iPad

[Bananafish]

This is all part of their brilliant viral marketing strategy and you've all fallen for it!

[Graham]

I don't understand the fervent hate-on for this thing. It's not like their forcing you to buy it.
If it's not for you, then you're not the person they're making it for. That's fine.

Is this normal "Apple is dumb!" rage, or what?

[gcninja]

yes, also do you plan on buying it? as i said in my other forum discussing this:
I can see them pulling the whole "is your 22inch macbook too big to drag about but your itouch to small to watch videos? heres the IPad!"

[Graham]

I'm seriously considering it. I'll have to see it, but I can easily see it being useful for script-writing on the go, without lugging my laptop about.

[Kdz]

I'd like it for writing scripts on the go. The iPhone makes my eyes strain, and the laptop sucks for... well, for typing on my lap.

Really? Granted, I don't ask a lot of people about this or anything, but I've never heard of anyone having problems using their laptop in their lap. I know that I never have.

I mean, hey, if you do, you do, I'm just saying this is news to me. I find a laptop perfectly comfortable, even for typing, in my lap. I don't even have a desk or tabletop to sit my laptop on if I wanted to.

As for the iPad, I don't get it. It's not for me. If it works for someone else, cool, but I just cannot fathom a functionality it performs that isn't done better by something else, and I don't have a lifestyle that necessitates its use. My phone can do anything I need to do while mobile, and my laptop does everything else.

But maybe that's just because when I'm mobile, I don't want to do things like watch video, use Twitter, etc. If I'm out of the house, I'm either busy or driving somewhere where I will be busy upon arrival. I suppose I'm weird that way.

[epocalypse]

especially if a screenwriting app comes out for it...

[Keith K]

It looks pretty cool. Typically Apple. It doesn't, however, perform any function I can't already perform. Granted, it probably performs a few functions a little more stylishly. The flash doesn't justify the cash. I'd rather use the money for future PC upgrades or a few years 3G on my iPhone.

If Apple had gone the Kindle route and threw in unlimited 3G, I'd have paid it's weight in gold.

[Machalllewis]

Being totally Apple-ignorant I can't really see the big whup over it. It kinda just looks like a big iPod Touch.

[Jackboleo]

All the pictures of it in use make me think that this thing becomes incredibly awkward to use if you're in a chair that doesn't allow you to put one leg on the other knee.

[eth0]

I'm still neutral on the iPad.

Currently it's not something I want to use or have need for, but there is potential there!

I wonder if I could tether my iPhone 3G to the cheaper Wifi only one via BT to surf on the go. I guess we'll know more once they actually release it and people start poking at it.

Is this normal "Apple is dumb!" rage, or what?

Seem to be a new trend of Apple hate recently.
Still using the same old arguments though.

[Keab42]

It's an interesting step forward in technology. We've seen handheld touchscreen devices used in sci-fi for years. From ST:TNG to Avatar, the general consensus is that such a device is the future. Well Apple is just dipping their toe into the water. The first generation device is interesting for sure, but it's not the revolutionary device it was hyped by the media to be. But then neither was the iphone was it? It took until the second model for people to really get on board with it. We might not have a specific need for it right now, but as we move further and further into the digital age and begin replacing paper, which would you rather have a netbook, a massive tablet PC or one of these? We'll see competitors coming on the market by this time next year and I honestly think we'll see a shift away from the netbook and towards these. They'll add the features that are currently missing from the ipad and will probably have slightly less stupid names (I'm honestly surprised that nobody at Apple pointed out the potential for that).

[wartjr2373]

I'm a fan of Apple, but the only product of theirs that I own is an iPod video. They're product are too expensive for me to afford in addition to tuition payments.

That said, I think the iPhone is a really cool device, despite never having owned one. I am a fan of Apple, but the iPad looks like something I wouldn't buy anyway.

[Intellectually funky]

Don't get me wrong I see and appreciate what Apple does to the furthering of technology that is more mainstream, Hell even I have an Ipod and my last Computer was a mac but for all the Re-releases of the Ipad that are going to come and the price I can't justify buying one knowing that in 3-6 months there is going to be a better one for probably cheaper.

Steve Jobs himself is awesome, he always comes out with new products that do amazing things, But he thinks most of us are made of money.

[Graham]

We might not have a specific need for it right now, but as we move further and further into the digital age and begin replacing paper, which would you rather have a netbook, a massive tablet PC or one of these?

See this, right here, is why I think the iPad is cool.

If you just look at as competitor to a notebook or other tablet PC, then you're missing Apple's intention. It's not supposed to eliminate laptops or iPhones from the market, it's not a computer. It's a different, new kind of device.

It really is meant to be a replacement for paper. You can magazines, comics, newspapers, books, all in a way that gives you a vastly richer experience than, say, a Kindle (I personally don't like the look of eInk).

Beyond that you can buy music, tv and movies, and sure you can do ALL of that on a laptop, but a laptop isn't 1.5lbs and $500.

