What is the big deal about the iPad?

It’s a brand new gadget that has a lot of misconceptions about what it does. The hype will fade after awhile, probably.

Stephen Colbert has one so it must be cool.

Here’s what’s going on: the population is taken for a high by all that pretty and bright advertising. So they get in their cars, charge to the mall and buy one. It’s to hard to think of why they need in the first place. All they know is Joe across the street has one…so they need one.

Remember when the iphone first came out? And how all those people in the first wave rush who got doped? I’m seein’ the same story with the ipad…

To me it seems like a very large iPod touch.

Thoughts of average consumer: “Oh, I wonder what that is. Oh, that’s cool. I wonder how I can use that in my life normally and how it will work out within my budgeting and such…”

Thoughts of average American consumer: “HOLY SHITOLI APPLE MADE SOME NEATORIFFIC SH!T I MUST HAVE IT OMFGOMFGOMFG…”

It looks like a big iTouch. I personally have no use for such a device. I could use a MacBook Pro, though.

I think people had too high expectations. Everyone thought it would be some kind of awesome MacBook and iPod Touch hybrid. But really it’s just an oversized iPod Touch.

I fail to see what’s so bad about an overgrown iPod touch. A larger screen and a bit more power is a pretty good thing for an already great little device.

With the app store I feel everyones iPad will match their needs or desires of it.

It’s a toy, it’s a gadget, the only reason your reading so much about it is because newspapers see it as a saviour. It isn’t.

It’s not just about competing with the netbook. It’s also about competing with ebook readers, and netbooks surely make lousy ebook readers. Undoubtedly it is awkward as a music player, but it has a nice form factor for photos, video and presumably reading.

It’s much more than just a big iPod Touch in my opinion. I strongly agree with this essay on it and where computers are going in general. It’s long but worth the read.

@kevbo That’s going in a really bad direction if they’re trying to compete with e-book readers, though. And I agree, it looks like they are. The kindle and everything else was created for the very purpose that reading on a screen hurts your eyes. Just because Apple made it won’t change that aspect, they didn’t manage to work an E-Ink screen in there. But, alas, they’ll still get people to buy it for that reason.

The iPad is not an e-book reader, that’s just one very small portion of what it does/will do. It’s a computer, but one that has further abstracted away a lot of the things that confuse people about computers. Sure people compare it to the iPhone because that’s easy and they are indeed very similar, but they will be used quite differently I think and if you look at the iPad on its own without just comparing it to the iPhone or iPod Touch then it is a bigger difference I think. Especially when developers start creating apps especially for the iPad and not just enlarged iPhone apps.

I’ve thought about getting one for one reason, so that I can use the internet while my wife is using the MacBook for work. Currently, when she is using the computer, I use my iPhone. It would be nice to have a bigger screen.

The fact that it is so big and still does less than an iPhone.

Hitler and the High Command were right. The only thing I can thing think of is or Two player games or watching movies. I’d wait for some better specs and for the Blackra1n guy to jailbreak it.Flight control or missile command on that would be great tho.

good point @tinyfaery when i’m sat on the couch watching telly i usually use my iphone to tweet or fluther and generally surf the web, for larger jobs i’ll get my laptop out. I think the ipad will fit in as the de facto couch gadget.

having said that, like my iphone, it will come to meetings with me and on trips away too.

@kevbo Considering how much reading I do on my far cheaper netbook, I am not so sure about that. And when you consider that many of the PDFs I read have elements that won’t render right on a greyscale e-book (like the Kindle) it makes even less sense to me.

Maybe the problem here is that I don’t understand marketing hype. I am excited by stuff that I want, and I get a gleam in my eye when I see a new product that actually fulfills a need/desire I already have, but I just don’t get the “cool” factor. That might explain why I have a Sansa e280 instead of an iPod Nano (at the time, the Nano lacked features I wanted that the Sansa has) and couldnt care less about the Blackberry or iPhone.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind someone buying me a Nissan GT-R….

I’m going to start calling my iPod Touch the iPad Nano

Weren’t we supposed to be making our devices smaller as time went on?

@Fred931 The Apple think tank: “the bigger it is, the more money we make!”

Let’s get a gallon or so of blue liquid and find out!

@fred931 my TV keeps getting bigger with every new model.

@Spinel Hence the 27” iMac?

