MacDailyNews Take: Despite numerous obvious shortcomings, of course. 
Dvorak continues, “The iPad is something different. The device eschews the old paradigm completely by not being a sketchpad/handwriting recognition device. The lesson, I suppose, was learned from the Newton, the company’s first attempt at such a machine. It was mocked for its miserable handwriting recognition function. Apple didn’t even try that this time.”
MacDailyNews Take: As Dvorak likely knows, but won’t admit, the final iterations of Newton were marvels of handwriting recognition. Even today, it remains so. In fact, the technology is part of Mac OS X. It’s called “Inkwell” (or “Ink.”) Users who connect a graphics tablet to their Mac, can handwrite on the tablet using a stylus and Inkwell translates what is written (or even scrawled) into typed words. It works quite well.
Dvorak continues, “Instead the company made the weird, but logical, step toward the small, easy-to-use app-oriented, touchy-feely UI. The iPad enlarged this new paradigm, which completely eliminates the desktop metaphor with its endless file folders. Now [on traditional PCs] we have buttons everywhere. [But with iPad], instead of mousing around on the desktop, opening and closing folder after folder or plowing through endless lists, you go from one self-contained app to the next.”
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, to make a touchscreen device with a “touchy-feely” UI that’s easy-to-use would be described by Dvorak as “weird.” Oftentimes the bloated gasbag just spews out words regardless of their actual meanings.
Dvorak continues, “So, what market segment does such a device impact? And what do competitors need to understand when they roll out their ‘iPad killers?’ First of all, the only company I’ve see that seems to understand the paradigm shift away from the messy desktop is Google with its Nexus One phone.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s easier to seem like you understand after you’ve had a mole sitting in Apple’s boardroom and infringed on at least 20 of Apple’s patents.
Dvorak continues, “But the company doesn’t seem to be as actively involved in the tablet space as it should be. That leaves everyone else meandering—including Microsoft, whose OS will be employed on a number of pads… A number of interesting gold rushes will keep us very busy in the months ahead. The first is the rush to make apps optimized for the iPad, rather than the iPhone/iPod touch. The second is the rush toward making an iPad killer. Since these devices will all be derivative, the likelihood of an iPad killer is nil, but we’ve probably never witnessed an attack like the one we are about to see.”
“What is completely overlooked at the moment, is the potential to sink Microsoft, once and for all—or at least relegate the company to commodity computing (formerly known as desktop computing),” Dvorak writes. “The irony, of course, is that Microsoft predicted the trend toward pad computing. It just didn’t predict that it, as a company, wouldn’t be playing in the big game. There is a very real possibility now that Linux will finally be able to make inroads on the desktop, since the Android OS is the one true competitor to the Apple iPad OS.”
MacDailyNews Take: Before proclaiming Android the “one true competitor,” let’s wait to hear what the judges say, okay? It’s pretty easy to look like Apple’s “one true competitor” when your tech is based on and infringing upon Apple’s patents, than by doing your own independent work. Billy Joe Manley looked like John Steinbeck’s “one true competitor” in high school English class, until the teacher found out he was copying Steinbeck’s essays. Billy Joe started and quickly folded several business ideas (they never got out of beta, if you catch our drift) and while basically pumping gas for a living. Not that there’s anything with with that, but, regardles of how it looked at one time, Steinbeck’s “one true competitor” he was not.
Dvorak continues, “People have asked me if I’m going to get one of these devices. I can see its usefulness for all sorts of minor chores like casual Web browsing while watching TV. It would make a great turn-by-turn GPS device, too. But I’m going to wait. I’d like to see a real camera, some sort of I/O like a USB port, and an OLED screen like the kind on the Nexus One.”
MacDailyNews Take: Camera, schamera. Nobody wants to look up your nose during a video chat, John. You want to take a snapshot, use your iPhone. You want to capture a photograph, use a real camera. As for I/O, iPad has plenty of I/O, it’s just not big on old wired I/O. It does have it’s Dock Connector, of course, which is a sophisticated wired I/O port, plus it has Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and/or 3G: UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). As for the OLED screen on the Nexus One, it pales (pun intended) in comparison to iPhone’s and iPad’s IPS screens. Please see: Screen Test: Apple’s iPhone 3GS LCD gets the part over Google’s rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ OLED – February 22, 2010
Dvorak writes, “In the meantime, Apple has ignited a rocket with an unknown payload. One thing is for sure: in the coming months and years, we’re sure to see a lot of ripples from this device. Hang on!”
Full article, with lots wrong obviously, but, surprisingly, also with one or two things right (even a broken clock is right twice a day), here.
MacDailyNews Take: Looks like he’s finally starting to get it. As opposed to:
Now that the fizz has dissipated regarding the Apple Inc. iPad, we can objectively look at the device and conclude that it probably will not have the impact on the market that the iPhone had… The tablet market has only succeeded as a niche market over the years and it was hoped Apple would dream up some new paradigm to change all that. From what I’ve seen and heard, this won’t be it. – John C. Dvorak, January 29, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Dvorak will come around entirely, as I predicted. Perhaps he gets paid by the word.
Blah Blah Blah…
i guess you have to make a living pimping something…
Watch all these Metoosoft shills come around and embrace the iPad. They’ve been slamming Apple for 15 years but, dense as they are, they have got to see the writing on the wall. Metoosoft is clueless (nothing changed there) and all the “fun” is in Apple’s products. Mark my words…the shills will embrace the iPad as if it was somehow their idea.
