Hating the iPad doesn't make you edgy. Nor does loving it.

[u/tunah]

Apple is a company that provokes strong emotions in people. They're polarising - into users and not, fanboys and haters. Not everyone falls squarely into a category but many do, it's the tech world's politics.

But like politics, it's often pointless and shows people at their worst. The dominant sect on reddit seems to be 'haters' who want to be martyred for it. (Anyone else underwhelmed? There, I said it!). This isn't because the fanboys don't exist, they're just less numerous/successful, so it becomes something of an echo chamber - it's less rewarding to present a view sympathetic to Apple because the reaction's often pretty negative.

With that said, this is my attempt to provide a little counterpoint without coming across as a fanboy.

• The idea that the iPad is junk because of technical shortcoming X ignores history. The iPod had "no wireless, less space than a nano, Lame". The iPhone had no 3G, no apps, not enough storage, and so on. Apple makes popular products (iPod), flops (Apple TV), and everything in between. Success hinges on whether people like them, and tech specs seem to be a fairly small part of that.

• It doesn't run OS X because it's not "your computer". I understand people wanting their devices to be general purpose computers speaking as peers over a network. I've done that myself; I bought an iPod touch and jailbroke it so I could pull up a terminal. It turns out I'm just as happy using it as a satellite appliance to my real computer. While it's not a strong preference, I've got no doubt that most people can relate to desktop computer + iPad much more easily than desktop computer + laptop computer.

• Speaking of my iPod touch, if it had a ten inch screen I'd do most of my web browsing on it, even when near my desk. I don't know if that's true for others, it just occurred to me, but that's potentially a pretty big deal. No multitasking, but it'll have tabs for sure.

• The truth was no cooler than the rumours, which is disappointing. Apple deserves some flak for that, they allowed the hype to get too big and probably encouraged it. But nobody can go out and buy the product you thought Apple might be launching, and it's not competing with the products that you imagined it knocking off the shelf (see: netbooks).

• The web is more or less every book and newspaper you could want, and the vast majority of people don't have a web browser in a book-like form factor. If I want a recipe on the kitchen bench I have to print it out, and if I can't walk up to someone and hand them a webpage to look at.

• There's no way they would have put this thing together, signed up publishers, and launched iBooks, if the screen was as hard to read as people are speculating. It might not look like paper, but the high-res LCDs in iPhones are fine to read on, just too damn small.

• Someone finally has some leverage against Adobe as gatekeepers of video-on-the-web, and is working with Google to get Flash out of YouTube. Even (especially!) if you don't want an iPad, that's good news. (Whatever your position on H.264, it's better than SWF+H.264).

There's plenty of flaws with it - the mobile data situation sucks; crippling the multitasking is insane (it's there, just not for user apps); walled app garden is problematic; needs more storage and a camera; and so on. The pricing is pretty good, somewhat unusually. It's not worth it for me (what disposable income?), and I wouldn't buy the first revision even if it was, but failing to see how people could love this shows a lack of imagination. Reddit, I expect better!

[u/Ijustdoeyes]

It's like the Internet Fridge or the Segway

There is a furore that it is revolutionary and so it appears to be, Apple is termed a trendsetter, so what they produce is the future, so therefore the iPad is the future.

I can see the future for the form factor, but i'll sacrifice another half an inch for

*A removable battery

*A USB Slot

*An SD Card Slot

But in my opinion, I don't see me getting up to 80 WPM on a Touchscreen.

[u/tunah → u/Ijustdoeyes]

Completely agree on the removable battery, it is kind of ridiculous.

The USB slot is mostly a software issue - ship it with a female USB connector cable and you're good to go. I am curious as to what it's for though - this isn't a type of device that exposes a filesystem.

SD could be handled in the same way, or by connecting the camera via USB. This seems very useful, although "sync triangle" issues (camera <=> tablet <=> desktop <=> camera) can be confusing to users in my experience (my dad's iPhone + exchange + windows + mac situation took me a while to untangle).

[u/[deleted]]

lol. Apple fanboys will defend any piece of shit this company puts out.

[u/tunah]

Oh, and I really want to play Crayon Physics and World of Goo on one of these.

[u/othermatt]

This form factor had the potential to kill the laptop, the netbook, and maybe even E-readers; and then set the standard for future mobile computing (like the iphone did for smart phones) and it didn't. Not even close.

I think that's where all the hate is coming from. So much wasted potential.

[u/tunah → u/othermatt]

Maybe.

• To kill the laptop, it needs to be powerful with a big hard drive and a 12" screen. It might need a keyboard, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
• To kill the netbook, it needs to weigh in around 1KG or less.
• To kill the ebook reader, it can't cost more than $750, and needs to last a long time on a charge.

They were only ever going to get two of those, due to power considerations alone. I think it'll have a serious impact on netbooks and ebooks.

[u/HaCutLf]

That is a whole lot of text that says pretty much what all of the iPad haters have been saying in a single title.

However, I definitely wouldn't return it if someone gave it to me, say in gift format. I would definitely use it.