@Pcrecords Yet it still has the same resolution. At least when I get a bigger monitor, I up the pixel count. Maybe I am just spoiled by the dot-pitch on my netbook, but whenever I go from my 8.9” netbook, even my 21” 1600×900 desktop system seems a little “muddy” unless I stand well back. Even watching HDTV or Blu-ray reminds me of the old Atari 2600 by comparison.

@Fred931 The minimum size on any device nowadays in constrained not by technology, but by “human interface” elements like the size of the screen and controls. Sure, we could make a computer with a decent CPU and all the size of an iPod Classic, but given the number of people that complain about the size of the keyboard and/or screen on a netbook, the practical minimum size of a computer is about the size of a 13” laptop; bigger/heavier than people really want to lug around but the smallest form factor for a full-sized keyboard and still too small a screen to make most people happy.
What people (at least in America) really want is a 2 pound 42” supercomputer that they can carry in their pocket. And until we can come up with chips that run faster than a Core i7 EE than build up zero heat, 500KWH batteries smaller than a current-day AA, a way to go straight from the video chip to your visual cortex with no need for a large screen, and bypass the need for a keyboard and trackpad/mouse (basically a cyberpunk-style neural Interface), we are NEVER going to be able to make things smaller than they were 5 years ago and still make people happy.

Apple is not a company that puts specs before interface (not saying specs aren’t important). When you look at an iPhone or iPad you’re looking at pure software. When the iPad was introduced Steve said it had to be better at some key things. It has to be better than a laptop and a smartphone at things like browsing the web and viewing your photos (there are more). It’s so much more intimate than a laptop, you can take advantage of every inch of the screen, and it’s really fast and has many great apps. Since the apps have to be approved, (even though this is a bad thing for some people) it gives us safe, virus free, programs for our iPad.

Imagine it like a computer for someone like your mom or grandma. All people do on the computer these days is browse the web and make documents. What more do you really need? And just imagine what apps developers will make for this! Imagine what this could be used for in schools! A computer for coffe shops, airports even the bathroom! Am I the only one excited about this?

@rawrgrr I can take advantage of every inch of my screen and still be able to type. Or maybe it’s just that I spent a little time customizing my system to have that level of ease/convenience.
As for really fast OS with MANY GREAT APPS and a near-immunity to viruses, there is Linux. It will run on damn near anything with a microchip, and there are NO politics or greed involved in what gets distributed and what doesn’t.

So, Apple, just to be clear: It’s not OK to release an image browser app that can potentially be used to view porn, among other images, but it is OK to release an app in which you pleasure a fish until it ejaculates. Yeah? Got it.

That app mentioned in the link above has since been removed, but the point is made that the standards Apple has for what apps anybody on Apple hardware is allowed to run are pretty fucked up.

And you cite a bad example. Everybody I know is either a near-Luddite who, while capable of using a PC proficiently, would prefer to never touch one or a g33k who likes to multitask and despises having their hand held or being straitjacketed the way Apple LLLOOOVVVEEESSS to do. In other words, nobody who needs a half-assed gizmo like the iPad, or a half-assed OS like the upcoming Google OS.

“And just imagine what apps developers will make for this!”
Not much; they will be cock-blocked if they come up with anything cooler than Apple’s in-house crew.

“Imagine what this could be used for in schools! A computer for coffe shops, airports even the bathroom!”
You might want to re-read the question for a couple of points I made, and also bear in mind that there are already tablet PCs that can do more for less money than an iPad.

Or is the point of your whole post that OS X is so uber-l33t that people will totally flush their brains down the toilets and empty their wallets just because “Aple iz soooooo K00000LLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111” ? Sorry, but if I was going to blow money on interface alone, I would get a direct neural connection to my PC.

That’s a little too much bitter about a piece of electronic equipment.

@tinyfaery Now that that first cup of coffee has hit, the caffeine is mellowing me out to be a little less psychotic.

Never post before taking your morning meds :D

@jerv Alright I’m really tired right now so i won’t get to into everything. Do you remember when the iPhone came out it was the most expensive phone that couldn’t even do some of the simplest things our phones from 5 years ago could do? We had all the stuff before. We had MMS, we had GPS, we could record video, we had 3G, we had it all but why do you think they really didn’t take off? The software was so bad that the phones where so terrible. They where a pain to use. The iPhone really made this all take off (just look at the difference in phones now) Now look at what a success the iPhone is even though many where certain of its failure. Just like I said before it’s not all about specs but how you use it.