He gets it but is afraid. He sees the advantage and wants one but is going to wait because just maybe. That is fear, plain and simple.
Tell me Dvorak can’t afford to get an upgraded model when they inevitably get better. We all know that useful elements didn’t make into the 1st generation.
He needs a map to get to the bathroom and someone to wipe his rearend.
No wonder, even with his name in papers, he has never has his picture used after his wins on the special olympics. He is that big of an embarrassment!!
I love and almost always agree with MDN’s takes, but I have to say that MDN will be eating a lot of crow when the next generation iPad comes out with a front-facing camera for video iChat. I think you need to iCal yourself on this one…
I would buy an iPad in an instant for my daughters (who don’t live with me- they are dependent on their mother’s MacBook which isn’t always available) so we could Skype. Guess I’ll have to wait a year (as will, I suspect, many others). The only reason Apple didn’t include a camera is because they wanted to have a new feature to add next year and (probably) because iChat for the iPhone OS wasn’t ready. That my 2¢ worth…
put a cam on it and add the ability to skype video and i will buy an ipad… simple
Camera wanters:
Steve will put a camera in iPad once they get the tech in their patent working at the right price point — I’m talking about Apple’s patent that puts the camera behind the screen so that when you video chat, you can actually appear like you are looking at them instead of off to one side wherever the camera is placed.
MacMan,
MacDailyNews did not say that future generations of iPads would not have a camera.
So, no, crow is not on MDN’s menu.
The reason Apple didn’t include a camera is not a matter of iChat not being ready. If the software needed to be ready, Apple would have the software ready. It’s a trivial matter.
It’s the carriers’ networks that aren’t ready for millions of video chats. If AT&T;can’t even handle iPhone tethering, they certainly can’t handle video iChats.
If you’re going to wait a whole year and deny your daughters all of iPad’s benefits just because you can’t video chat, then you might be assigning a bit too much importance to video chatting.
I thought this was funny:
“I can see its usefulness for all sorts of minor chores like casual Web browsing while watching TV”
Chores? Really? Minor?
i/o would be good.
The ability to EASILY get files onto and off of the iPad would make things better for those who use it for work, and I may ad, if you are away from the computer you use to sync your iPad, aside from an email attachment, there seems to be no way to get doc into the iPad for reading and/or editing…
No doubt this will come, but I’m not sure the total walled garden that has been the iPod, the iPhone, and now the iPad will last forever.
Dvorak has always been wrong about next gen computing and it is the first time he is admitting he was wrong. However, he is right about one thing lack of camera on the iPad. I went to the Apple Store on launch date and didn’t buy the sexy iPad after standing in line for two hours because of lack of camera and SD card slot.
Up until now I’ve only seen fish flip-flop this much.
The first handwriting recognition software for the Newton was farmed out to Russians, and resulted in some famous Newton blank verse poetry. The company corrected the problem by bringing the project in-house at Apple, which yielded the “marvel of handwriting recognition,” to which MDN refers. None of this, of course was done under Steve Jobs’ split tenure.
You could have determined that without standing in line for two hours. Specifications were available from Apple for weeks before the release. I call BULLSHIT.
Well said Jennnifer.
I hate to say it, but I’m tired of hearing Dvorak pontificate about Apple did this, Apple did that.
He’s over the hill, and going down with the ship the “SS Microshaft”.
Bye-bye.
John is a phony bastard. He HAD to write this… There was no way he’d dis the iPad completely- he did throw in the typical no IO, no camara shots as well as the condescending “touchy feely” references. He wrote this to protect his credibility – which, he has none with people that know better – like us. He’s just a foolish hit whore that actually thinks what he thinks— matters.
P.S. I own an iPad. It’s a HUGE game changer, and very well protected by numerous patents. It looks like Apple is well into its long term strategy, and no one will catch them for years, if ever.
I remember reading an article years ago about the significance of Apple being an astute software company, and that was where its strength was. Well, they’re even well beyond that now.
Right on Jennifer – good for you.
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@Cleetus
I think it`s starting already, I`ve already seen forum posts on other sites where the apologists are spouting “Don`t get me wrong, I really like the ipad, but if it wasn`t for Gates` tablet vision in 2001….” and all that crap.
“Nobody wants to look up your nose during a video chat…” No, they don’t, and they don’t need to either. Put the iPad in Apple’s case, and stand it on the table in front of you. Or prop it further up on your knee.
Nose hairs are not an argument against a camera in an iPad. I’ll consider an iPad when it has a front-facing webcam, although I’m less convinced about the need for a camera on the back.
He forgot to mention that nobody has proven that these tablet devices will work without a mouse, and that people would actually want a computer without a mouse.
This weeks episode of Cranky Geeks was really irritating. Dvorak and crew (including our favorite whipping boy Rob Enderle) were really ripping the iPad. I normally can ignore a lot of the moronic anti-Apple banter on his show, but this one made me want to kick all of their pasty asses.
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Well, fortunately millions of us are buying iPads without cameras and other shnick schnack, in fact we’re buying them precisely for not suffering from such gadgetitis. Remember all the people who refused to buy iPods because they didn’t have FM receivers or cameras? How many years did it take-and how many millions of iPods–before Apple came around to add these things? If you’re waiting on the sidelines for Apple to add a camera to the iPad, then you will likely wait a long, long time!