Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of Steve Jobs or by opposing…
Oh, never mind. It’s too late today anyway. It’s almost 7:00AM and I’m not online at the Apple Store. No iPad in my immediate future. But should I buy one? WSJ’S Walter Mossberg says yes, but Boing-boing’s uber-geek Cory Doctorow says nyet. As Jean Renoir famously said, “Everyone has their reasons.”
Doctorow puts his succinctly (well, relatively). He doesn’t like gizmos you can’t open up and that seem designed for technophobic mothers. Forgetting the bourgeois sexism (the mother in my house is my wife Sheryl who is a graduate of Princeton and a successful screenwriter and novelist and has used computers for twenty years), Doctorow has a point. At first glance, the iPad appears a passive item. It’s not for creating content, but for consuming it.
But what consuming. For five hundred bucks you can have a slick, light weight item on your coffee table for reading just about any book, magazine or blog you might desire or imagine with amazing clarity and ease, plus view movies and television similarly, plus play any number of games (again real or imagined), show the family photos, check your email and spend even more money than I already have for iPhone apps I don’t use. [I thought this was the pro-iPad paragraph.-ed. Just churning the economy.]
But seriously, folks. I actually do think the iPad could be a game changer, to use that rancid cliché. But even more for content providers than it is for consumers. Yes, it’s a beautiful convenient device that is likely to get even more beautiful and convenient in the years to come (see the iPhone), but for those making a living (or trying to) writing, drawing, animating, composing, etc., etc., it is a potential bonanza. Yes, the great thing about the Internet is that (almost) everything has been free. But that has also been the bane of the creative community. People are not used to paying for content. I suspect the iPad will begin to change that in significant ways. But the content had better be good because the competition will be hellacious. And that will be good for the consumer.
As much as I would like to get one, I will wait for 2nd or probably 3rd iteration of this. I expect that this will be a very useful device and will be a way to consume content on the go. Smartphones are great because there was nothing like them before. But the iPad will be better for websurfing and watching video and working with apps. It will also do basic tasks pretty well. It i not for heavy word processing, but neither is a smartphone. However, there are drawbacks. I’ll wait until those are worked out.
I have a Mac and an iPod. But I don’t like Apple’s megalomania. My supposedly iron clad Mac had a hard drive meltdown. Of course, it was out of warranty, and I had not paid the annual fee required to have Apple actually stand behind their product of it malfunctions, I ended up bringing it to the local Apple Store for a “genius” to look at it. To their credit, they wiped the hard drive and re-installed the OS, even giving me the latest upgrade free. But among other things, it wiped all my iPod songs off, and the iPod will not recognize the computer as the sole computer each iPod must be linked to. So I can’t load new songs on the iPod, and I can’t upload from the iPod to the computer. I have to either take my computer back to the Apple Store yet again or buy a new iPod and reload all my songs, both of which are an unnecessary waste of my time. All because of Apple’s obsession with controlling who gets access to what. It’s overbearing.
Now, Apple reserves the right to decide which apps for your iPhone or iPad they will allow or even allow and then disallow, even if you have already paid for it. I don’t want SONY deciding which programs I can watch on my TV, and I don’t want Apple deciding which apps I get to buy or keep after I have bought them. I don’t like the trend
Seems that Doctorow fella is a bit of a technolitist. Don’t worry, I deal with these folks all the time in the gaming community when it comes to the Wii or some person who wants to boot up a computer just to read e-mail.
The beauty of a marketplace is we get to decide what products best fit our lives. Well, that was until we got Obamacare, but why let such foolishness bog down a debate about whether to get an iPad or not? Once I’m employed again I’ll be picking up one and my PC will be relegated to use for online schooling only. Unless, Doctorow is not fine with that…
Indeed.
That’s why I got a Kindle, before the iPad was even a rumor.
The way I look at it is: I wanted something to read e-books on, mostly because e-books are cheaper, both in base price (a $7.99 paperback typically sells for $6.39 in Kindle format, though there are exceptions) and in shipping costs (zero on e-books). Amazon is an expert on books. Amazon has also never failed to meet any reasonable expectation of mine. In short, I trust Amazon.
Other folks can spend more money for an iPad. I have everything I need, including free 3G wireless (Apple charges you for it) and I am happy with it.
The main thing about the iPad to me seems to be the question of portability. You can without even thinking about it, take an iPhone or other pocketable cell phone device with you wherever you go, and other than the plastic scratch-guard around the edges, you’re not worried about having to lay it somewhere where it might get damaged or stolen because it’s not on your person. Laptops in contrast, are something you have to both actively think about taking with you when you leave home or office, and you have to think about where to store it when you and it are away from home and office.
On which side does the iPad fall? Women will probably have an easier time adapting, because you can put one in your bag or purse. But most men don’t carry murses wherever they go, so for the iPad to have the same freedom of mobility that the iPhone does, you basically either have to get a murse or return to the olden days of the leather briefcase (in which case, the option of a full-sized notebook or even a netbook becomes just as viable as the iPad, even if the hipness factor is far lower among the first-buyer set).
Ahh, you Boomers. New toy every week.
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Thanks for posting this post.Good to know some fresh insight about ipad.
Hello, I have been following your blog for some time now and read most or your entries. Is there any way that I can subscribe so I get updates sent to my email? Thankyou
Apple Inc never just produce gadgets; they create results that people can see fitting into their lives finally. As a university teacher with a bustling life, I beleive this being a very handy thing to have.