Many complain about Apples control over their apps but their apps are reeaally good and much better quality than any other phone on the market today. Some might slip through like that fish app but it’s not that easy approving more than 150,000 apps. The App Store isn’t perfect but it’s the best one you’ll find.

Stephen Fry said something in a blog post about why he liked the iPad ”2. It is made by Apple. I’m not being cute here. If it was made by Hewlett Packard, they wouldn’t have global control over the OS or the online retail outlets. If it was made by Google, they would have tendered out the hardware manufacture to HTC. Apple – and it is one of the reasons some people distrust or dislike them – control it all. They’ve designed the silicon, the A4 chip that runs it all, they’ve designed the batteries, they’ve overseen every detail of the commercial, technological, design and software elements. No other company on earth does that.”

Imagine if the iPad was released before the iPhone. It’s just the thought that it’s a bigger phone that makes people angry but the iPhone OS is a very good system. It’s not supposed to replace your computer or be better than one! It’s its own category. It’s not supposed to win the hearts of everyone. It’s not supposed to replace your netbook, but there are many people who this is perfect for. Just wait until you actually touch one. The people who actually have say it’s phenomenal.

edit: And with a battery that lasts 10 hours long (140 hours of music playback) it’s a really great little gadget to carry around.

@rawrgrr I was never impressed with the iPhone either, so that might be part of it. Then again, I never needed an OS that held my hand either, so I never considered pre-iPhone cell-phones to be hard to operate. But since virtually all of technology has to be commercially viable, that means that you have to adapt to the lowest common denominator, which means pretty pictures and locking away any options that could possibly harm the system if mis-configured. I that respect, I consider it akin to removing the steering wheel and pedals from a car and replacing them with a pretty button that says “Go”. Oh, and weld the hood shut so that even simply checking the oil requires a shop visit.

If they used that control strictly for quality assurance with not even the appearance of impropriety then I wouldn’t have as big an issue, since that would still allow for competent coders to get their stuff approved. I’ve seen no evidence that they are that egalitarian, and a bit of evidence that they are arbitrary and/or selfish. I think I’ll stick with the Ubuntu repositories, thank you.

I fail to see why that is a good thing. I mean, yes, it’s good that they ensure that everything is up to a certain standard, but there are other ways to maintain control. IIRC, back when they allowed Mac-clones, the only problems they had with them were that each clone sold meant one less sale for Apple; there were not technical and/or quality issues.
The truth is a little more complex than that, but suffice it to say that Apple screwed up a while back, painted themselves into a corner, and now has no choice other than to be draconian.

As for, ” It’s not supposed to replace your netbook ” I think it’s pretty clearly proven that Steve Jobs hates netbooks, but you might want to hear it from Jobs himself.

I’ve used tablets before. I’ve used Apple’s OS X (tolerable, but not worth selling a kidney for like some people seem to think) and the crapfest that passes for an OS on the iPod Touch/iPhone. So tell me this; what can the iPad offer that I can’t get better somewhere else? What can it offer that I haven’t seen before? Basically, what is the big deal?

Oh, and as for the battery life, it’s basically the same chip as an iPhone and all. The only real differences are the size of the screen and the size of the battery. I’m pretty sure that if I put a another ¾-pound of battery on my rig, I’d see battery life like that too. Then again, there is a reason you never see Ferraris getting 50+ MPG ;)

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I actually hate the iPad (though it’s easy to get that impression) but I have yet to here one single thing that makes me think it’s worth the hype.

“Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version) ; What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

@jerv Alright, let me take you back a few years. A couple of years ago in 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh and fist brought a graphical interface to the people (inspired by Xerox). Computers are a powerful tool but they where clumsy, inelegant and not very easy to use. Apple showed us a better way. A way other than typing instructions at a blinking cursor. And even though Apple’s market share is small compared to Microsoft, the original Mac genes are in all of our computers today. Including yours.

Now look at computers! What a difference. Even though its been about 25 years, we’re still using our computers in pretty much the same way. It was a revolution for computers, for software, they created the computer for the rest of us. A computer for the average person.

