablet. So I guess for non-smartphone owners, it just depends on how big your purse is and how much shit you wanna haul around. And also, most of those who can afford a tablet can also afford a smartphone. -m
I bought an iPad 2. It sits next to my bed for when I occasionally need to do a Google search, and I don’t want to get up, go to my office, switch on my monitors, and use my PC. It’s really not terribly useful. And, of all the OS’s I use (Windows 7 and XP, Mac OS, Android, and iOS) iOS is my least favorite. I used to hope that US Cellular would get the iPhone; now I don’t care because I much prefer Android. As for stripped down OS’s for minimalist hardware, they’re fine for phones, where limitations at that size are to be expected. But, scale the hardware up to iPad size, and I want a real OS in there. At this point, I don’t see any new tablet computers in my future, not even one running Android.
I want one for gadget-envy reasons, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t use it much in the long run. -m
my boss owns one and uses it a lot. he also brings his laptop (non-apple) to work to play his games on.
i don’t use my laptop anymore and will most likely give it away after i get the important emails off it. i have a desktop and sansa music player (which stays in the car and acts as my personal stereo) and i have my little kobo e-reader. that’s all i want/need.
did you know you’re the one who sold me on e-readers? i didn’t want a kindle (bran still has issues with amazon) and the other readers i saw also had keyboards. then we went to indigo/chapters here in town and they sell kobo readers with touch screens. it’s very compact, fits in my purse (bran’s fits in his purse and he’s very happy about that) and is so darned cute. boy got one yesterday and he’s already a goodly portion of dracula. today is the first day i’ve looked at blogs for nearly 3 weeks because i’ve had my face buried in my reader.
*googles the Kobo* Oh, that’s a cute device. How’s the battery life? It’s adorable you each have one. I dig my Kindle (especially with the cover with its built-in light), and I also am kinda interested in the iRivier. -m
the batter will last up to 10000 page turns (as recall it could be less). it doesn’t have back lighting which is what tends to suck battery life. they sell separate led lights, but we have some from costco that i use. the funny thing is kobo gives you awards for doing certain things, like finishing your first book, reading 5 times at different times of the day (i just got my zombie award for reading between 5 and 7 am), connecting to facebook and so on. they make reading kind of fun.
i customized bran’s and my covers with deer hide i had from cutting out his moccasins to create a stylus holder. i also made each of us a stylus out of a chopstick and some of the deer hide. it helps keep the screen cleaner. i’m probably going to try and make holders that are custom to each of us, but that’s down the road.
the iriver looks nice and sleek but i still prefer the touch screen. it makes for a smaller instrument.