So what is the iPad for? How is it “Magical and Revolutionary”? The following quotes put it better than I could:

John Gruber at Daring Fireball: “One thing that’s making it hard for some people to grasp the purpose of the iPad is that no one has an answer to what precisely it is for. This was not so for the iPhone. [...] The truth is that the App Store is the killer app. The iPad is meant for anything that can be represented on a 10-inch color touchscreen.”

Adam Engst at TidBITS: “The iPad becomes the app you’re using. That’s part of the magic. The hardware is so understated – it’s just a screen, really – and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.”

Jürgen Schweizer at Cultured Code: “Steve Jobs said about the iPod that “it is all about the music”. With the iPad, Apple has done the same for personal computing as it has done before with the iPod: it made technology go away. But if the device is gone, and the operating system is gone, what is left? The iPad is an empty canvas that invites us to imagine what is possible. It inspires our imagination and it makes us want to create, because never before were we able to create software that was so close to the user.”

The iPad was announced on Jan 27 and has been out for one week. Right now, there are over 1,000 apps created especially for it: ones that would not be possible on a smaller device. John Welch mentioned The Elements above: read this and tell me that’s not the start of something magical and revolutionary.

“The iPhad”

That’s not a typo, that’s a deliberate provocation of a specific response.

“When I first heard Apple was releasing a tablet, visions of a device similar in nature to the sleek and slim MacBook Air, except a tablet with a really nice stylus, danced in my head. Could this be the perfect computer for the creative mind?”

Before you knew anything about it, you had already decided what it would be, how it would work, and what it would do. So short of Apple reading your mind, whatever they released was guaranteed to disappoint you. You wanted a tricked out harley, you got a Honda scooter. No matter how good that scooter is, no matter how useful or well-designed, it is not, nor shall it ever be that harley gleaming in the light of your mind’s eye.

given the insane hype, none of it from Apple mind you, about this device, if it showered you with gold and gave you a tug every morning, it still couldn’t fulfill that level of wish.

From day 1, your own inner hype ensured you’d be disappointed.

“So there is Steve Jobs, sitting on a couch, talking about how fun and productive you can be using your iPad. Checking email, surfing the web . . . but not at the same time. If you want to come close to competing with netbooks, you need multitasking.”

But apple never said the iPad competed with netbooks. That’s you and all the other hypesters who decided, based on zero facts, that the iPad would compete with netbooks. Apple dismisses netbooks, to be sure, but they are pretty clear, they don’t consider the iPad to be some kind of flat netbook. Apple not reading your mind is not a bug.

“Mr. Jobs (which seems like an appropriate name right now) also claimed that it was the best web browsing experience, period. Really?! No third-party plug-in support. No Unity. No Flash. Nothing? 33% of web content is Flash. I’d hardly call not being able to access 33% of the web “the best experience.” Not to mention the lack of support for Hulu (Flash Player). When I was living in The Big Apple (see what I did there?), all my TV viewing was done during lunch watching Hulu, along with millions of other Americans. No Flash = no Hulu = :-(”

Um, have you seen what the *current version of Flash* does to CPUs and browsers? Heck, even 10.1 beta 1, which is on the JooJoo works so well that JooJoo has a custom “MPEG mode” for their device, so you can watch HD video without the batter life going from 5 hours to 2.5 hours.

Is Apple supposed to blindly trust that unreleased software will meet a level of hype that is literally impossible? Currently, Adobe is hyping 10.1 as the answer to every problem you’ve ever had with Flash. If it had a signed note from Jesus, delivered by Buddha, it couldn’t be that perfect.

Also, make note that in spite of Adobe’s claims that the flash spec is “fully open” and “anyone can write their own player”, that’s not true. they haven’t released the specs that apply to Flash DRM, so if you’re using DRM’d flash content, you *have* to use Adobe’s plugin. Ask the people who used to be able to use 3rd party Flash players for BBC content about this.

The Flash team never seems to mention that minor fact in all their PR. I guess it slips their mind. every day.

“If one of the reasons Apple wants you to buy an iPad is to read books, then they should have used a screen technology that is easier on the eyes. The Kindle and Sony Reader’s ePaper screens reflect light similar to paper, so they reduce eye strain.”

If all the iPad did was be an ebook reader, this might be a point. But, until you show me a Kindle or Sony Reader that can do this: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-04/exclusive-making-elements-one-ipads-most-magical-apps , then your argument is a strawman. The iPad is not an ebook reader that also does a couple other things.

“The iPad is not a real computer. What I mean by that is that it is not a full-service operating system. It doesn’t have a full-powered CPU, with proper inputs and outputs (USB). ”

Apple never promised those. The hype did.

“People were looking for a real computer. People were looking for a lightweight Apple alternative to a netbook. What they got was literally an oversized iPhone – except it doesn’t fit in your pocket, and you can’t make a phone call with it. It doesn’t even have a stylus or handwriting recognition. What good is a tablet you can’t write or draw on? The only benefit you get from this device being a tablet is that it is nice to hold.”

Adobe would disagree with you: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/04/draw_share_with_adobe_ideas_for_ipad.html

Again, when did Apple promise you a tablet netbook? that’s what YOU expected, and when Apple didn’t read your mind…

“Kindle is easier on the eyes for reading.
Kindle is smaller and more portable.
Kindle is cheaper.
For an e-reader, advantage: Kindle.”

One phrase:

“High resolution color images”

Lemme know how the kindle does on anything that’s not text.

“Over the long run, however, unless Apple positions themselves better in the market, I can see the iPad hurting their overall brand image.”

You do a good job of not using the word “fail”, but this last sentence, the title of the post, along with the overall tone and tenor of your post pretty much sing out “iFail”.

One last thing, and I don’t believe I have to tell someone in your line of work this:

If a message is getting, from the sender POV, consistently misunderstood, the fault lies in the transmitter of the message for not providing enough clarity and context, not in the receiver, for not reading the transmitter’s mind.

We only have your words to go on. If they don’t convey the message you wish them to, you should consider choosing them with greater care.

Is there a market for it. Yes, and I predicted thousands would be sold. Did it have an opportunity to appeal to the people that are buying it AND a larger audience? Absolutely.

Seems like a lot of defensiveness from the Apple fans. Putting a lot of extra words into the article.

:D

“Really only time will tell, I still think their are better more well rounded devices coming down the pipe, and perhaps the second generation of the iPad will blow my socks off.”

It doesn’t have to be measured by *your* socks. Please consider that you may not be the target market. There were 300,000 iPad sales on day 1 of its release in the U.S.A. That’s a lot of “not Jacoub”.

It’s no stretch to expect that something better will be produced in the future, but it’s pointless to compare an actual product like the iPad against fanciful reports about some unicorn product with leprechaun powers that may, or may not, be released in the future.

Why, it’s as pointless as writing an article about what a failure the iPad is, two months before it was released. :-P

What Apple markets things as doesn’t mean the developers are limited to that definition by any means.