People wanted their appliances to just work, and they couldn’t care less about the underlying technology that drives them. Apple knows this and this is why they created a computer for the average person. ”A Computer For The Rest Of Us.” If you want to be a tinkerer and/or tear up the machine then Apple isn’t for you. It’s not about keeping the tinkerers out but instead creating a computer than doesn’t need to be tinkered with. Or a “car” that doesn’t need an “oil change” if you want

Even though other PC makers tried to push computing forward by adding extra buttons and controls and try to provide more options for telling a computer what to do, Apple went in another direction, the same they usually do and instead asked itself how do we remove a layer of abstraction between the user and the computer? And this is what they’re doing with the iPad if you haven’t noticed.

Lets look at music. Before we had iTunes we had to go to navigate throughout our files to find the folders with the music file you wanted to listen to and double click on it. If you had the time you could even organize them yourselves to make them easier to find. Then iTunes came along, we no longer dealt with files but instead with music. Even though the computers of the past and the computers of today do the same things (play music) iTunes made this better and easier to use. Which is exactly the point of all Apple products!

Sure you can write a list and start jotting down what a product can or can’t do but that doesn’t really tell you much about it. That’s all just features. Now start writing how it does a thing or which product does it better then things start to change.

From a tech blog I read a while ago ”Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn’t a price worth paying to have a computer that isn’t frightening anymore.”

You seem like someone who is great with computers, you might even be someone who can tear up a computer and put it back together as if they where legos but let me tell you something, you don’t represent the majority of people. You’d be surprised at how little the average person does on the computer. I’m not saying an iPad is better than a netbook. It’s its own category. Steve Jobs might have some harsh words for notebooks but that’s because he believes they aren’t the way of the future (and neither do I) but the thing Steve was trying to emphasize is the you get a far better experience when using an iPad. I’m not going to go up to you, shoving my iPad in your face and tell you you’re decision is wrong (because it isn’t). An iPad ISN’T for you! Apple just keeps trying to make stuff for the rest of us! And you’re not the rest of them

To answer your question what can the iPad offer that I can’t get better somewhere else? that’s a much better experience, innovation, and a loooong battery life. An iPad is not for me or you (since I enjoy using programs like Photoshop and Final Cut) but for the rest of the people who just browse the web and check email.

I’ll just end it here because it’s getting too long but I hope you get my point. The iPad is not for you but Apple is doing, for a third time, what it has done the past 25 years. Making stuff for the rest of us. “Remember, even if it seems to do just the opposite, the ultimate goal of technology has always been to make life easier.”

Oh and about all that hype. People say Apple let them down, how could they let you down when they never brought you up? They never released any public information and people just started to assume it would cure baldness or even make your breakfast. All that hype is probably what is making you so mad and writing this question. I’m just going ot tell you now. It’s not worth the hype it’s getting, even though it will be an important part of the future of technology.

Finally, a response that actually makes sense to me!

You are correct that I have above-average skills and all that. I’ve been doing the computer thing since for ~30 years and learned BASIC before I learned the multiplication tables, so I am definitely not the “normal” computer user. However, there is more to it.

In the early-90s, I was a big Mac-fan myself since Windows hadn’t really gained traction yet and thus Mac was superior in many regards. The main reason I lost my love for Apple was really the fact that, once I got older, I had to buy my own hardware. As much as I loved Macs, they were not superior enough to warrant paying 3–5 times what an equivalent PC would run, especially after Windows finally became usable. There is also the little matter of software availability, and emulators/VMs like MacBochs can only go so far. The situation is better now that Boot Camp exists, but it’s easier and cheaper to make a Hackintosh and go the other way if I wanted OS X and Windows.

There is something to be said for, “It just works, right out of the box!”. I am a big fan of stuff that works right out of the box. I am also a big fan of stuff that can be repaired without a pricey dealer visit when it stops working, and most of my friends (most of whom are not savvy enough to do their own work) agree.
At least Apple finally wised up and started doing things like designing cases that didn’t require special tools to open and using standard parts as opposed to proprietary everything, so they aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be there… as long as you own a “professional grade” Mac or certain models of Performa. Owners of other Apple products are still S.O.L.

I agree that removing layers of abstraction is a good thing for most people, and it makes day-to-day stuff easier even for us hardcore geeks. However, it can go too far, especially when you get so far into the whole PNAMBIC thing that you make life harder for everybody except for the “point and grunt” crowd that the system is less of a computing device and more of a child’s toy. Put another way, autopilot for cars may be nice, but so is at least having the option of using a steering wheel.

