[/caption]As required by nerd law, here is my mandatory post on the iPad. I've got lots of nerd friend and the general feeling I get from them is a sigh and a "meh." The term "underwhelmed" is being thrown around a lot, reinvigorating the debate as to whether or not there is a perfect amount of "whelmed" one can be so as to be neither under- nor over- whelmed. Here is my take on the new shiny.
Let's not forget our history. When the iPhone came out people far and wide declared that it will fail, is failing, already failed. Yet despite such serious problems as no cut-and-paste and a weird virtual keyboard, somehow it won Time's gadget of the year award, and a huge population of happy iPhone users. People to this day don't quite get it, I have an Android phone (one of the first G1s) and I love it, but there is no denying the sexiness and sleekness of an iPhone. If you don't understand the big deal play with one for a week, its just a completely polished user experience.
That is the strength of Apple's products, the experience. Its easy to find plenty of small, reliable mp3 players that store tons of music, people buy iPods because they are seamless and easy. I was asked recently what made OSX superior to Win7, I didn't have an answer, I work with both and I enjoy OSX much more but have no real good bullet point for why. I was looking for some big reason, oh the dock, oh it's pretty, oh the finder, but couldn't think of any quantitative reason why they were better. When it came down to it, there are just a million little reasons that all add up to a great experience.
To each their own though, I don't want to start a Windows vs. Mac flamewar, there are plenty out there if you feel the need just type "I hate Windows" or "I hate Mac" into google if you must. The point I want to make is that Apple thinks about their products from a full end-to-end experience, and that's where something like an iPad could beat the pants off of a netbook. Make no mistake about this either, that is where they are targeting, Jobs said it in the keynote and the pricepoint confirms it. iPad is not meant to compete with MacBooks or Dell D830s (the computer I'm currently typing on) they are meant to compete with Dell Inspiron Minis and eee PCs
There is a niche market out there and I think Apple has the marketing and business savvy necessary to corner it. With all the hype it would have been difficult to not be underwhelmed. It doesn't cure cancer or come with a free pony, boohoo!
Now I'm going to take my life into my own hands here and make a prediction (watch out!) The iPad will succeed, it will have a spreading pattern to certain niches until it picks up a critical mass and people who don't really need them start to buy them. First the early-adopter and mac-fanboys will start buying them up, then there will be some app that endears it to some group of people in a fierce way. Maybe a text-book app or medical records app, whatever it is there will be some population that is in love with the iPad. They will start to infect their friends and family with iPad fever and it will become hip and cool, then it will become annoying, and then it will just be fact, 30 jillion people have iPads and you won't be able to walk into a Starbucks without someone reading Hipster monthly on one.
I'm excited about the iPad, it doesn't have everything I always wanted, but it will definitely move the ball forward. I personally think the very slightly modified iPhone OS was a mistake, I think there are lots of mistakes and things that I wished were included (like that pony I really wanted). But I'm going to have to reserve judgment until I ca go down to the Best Buy and screw around with one.
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