“The iPad is too heavy. It’s awkward to hold and view in public. It’s fragile. It requires expensive accessories to protect it and extract more functionality,” Belzman writes. “There aren’t enough killer apps, at least apps that do anything more than their iPhone equivalent. Its wireless reception is spotty and if you’re an iPhone owner, 3G access will set you back on top of your AT&T plan and give you all the same fits. The iPad does almost nothing your smartphone or laptop can’t already do and will cost you more to do it unless you get rid of something.”
“I figured the iPad would offer better Web-browsing on the bus, better reading from bed, better note-taking at work and better movie-watching on a flight. It would save my waning eyesight and offer new interactive media experiences as apps improved. It would fill an aching void in my digital life,” Belzman writes. “Except it didn’t. I didn’t even give it a chance.”
Belzman writes, “As soon as I got the iPad home and plugged it into my laptop to load up with pictures, movies, songs and apps and looked over at my iPhone, I started freaking out. What had I done?“
“Soon, my suspicions were confirmed: My hands cramped trying to hold the deceptively heavy iPad. My neck ached as I balanced it on my lap trying to watch a movie. I couldn’t get Web pages to load. It wobbled when I put it on a table. I was scared to walk around with it for fear of dropping it or being heckled. I felt like an idiot surfing the Web on the iPad as I listened to the radio on my iPhone. I looked around sheepishly as I shuffled headphones from one device to the other. Cash registers clanged in my head as I thought about all the money I’d need to spend apping up, accessorizing and enabling true wireless connectivity. I was in agony,” Belzman writes. “Then it struck me like a ton of iPads: This thing is a bombshell that’s lousy in the sack and puts you in the poorhouse.”
“You figure a portable, Web-enabled touchscreen with an ever-growing world of apps would be perfect for so many things until you try to find a place for it in your house full of gadgets,” Belzman writes. “I had to dump the iPad. The longer I had it, the more I felt like I was cheating on my other portable devices and denying their virtue… I ended up selling it to a guy who already owned an iPad but was looking to upgrade to the 3G model. He said he was still trying to figure out what to do with it. He confessed he’d probably sell it to someone else. Ah, the circle of iLife.“
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Note: Microsoft owns 18% of MSNBC. And the fear is palpable.
Some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is. – Steve Jobs, May 17, 2010