It's meant as a media device. Something you have around the house, like James said, on the bedside table. It's a new way to buy and view digital content in a new age of online distribution.

Sure, maybe that doesn't interest you, but it's not like there's "no reason" someone would want it.

[theDreamer]

Graham, you do a better job of marketing this than Apple has.

You thinking of a career switch?

[Theremin]

The iPad: 28 day shipping.

[Graham]

Graham, you do a better job of marketing this than Apple has.

You thinking of a career switch?

Haha, no.
But it wasn't until this morning that I realized what they're actually trying to do with it. They just didn't explain it well.

It's not a computer, and it's not meant to replace one. Anyone who has an iPhone sits about on their couch watching TV and then idly pulls out the iPhone to browse. This is a coffee table device, almost.

It's not for creating content (though Pages looks cool), it's for enjoying content.

I'm liking it more and more.

[Fuzzyfreaker]

I had a good idea to make some long post about the iPad, but it seems that Gizmodo has taken all of my feelings and put them into this fantastic article.

Overall, I think it's a neat piece of hardware, but I simply don't see it's function or purpose for someone who already owns a smartphone and a laptop. And judging from the content that Apple is releasing with it, I'm not sure they do either.

[Arius]

The iPad: For those days you're feeling light.

---

The iPad: World's most expensive way to cover up for Steve Job's typos.

---

The iPad: Because you're gonna buy it anyway, why bother with taglines?

---

Personally, this actually seems like a logical move for Apple. While I may not use Apple products, this is a rather interesting product. It seems more or less to be more of a move sideways, rather than forwards, though. In all honesty, it really doesn't offer a lot of new things. It just continues to bridge a gap with a very specific audience.

I'd like to see where this leads in the technology world, because I want those all glass PDAs you always see in films based in the future.

[iamafish]

hmm, G-star has given me an interesting perspective on this. actually i think it sounds cool. I still wouldn't buy it because i dont really read newspapers or magazines, i like having a physical book, rather than a digital representation of one (probably the weakest argument as i'm sure i could get used to having books in digital form) and i spend most of my time at or near my computer, so if I want to look at something online, i will do it on my computer.

[Keab42]

Think of it as an iPADD

-Edit- Yes I did just link to Memory Alpha, I'm a nerd get over it.

[wilson_x1999]

I was thinking that comics and manga would look awesome in that thing, but still, 500 is way, way too expensive for me to buy just to read comics/manga/books or watch movies, I'd rather do it anywhere else.

[Master Gunner]

I'd hardly call it a different or new kind of device, considering Apple tried pretty much exactly the same thing in 1993. Personally I'd go for something more along the lines of the HP Compaq 2710p (mainly because that's the example I happened to have open). Sure, it's more expensive at $1000, heavier, and doesn't have built-in 3G, but it has pretty much everything else the "iPad" has, plus a better processor, more storage, firewire, usb, and SD slots, as well as a built-in keyboard (the screen swivels around to lie flat against it). If that's too large or expensive for your liking, they scale down, and there's more than enough customization out there for you to find something to suit your needs. The only "downside" is that it won't have that Apple logo on it.

So in summery: Far from new, far from different, I can go down to futureshop and pick up something essentially the same (or better suited to my needs) right now if I wanted to. All Apple did was take an existing product, put on their branding, limited OS, and "vision", and re-release it with enough hype to make people think that it was "new" and "different".

Far from the first time they've done it, either. Over a year before the iPhone was announced, my first "phone" (never got around to putting a plan on it, my father just left it lying around after he went back to Blackberry), had a full LCD touchscreen on the front, all the functions of a PDA, as well as a sliding keyboard to make up for the lack of multitouch (personally, I'll take the keyboard any day).

Then again, Google does the same thing all the time too. Eh.

[Graham]

But Gunner, you just made it clear why this will work. Because that's what Apple does.

They take concepts and ideas that aren't new, and package them in a way that looks nicer and works better.

The iPod got laughed at when it came out, the iPhone got TONS of "this is nothing new or exciting" as well... But they're both beating the crap out of competing products now because it's not about what they do it's about how they do it.

Look, I need to be clear here. I have never been the "OMG WINDOWS SUCKS AND APPLE IS GOD!" kind of fanboy, but this kind of arguement bothers me.

If you can't see the value in what they're offering then you're not their target audience and that's okay, but just flat dismissing it because "you could buy something else that does the same thing" isn't really an arguement, but it's NOT the same thing.

It talks the same, but it doesn't walk the same.

[tak197]

I'm not an Apple person, insofar as I just always had a tough time with their interface. The iPad, to me, looks like a Kindle on steroids. Hell, the Kindle itself was innovative with "eInk". My big thing is that it just seems so... indulgent. Like, who NEEDS an iPad, when there are other, cheaper options available? But the other side of this is that RIGHT NOW, it seems needless and indulgent, but in a few years, it may be more worthwhile.

I agree with Graham, I just think that it needs to be out on the market for a while, to let it prove itself as 'more than a overpriced, overpowered _______'.