Just like many new releases from Apple, there market is divided between fans and haters. It’s actually normal. No single product can make a claim for 100% approval. So, what’s the deal with the Apple iPad?
Some say it’s crippled, underwhelming and whatnot. I agree, in the same way the iPhone and iPod Touch are crippled as well.
Here are my thoughts and feel free to add your own as well:
- Steve doesn’t want the iPad to cannibalize Apple’s existing products. The iPad is somewhere between the Macbook, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. It’s existence should not kill off or reduce sales of any of the other three devices. That is why Apple created the iPad that way. Steve wants you to have a reason to buy all of his toys.
- Compromises, compromises. No USB ports? That thing drains battery life. No SD card slot? How else can they convince you to buy the 32GB and 64GB models? No webcam? Hey, Apple needs something to show for iPad 2G.
- The choice of the iPhone OS 3.2 over OSX is pretty obvious. Steve’s been calling netbooks as slow-ass devices. Running the iPhone OS 3.2 on a 1GHz chip will be blazingly fast. It will be slow if it were on OSX — that’s for sure. Remember, it’s not just the CPU but the RAM as well. I imagine 512MB in there — not enough to give you a nice experience of OSX and all the memory-hog applications.
- Absence of Flash support sucks but makes sense in terms of performance. Here’s a tip — load up a 24×24 FarmVille on your 1.6GHz Atom netbook and see how slow it is. Then try running YouTube HD as well and you’ll realize what I mean. Steve would rather scrap a feature just to make sure you don’t get that slow crappy experience. How else can you say it’s slow if it can’t even run it?
- Remember the very first iPhone? It was EDGE, no 3G. Doesn’t support Flash. Yeah, even until now. No multi-tasking? The iPhone 3GS doesn’t do multi-tasking and people still bought it. The iPad may not be anything we imagined it to be but so was the very first iPod back in 2001. Oh wait, did you remember the transition from the grayscale iPod to the iPod Photo and then iPod Video?
This device is certainly just for early adopters, not the ones who are looking for the features and functionalities found in regular tablet PCs. It will not fill a void or solve a productivity problem in the consumer market. It is not made to replace your netbook or laptop. Not even your iPod Touch for that matter. Apple is creating a device for a non-existent market and that’s the biggest challenge — can Apple carve that niche and make it grow in 3 to 5 years?
If there’s one place I want this iPad to sit — it will be inside my car. It will be the media hub replacing that old, clunky portable DVD player — music, movies, games, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and streetview maps. The kids at the back seat will love it.
Twitter: rand0m_insanity
says:
Just imagine yourself typing on this device. Either your wrists hurt by supporting it with your hands (let’s see if that can be done for an extended period), or your neck hurts by constantly looking down on that iPad.
Yep, you’d have to shell (a lot) of money to buy accessories to make things a little better. You can buy the case, and various docks for a hardware keyboard etc. But wait, this is supposed to be a portable device, right? As for me, I’d still be using a “slow” netbook or phone. Or my desktop computer, depending on the task at hand.
first of all, iPad is a terrible name. lacks creativity. secondly, i think that iPad is overrated. why? because the iPad isn’t doing anything new for the market. i feel like it’s stuck between a kindle and a low-end netbook/tablet and has major identity crisis. it is trying to get “the best of most worlds” so to speak by providing us with more of the same functionalities we’ve seen of thousands of gadgets before but in a lighter version.
but to give credit to apple, they will certainly sell a lot of these to a lot people. why? simply because it has their name on it. and many companies have been doing that for years now. i’m not anti-apple and i do wish i can have some of their gadgets, but i don’t like it when companies think they can sell us crappy products and get away with it. here’s hoping that this is one those times when apple dives in and lands face first. but then again, it’s apple we’re talking about..
first of all, iPad is a terrible name. lacks creativity. secondly, i think that iPad is overrated. why? because the iPad isn’t doing anything new for the market. i feel like it’s stuck between a kindle and a low-end netbook/tablet and has major identity crisis. it is trying to get “the best of most worlds” so to speak by providing us with more of the same functionalities we’ve seen from thousands of gadgets before, but in a lighter version.
but to give credit to apple, they will certainly sell a lot of these to a lot people. why? simply because it has their name on it. and many companies have been doing that for years now. i’m not anti-apple and i do wish i can have some of their gadgets, but i don’t like it when companies think they can sell us crappy products and get away with it. here’s hoping that this is one those times when apple dives in and lands face first. but then again, it’s apple we’re talking about..
let us not compare the ipod to the ipad – its a false paradigm. with that in mind – the ipad is a fail.
i thank you.
matatawa lang ako sa mga taong bibili nyan… pang porma lang yan eh. Not all apple products must be a success… itong iPad pwede ba wag nang ipilit! ala namang silbi
imagine bitbit mo yan while listening to itunes hahaha
peace!
Please correct the notion that “no multi-tasking means” you can’t listen to music while doing something else (reading an ebook, surfing, emailing on the thing).
You definitely CAN on an ipod touch — hence you can on an ipad.
ang question lang naman dyan kung may pera ka or wala. kung wala kang pera manahimik ka na lang. kung meron at apple fan boy/girl ka go lang, bili agad.
Apple Rules. “Think Different”
I think its multi-tasking in the context of smartphone / computer multi tasking. Yes the iPod Touch / iPhone can play your music and run a single app over that. But thats it. People are looking for real multi tasking like the one found on the Pre. The iPhone can take a call and run another app – only one and thats it.
The name iPad really sucks – remember that 2006 MADTv skit? Thats the iPad.
People will really compare this with the iPod Touch – there’s no way to avoid it. It really seems just like a scaled-up Touch to me. And people are lookig for a scaled down Mac.
