iPad? iDud. Apple's latest flop.
It seems that with the launch of the iPod in 2001, the whole world forgot that until that point, Apple had not had a hit product since the Apple IIc. In fact, the company was such a looser it was flirting with bankruptcy. Failure after failure meant things were so bad that in 1997 Apple had to be bailed out by Microsoft, a fact that causes Apple fanboys to cringe to this day.
Sure the Macintosh generated a lot of hype, mostly on the back of the famous Ridley Scott directed “1984″ commercial that launched the product, but it never had any significant market share and Apple did nothing significant in the 1990s. It’s only accomplishment during that time seems to have been influencing the design of Microsoft Windows.
In 2007, Apple released the iPhone. Without question this has been Apple’s biggest accomplishment. Apple proved that with careful design, Mobile computing can be a compelling segment of the market. So what to do next?
Based largely on the halo effect generated by the iPod and iPhone, systems running Mac OS are up marginally but show no signs of displacing Microsoft on the desktop, _ever_.
Meanwhile, eReaders and Netbooks are generating a lot hype so Apple is tempted to enter that segment of the market and thus we have the iPad. As Steve Jobs infamously said in his own speech, “netbooks do nothing well”. Unfortunately, the rest of that sentence is “and the iPad does them worse.”
Basically the iPad is an over-sized iPod-touch. I don’t know anyone who uses an iPod-touch for anything useful. Furthermore, the display might be nice compared to an iPod or iPhone, but sure as heck doesn’t replace a desktop and it’s glare prone illuminated touch-screen sucks as an eReader since it won’t be visible in bright light. At .73kg, it’s three times heaver than a Kindle! Who wants to lug that around?
There is nothing an iPad does that isn’t already being done on the much more portable iPhone, or a much more versatile MacBook, or a much cheaper NetBook, or an easier to read eBook. In short, it’s an “in-between” device that’s so in between everything that it serves no purpose.
Need a truly mobile device? Get an iPhone. Need a portable computer? Get a laptop. Need a cheap portable computer? Get a Netbook. Need to read electronic books? Get an eReader.
Need to prove you’re still an Apple fan-boy? Get an iPad.
