“The iPad has fewer capabilities than a netbook, in a similar size. Not a good start,” Lee Gomes writes for Forbes, “People about to buy a computer tend to fixate on speeds and feeds–megahertz, megabytes, megapixels.”
MacDailyNews Take: People who don’t know how to buy a computer, that is; like Lee, we strongly suspect.
Gomes continues, “After watching Steve Jobs talk about his iPad tablet computer, though, I had the notion that a better way to approach a new gadget is to ask three questions: How much do you have to think about the decision to carry it with you? How long does it take to turn on? How do you tell it what you want it to do?”
“Remember these, and you have the only computer advice you will ever need,” so sayeth Lee Gomes. “I can use them to explain my initial, somewhat lukewarm, reaction to the iPad.”
MacDailyNews Take: Getting computer advice from Lee Gomes sounds more than a bit like getting chastity tips from Tiger Woods. Best to look elsewhere.
Full article, in which Mr. Myopic Luddite Who’s Missed The Whole Point complains about — drum roll please — “the lack of a physical keyboard” – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whatever, Lee. It’s times like these that make us wish Forbes would just stick to their core competency: publishing lists.
physical keyboards are so last decade
” People who don’t know how to buy a computer, that is; like Lee, we strongly suspect.”
Couldn’t agree more!! Who cares about features? I want something “elegant”, “cool”, and “sexy” looking so I can feel like I fit in somewhere (and I know that I do at Steve Jacks’ blog)……
To hell with “speeds and feeds–megahertz, megabytes, megapixels” … I just want something in a delicious looking package that makes me feel that I’m “skating to where the puck is going to be”…..
WOOOOO HOOOOO STEVE!! I Love you !!!
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I just want the iPad to be a success so we can silence all of the sarcasm about it.
@Really,
I mean REALLY….its about the experience you fucking dumb ass. The speeds and physical aspects can contribute to the experience with the software also plays a huge roll too. Thats why Apple gets it and others don’t.
Simple as that.
He does have a point: I wouldn’t carry around an iPad. Too big. For me it’s a home and travel gadget. IPhone and IPod Touch will continue to be the truly mobile carry gadgets! U will hear a ton of stories of the iPad hitting cement as people awkwardly try to balance it on their laps. It’s slippery as hell. Mark my words. Buy the case!
Not clicking but oh boy is he in for it
There are a lot of people right now who haven’t the vision to see what kind of device the iPad is. There are guys like Gomes here, and there are those who think it’s an oversize iPod Touch or iPhone. The iPad is something else. It takes the few activities ordinary peasants use their hulking pcs for and puts them in hand, anywhere in the house or beyond, obliterating the need for a computer except for those who actually need one. Plus, it replaces those paper-wasting things like books, magazines, and newspapers, and then lets you watch tv and movies, access internet resources, and manage your photo/video/music collections. Sometimes you want to take it along; but frequently the iPhone is the best device for that. The iPad will fundamentally change the look and activity of modern life, very much for the better.
“U will hear a ton of stories of the iPad hitting cement as people awkwardly try to balance it on their laps. It’s slippery as hell. Mark my words. Buy the case!”
Probably not any more than you hear about people and their iphones being dropped.
In any case i’m sure someone will design an iTether to keep it from falling.
How come all these guys still have jobs after they get it wrong time after time after time after time? Huh? Eh? Answer me that? Eh? How Come???
Why doesn’t someone take this guy out and have him scraped? and I do mean “scraped”!
Exactly how am I supposed to drive this horseless carriage without reins and a whip? I doesn’t make any sense.
Common Clay. Salt of the Earth. You know………
I just read that full article, though I was inclined to stop when I got to this sentence regarding the requirements of carrying tech besides a cell phone, or a watch –
“The mental effort, though, is not small.”
That should say everything about the mental capacity of Mr Gomes!
@Swing Geezer
“How come theseguys still have jobs…?”
Because sites like MDN keep linking to them!!
It’s the “round peg/square hole” mode; the iPad is a completely new product, but instead of evaluating it like that, too many “anal-ysts” are evaluating it like they would a netbook when it’s much more than that.
And @iMaki, the iPad’s not much larger (and quite a bit thinner/lighter) than a standard hardback book, and people carry those with them all the time. And with the iPad you’re not just limited to one book at a time.
Apple Bash=Free Ink! Most of these guys are clowns….running iWork even a lite version is fairly impressive. How many times do you talk to people that think of themselves as POWER users…when in reality they barely can run their email program.
We thought my dad was dying. My son flew up from Texas, my sister from Wisconson. The nurse came into the hospital room and laughed. I looked up and saw the object of her humor; the three of us hunched over our laptops working. Sister with her idiotic baby laptop from HP; the Son with his Dell or whatever; me with my MacBook pro. And I thought, never again, if I ever have to do this again it will be with an iPad, in the folder case thing; no harder to carry around than a yellow lined pad in a holder, something I’ve done for years.
Dad recovered, he’s 86 years old and can’t wait to buy his iPad. Pretty sure he’d brand the tool who wrote this piece a fool.
If this thing takes off, as I suspect, it could be the beginning of the end of the pc market as we know it. Since Apple has over 90% market share of the over $1k market and the under $1k market has razor thin margins, the iPad could suck all the air out of it, leaving businesses the only major customers. I doubt if they can come up with any credible competition.
Even if Pad sales hit the level that MDN insists they will (more than any prediction anywhere) there still will be those who wonder what the fuss is all about – a new glitzy gadget that does a lot of stuff that a lot of people enjoy. Magical and revolutionary.
So what?
@large w/fries
It’s the end of the PC as we know it.
It’s the end of the PC as we know it … and I feel fine.
Good one about that dumbass Tiger Woods. The Swedish golddigger will have to find another sugar daddy. NBA maybe?
Lee Gomes was correct – the majority of people obsess on specs.
MDN was correct who don’t know how to buy a computer obsess on specs.
For better or worse, the majority does not know how to buy a computer.
Face it, technically literate folks like those who read MDN are a small minority; Gomes addresses the general case, as do most journalists.
Gomes sounds like my eldest son. The one who switched to a PC over a decade ago for “work reasons”. My son is smart and well-informed, but he just doesn’t GET it. He keeps forgetting significant details, like … this PC, or card, or whatever, was a freebie cast-off from a previous contract assignment. His one inarguable point is that Windows runs Visio – and he needs to be able to run that.
My son will look at various specs and see that ‘this’ has, oh, the best telephoto lens so it must be the best camera. Then he wants to know why I didn’t spend an extra $100 to get THAT one, and I point out a) this takes better pictures, b) this has a better wide angle c) this is more compact d) this has the flash in a better place and e) this cost $100 less.
Gomes is focusing on the easy details, forgetting the larger picture. DOH ! ! !
“People about to buy a computer tend to fixate on speeds and feeds–megahertz, megabytes, megapixels.”
No they don’t. Most people don’t have any idea what any of those are. It’s the sales people who fixate on these things. Most computer sales people are the geeks that dwell on those things. And most articles about the subject are written by other geeks that do the same.
People about to buy a computer tend to fixate on something they’ve seen someone else using or doing, plain and simple. They don’t walk into a store with a list of technical attributes, nor do they care about any of that. None of that should matter anyway. What should matter is that it works well and the person is capable of getting things done and enjoy the experience.
Funny enough, I think Lee’s three questions are pretty good for decision-making process. But my conclusions are different: it’s light and easy to carry, it turns on immediately, you touch the screen to tell it what to do. His lack of vision is his weakness.