With all the buzz and negativity surrounding the iPad, and with lack of proper wording to put my thoughts in a 100 something characters, I decided to write a blog post (like everyone else in the blogosphere) about the polemic device.
The main reason why people dislike the iPad is, (I think) undoubtedly, that it’s not exactly what they expected it to be.
There will never be a device released by any company that you will love 100%.
People want a user experience that is graphically nice, fast and stable. And you can’t have all three on the same device. Think about any line of devices, like Android, for instance, and you’ll see that there is no device that meets those three.
Although the very latest Android device, the Nexus, does come close(r) to that goal, I don’t think it’s quite there yet. These aspects are of course, debatable, to some people the Nexus is the perfect device, for my father, he couldn’t be happier with his Sony Ericsson, even though he doesn’t use 5% of it’s functions.
The cellphone market has never been better than it is now because of the technological leap we received, largely thanks to the iPhone (*).
This doesn’t happen with the tablet market, which Apple considers a “new” one. There is no device currently available that can compete with the iPad on anything more than a single characteristic.
Yes, you can get tablets with touch screens, but with nowhere as good gestures and interface.
Yes, you can get devices with similar form-factors, with physical keyboards, but they’re usually slow, tend to be fragile, and most importantly, are incredibly expensive.
No, you can’t currently get any device that has the same form factor, good design and fabrication, stability and speed, for the same price range as the iPad.
And that is the main reason why people dislike the iPad, it isn’t and will never be the device that has all the features people can conceive, and there is no direct competition with it.
I think that’s the main thing that gets under people’s skin. They don’t like it because you can’t do something-or-other on it. There is no Linux or Windows equivalent of the iPad, just as there wasn’t with the iPhone.
Once again, Apple stepped in quietly to a market that no one was exploring decently and took everyone by storm. And consumers are upset that Apple doesn’t make products the same way as their favorite brand does. Because the Operating System has limitations, because it doesn’t have a camera, because it’s rectangular, because it doesn’t fit a pocket…
If you want a full desktop experience on your lap, for any reason, you don’t buy an iPad.
It’s not the device for you. A touchscreen based device, at this day an age, made for hardcore users is a stupid device. The technology is getting there, but we’re still a few years too early. Our main Operating System’s user interfaces aren’t ready for it without some major revamping (like the iPad’s interface).
PS – For the record, I am not buying an iPad, I have absolutely no need for one.
* I have very little doubts in my mind that if it were up to Nokia (and other cellphone manufacturers), the only difference between our phones 5 years ago and now would be more megapixels in the camera and an even more bloated operating system. Most of those companies still do mostly that and we all know how “well” they are doing.
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