Everybody is talking about "is the gap between the iPhone and a laptop big enough to warrant the iPad?"
But I think there's a big market which is over-looked: all those people, like for example me and several of my friends, who don't have an iPhone or other "smartphone" because a normal cell phone works fine for calling, and for all the fun stuff, the screen on the iPhone just feels way too small. So in our world there's a BIG whole for the iPad.
Maybe it's a generation gap, as in how good one's eyes are, I dunno.
8 comments:
Eolake: you might want to have a shuftie at this, particularly the remarks about comics?
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html
Hope the link holds together / works OK :-)
Incidemtally what is the recommended way for posting links in this blog? I seem to recall having difficulty quite recently, when something at 'your' end was truncating the urls?
Hmmm, maybe I won't even bother reading it.
---
You can use a URL shortening service, like snipurl.
Or you can use the html code for a link.
OK, I read it anyway. His arguments are just philosophical/political, and only has relevance for super-geeks for whom a gadget is undesirable if they can't open it up and change it.
He also makes it sound like you can't sell anything on the iPad platform if Apple doesn't like it. That's BS, you can sell anything you can sell on a normal web site, including web apps. (The exception is apps to run on the pad itself, that has to go through the app store so far.)
About the comics? Swapping comics was never a big deal for me, I don't care. And if it is for two friends, heck, they can swap their iPads for a day.
And DRM is hardly Apple's fault.
I think the gist of the piece was in the iPad / CD-ROM comparison.
Clearly distributing multiple publishers' e-books (and music) from a hardware vendor's website is a step backwards. What ever happened to the concept of the web?
And the fact that you are not allowed to write software for the device that you then distribute from your own website is not only ludicrous but must be an industry first.
On the other hand, if you treat the iPad simply as a portable and convenient web browser, it does make sense to me. And if I ever get one for myself, this would be my primary application for it.
Even then, though, not being able to change batteries yourself on a gadget like this is, once again, a step backwards.
There is definitely a market for an ipad like device. I'll never buy an ipad though. I don't want a piece of shit on which I can't install the software that I want. I don't want some american company with questionable values to decide what I can and can't do on MY device.
URL shortening by the way is stupid and evil. But I'll save those comments for another day.
"On the other hand, if you treat the iPad simply as a portable and convenient web browser, it does make sense to me."
That's how I think of it, primarily.
Plus ebook reader and reader in general.
“OK, I’ll make a prediction. The most important way that the tablet is different from the computer is that it’s optimized for analog, not digital, input. Whatever the applications are that are best driven in an analog way, those are the ones that will drive the tablet ecosystem.” —Tim Bray
Maybe we non-iPadists need to wear a T-shirt that says “Mind the gap” ... just as a friendly platform warning to those who are not used to seeing iPadless people. :-)
Post a Comment