It really looks like a win for Apple with Yuga’s observations but how about for us? For the end-user, will it be justifiable to cough up $499+? Only time will tell. The iPod got its own share of criticisms when it came out around a decade ago and look at it now.
This can be another iPod or another Apple TV.
uy meh pera si @barasival kasi nag comment sha hehe.. bili ka ng ipad ha at pakita mo samin.. apple rules kamo eh
Twitter: justinecapili
says:
2ng klase lang ng tao ang bibili nyan eh.. yung mayaman, at tsaka yung gustong may ipag yabang. haha.
EACE OUT!
i find it to be the most useless gadget ever. I would rather buy an iPod toucn and a netbook. even if it will cost me more. This is not a netbook killer at all. You still can’t do that much things with an iPad.
sana magkaroon na ng ipod touch with camera. dati wifi lang, ngaun me bluetooth. camera na lang talaga kulang. don’t need the phone. gawin kong digital organizer. =)
* No multitasking
* No Adobe Flash (yet)
* No camera or iChat capabilities
* No HDMI port
* 4:3 aspect ratio
* Still dependent on AT&T’s 3G service
* Dependence on adapters
* No USB?
* No RJ45 Connection?
… and the list goes on…. I’ll still go with my laptop…
if you have an iphone or ipod touch, then ipad is a redundant product. for non-apple product users, its a fine product esp. as a go between a laptop and a smartphone and as your first apple device(again you can opt for an ipod touch here, cheaper and larger storage and better portability.) but if you already have a netbook, again its a redundant device unless you want to upgrade/downgrade to ipad. ipad is more of a toy than a productivity tool and designed for a casual computer user. but then again, if you got cash to burn,redundancy is irrelevant.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by abeolandres: Last na ‘to about the iPad. In defense of Steve’s new baby — http://bit.ly/cgukpf…
bias ata comment mo sa iPad sir yuga…hmm
maganda lang sa iPad eh ung price.
I think that the point here is not hardware or gadgets as most of you are commenting. It’s all about CONTENT!Steve wants to be King of the World – the digital world that is! King Steve wants to be the digital content provider of the world. Music, video, ebooks, newspapers, magazines, games – he wants to put his hands on everything digital. A digital middleman in short. King Steve wants to put Apple at the center of it all – for a fee of course! Because everything passes thru itunes! This guy’s dreaming BIG!
The question is, will the public buy it? Will the competitors allow it? Abangan!
Just my 2 cents worth…
@miko – of course, my take is biased because it’s based on my content-consumption habits, my personal brand preference, my connectivity requirements and my economic capacity. In fact, everyone here is biased because it’s their personal opinion.
Let’s take you for example. You said “maganda lang sa iPad eh ung price“. That’s actually a biased statement because of your purchasing power. Others will say the price is not good and is expensive because they don’t have the same purchasing power as you do.
Hope that clears up the issue on biases and personal opinions.
hehe
IBM started with the Pad names, remember their laptops, “ThinkPad”. Sa game console, Nintendo Wii, pero naging mabenta. Wala siguro sa pangalan yan.
i’m one of those people who are disappointed. The specs are good but they have years developing the product. It is a large version of the iPhone/itouch. Apple should have remove the 16Gb and offered the 32 and 64 version. They should have added multi-tasking (being that they brag that the device will beat netbooks), they should have added flash on this already to make the internet browsing spectacular! I love apple products but I think i’ll pass with this one.
There was a moment when people were laughing during Steve job initial demo of the item. Specially when one of site’s required flash player hahaha!
^ I’ll wait for this Abe.
Yes it is over-hyped, I’ve been waiting for this and blogged about rumors of the “Apple Tablet” many times.
Tumaas lang ng tumaas ung expectations ng mga tao dahil sa rumors kaya ang daming naisip na kulang.
I was expecting that it will be priced at around $750 for the entry level but I was surprised because of the $499 price tag.
It really depends on what you do and I might give the iPad a shot when it arrives here in the Philippines.
Try it first before you decide.
@Randy
“It really depends on what you do”
Agreed. Like most apple releases, this is not a FOR THE MASSES product but a niche product.
If you’re in a market for an ebook reader, this is a colored alternative (great for emagazine reading)
If you wanted to get one of those archos media player in the past, this is a thinner alternative.
If you still don’t have a psp, this is a bigger size alternative. Maybe the gaming experience is not for pro gamers yet though.
If you have been delaying your purchase of an ipod touch (not for music itself but for the web surfing experience on the go or presentations or something. While standing or walking (corporate clients like med reps or real estate agents.
Me, i’ll wait for the third generation when the minimum capacity is 124 gig already, with camera and even cheaper.
Swak na swak sakin to dahil mahilig ako magbasa ng libro habang tumatae, eh kung iPad gamit ko makakabrowse na din ako hehe at pede pang manuod ng movie hehe.. seriously it has some other uses, like in a car… just dont think of it as a netbook replacement just like jobs said. More of a “reader” as someone said, not as a content creation thing. loved what I can do with my iPhone, i think iPad will be better because of the size and power(speed).
I never liked MAC as a desktop pc, never will I buy one, well maybe pag i dont care about money anymore. but i think this gadget will fit me well.
Swak na swak sakin to dahil mahilig ako magbasa ng libro habang tumatae, eh kung iPad gamit ko makakabrowse na din ako hehe at pede pang manuod ng movie hehe.. seriously it has some other uses, like in a car… just dont think of it as a netbook replacement just like jobs said. More of a “reader” as someone said, not as a content creation thing. loved what I can do with my iPhone, i think iPad will be better because of the size and power(speed).
I never liked MAC as a desktop pc, never will I buy one, well maybe pag i dont care about money anymore. but i think this gadget will fits me well.