But as for Apple’s OSs, I remain unimpressed. OS X is really no improvement over WinXP, especially if you throw RocketDock into the mix. I’ve seen better and easier media managers than iTunes for both Windoze and Linux.

As for the interface of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, I have to say that I’ve seen much better, more intuitive interfaces elsewhere for less. While plain-old Ubuntu may be too hard for people who can’t figure out Win7 or Mac OS X, the “Netbook Remix” has a simplicity to it that exceeds the deprecated “Mini Finder” or At Ease… or, if you have a touchscreen computer, even the iPod/iPad OS.

Apple really hasn’t done anything to dramatically improve the UI since last century. They’ve been netter at marketting a touchscreen GUI, but the PC side had those long ago, merely with less commercial success. Now, if you want to impress me with UI then try Pranav Minstry’s SixthSense which can be done for about $350 in hardware and using open source software.

*

You are also correct that the hype does have my panties in a bunch. The iPad is evolutionary, not revolutionary. If Apple billed it more along the lines of “Tablet computing done right!”, I would’ve just shrugged, rolled my eyes, and left it alone. But advertising it as a high-MPG, low-fat cure for erectile dysfunction (as Steve Jobs tends to do) really gets to me, as you can probably tell. While I see the iPad probably doing better (commercially) than the Newton did, I don’t see it as being nearly as ground-breaking.

Another part of it is that I really just don’t get it. Seeing everybody go gaga over the latest gift from “Jesus of Cupertino” makes me feel like a freak of nature because not only am I not swept up in the hysteria, but I truly don’t understand, even in the slightest! It’s one thing to look at something and just dismiss it as nothing I am interested in, but another to miss the point entirely, especially when something is so asinine.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just wait for my hip-mounted Linux box running SixthSense. Sure, it won’t have the designer logo or the blessing of Saint Jobs, but at least it will be technologically advanced enough to warrant a little excitement.

You guys must have done well in university.

@Bugabear @jerv probably did. I’m just 15.

@jerv I don’t disagree with you. You have lots of good points, but this discussion is starting to drift into another direction so I’ll just end it here and I hope I’ve made my point. If you don’t like Apple products then don’t use them. Im not like most Mac users who look down at others because I just don’t think that’s right. Apple computers are not for everybody (though I think they are perfect for the average person) and Pcs are not for everybody. They both have their own advantages depending on what kind of person you are. I am very happy with my Apple devices including my Mac. I can do more than enough and even have Windows on my machine. I’m going to repeat this again. The ultimate reason for technology was to make life easier.

“When folks need an elevator, we should give them an elevator, not an airplane. We’ve been giving them airplanes for 30 years, and then laughing at them for being too stupid to fly them right.” – Ed Finkler

@rawrgrr The iPad is merely a rather prominent current example of a particular phenomenon I’ve noticed. The reason I singled it out is partly due to the magnitude of the smoke and mirrors campaign surrounding it, and partly due to it’s egregiousness. I had a more generic “meta-question” along the same lines, but felt that I would get better answers if I cited a particular example and played Devil’s Advocate. (Not hard here, really, since I actually hold those opinions. I just usually keep them to myself.)

Maybe I would understand it better if I were a sheeple, but obsequiousness has never been a strong suit of mine since vastly I prefer to make decisions based on merit rather than coolness or PR hype. And, in the case of the iPad, I see too many parallels to what has been done before, and I don’t understand how “remarketing the wheel” as opposed to reinventing it can cause such a buzz.
Oh, and great quote there :)

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@Bugabear No, but I did pretty well in school when I was studying nuclear propulsion. After that, I really never want to set foot in a classroom again though. Spending 13–16 hours a day, 7 days a week in the classroom trying to learn three years of material in 24 weeks kind of burnt me out on the academic world.

I have a hunch that @rawrgrr will do well in college/university when she gets there though. It’s refreshing to see that sort of intelligence in youth today, since I was worried that I would spend my senior years in the care of a generation that blew off their studies so that they could update their Twitter accounts, thus leaving school lacking the ability to even count out correct change, but her ability to use logic and to spell correctly makes me fear little less for the future.