Posted by A.J. Axline on Feb 24, 2010 (526 views, 0 comments) Rating: 3.32
Vector and I currently aren't speaking to each other, since I recently exercised the right of extreme censure against him for making one too many jokes about the newest, soon-to-be-released hardware product from Apple. I knew immediately after reading the news stories announcing the iPad that the vast majority of cyber children were going to have a giggle-fest picking pieces of that low-hanging fruit and throwing them at each other via email and blogs like so much simian cyberstool.
So, I magnanimously gave Vector a full 48-hour window in which to gleefully and freely make as many feminine hygiene technology jokes as he desired. And he did, oh, he did, he really did take advantage of the opportunity to carpet-bomb my ganglia with a series of low-brow, poor taste remarks, comments, anecdotes, and disturbingly-professional illustrations. He went to town, and I humored him for two straight days with the good natured patience of an animal lover dealing with a brain-damaged sheepdog.
It was on the morning of the third day, when Vector casually remarked over what had been to that point a congenial game of Battleship, "I wonder how the iPad will deal with heavy dataflow days," that I beat him about the head and neck with a broken Jones Soda Vanilla Cola bottle, and threw him down the stairs into the cellar.
Concerning the iPad: one of the reasons why Apple didn't call it 'iTablet' is because the iPad isn't a tablet computer--or, it's a tablet computer in the same way that an iPod Touch is a tablet computer. It has a processor and memory, and it runs an operating system and programs… but within such rigid and precisely-defined boundaries that it does not reflect or fulfill the traditional consumer perception of a computer. Nobody should be surprised or dismayed by this; it is a perfect reflection of the closed-system ideology that Apple has demonstrated time and again with the vast majority of its hardware products.
The iPad is a media/Internet/gaming device that doesn't require a lap desk to hold and use comfortably. It's a living room or bedroom device that should offer a decent user experience with photos, movies, music, web sites, e-mail, portable games, and e-books, with a form factor that's situationally friendlier than a laptop, such as when the user is flopped out on a sofa or laying in bed.
(Aside: Disney just bought Marvel Comics. Steve Jobs is on the board at Disney. And thus... Marvel Comics on the iPad. This is a slam dunk, and if it doesn't happen, it's because somebody screwed it up.)
That's it. The iPad isn't anything more or less than described above. Oh, the Safari browser on the iPad doesn't support Flash, and the iPad doesn't multitask. If those are deal breakers, or if you have a congenital hate-on for Apple, you'll want to hold out for the "slate computer" being released by HP later this year that is supposedly going to run a full version of Windows 7. We shall see, indeed we will.
In the meantime, two things:
First, Apple's iPad marketing slogan, "Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price," is so much oily crap. The iPad is not magical, it's far more evolutionary than revolutionary, and for something that doesn't run a full version of OS X, doesn't have a single USB port, and doesn't come with a built-in camera (c'mon Apple, friggin Cracker Jack comes with a built-in camera in 2010) the price is not particularly unbelievable. Who writes this copy? Grow up, Steve.
And second, time's up. You know what I'm talking about. I have more Jones Soda in the fridge, and I can empty a bottle pretty quickly. Leave it alone, damn you.
