“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
“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. “
Why does he write like a girl? He was “freaking out”. His hands “cramped”. His neck “ached”. He was “scared to walk around”. He was afraid of being “heckled”. He looked around “sheepishly”. He thinks about “accessorizing”. He was in “agony”.
Oy vey.
I couldn’t have said it more elegantly myself. You pay $600-700 for an awkward dumbed down netbook that would have cost $300! Apple marketing is amazing!
“and I’m just a skinny white girl.”
Apparently he is too…..
“Prior to joining msnbc.com, Belzman was a newspaper reporter in Oregon and a city hall staffer in Seattle. He holds bachelor’s degrees from the University of Washington in English literature and journalism.”
My wife hates when I bring my iPad anywhere, not because we are getting “heckled,” but because we are getting bombarded with questions and onlookers trying to get a glimpse of the device. It really hinders trying to get anything done in public. Honestly, I feel like a rock star when I have it out with me. I have never used any device as much as I have used this iPad. This article is just complete empty rhetoric!
I wonder how long he’s had that template for a story about cheating on his electronic devices and has been waiting to use it.
What’s more telling is the fact that he said he didn’t even give it a chance. He bought something he didn’t even want in the first place.
What a douche.
Just sayin’.
Oh, other person that has never laid hands on an iPad!
Sure, the only reason that you could come up with this idea is shear sponsor payoff, shear stupidy, or as stated- never laid hands on it!
I love surfing the web on it. Do not have to lug my 13.3 with all the gear around (10 pounds plus). Can use the cigarette lighter to charge it while stuck on the 405 Freeway, ur parking lot. Easy to type in lap while a table clears in borders. Plus, do not run to the first power plug free and I can chicken wing the damn thing, so both hands are free. Short list of praise from me.
This man is an idiot.
Maybe he should dump that desktop Dell with the 19 inch screen glued to the side that he calls a laptop computer! Moron!
What an idiot. Hey MDN, Please iCal this guy. This loser needs to be revisited later.
@ ob1spyker
I get similar reactions from the public, especially at the office.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />. I love it!
Much as I enjoy Olberman and Maddow (get a clue you unbalanced-Fox lovers … or is that unbalanced Fox-lovers?), this is a rather pathetic bit of “reporting”. Perhaps an M$FT hit piece? He calls the 1.5 pound device a “deceptively heavy iPad” … so he sold it and went back to his net-book. Hope he enjoys the greater weight, smaller screen and shorter battery life!
He dares to write a hit piece after admitting he “didn’t even give it a chance”, that he sold it after two days, that he couldn’t figure out what to use it for? It is fairly obvious that he needs to be fired. Even if this is the Hit Piece he was tasked to write, he needs to be fired. It is less obvious, but just as true, that his boss should be fired. He is either incompetent or an agent of the demon “Apple”.
Those 200,000 new people a week buying up every available iPad must be crazy.
The opposite of every other reaction I’ve heard. People pick it up expecting something merely good and are just, blown away.
I think Belzman fell into the trap we all have when we face something new. For a year, I wondered why anyone would want an iPhone–I did not mind having a cell phone, iPod, and turning to my PowerBook for all over things.
Then I got one for my wife. I saw how she used it, and I was hooked. I had been a fool. I went right out and ordered my own.
I am in the same place with the iPad, except now I doubt my hesitation. I think it looks really cool. I think I can use it. I think it might change a lot of things.
But, until then, I can sit back and complain about how it is not like the things I already have, that I am already used to. And I believe, this is the point of the iPad. It is something new and different. I can sympathize with Belzman for his failure to give it a chance. He should give up his laptop or whatever for 48 hours, and then see how he feels.
So, I rambled on and on, and I could have just agreed with Steve516.
LOL iPad is useless? Go enjoy your bulky netbook hahaha, or beg for Ballmer to lend you his iSlate.
Avoid reading the comments on Josh’s article, they will make you retarded.
If the 200,000 customers a week felt the same way as this gigantic douche, then there would be rioting people with pitchforks and torches!!
i agree with this guy completely and i am a hardcore apple user. the iphad is pointless.
He’s right — it’s too large and heavy for what it does.
I thought this might be a good device for my mom, in lieu of a computer, but have since discovered it requires a computer w/ iTunes to activate, back up, etc. So there goes that idea.
Sooo…. what’s the real value? iPhone does everything iPad does.
If I could smell it through my iMac, this article would smell like bullshit.
MSNBC is to tech news what toilet paper is to a bleeding hemorroided sphincter.
Seriously, why are people even reading MSNBC?
Everything airing on MSNBC is a joke…. Their politics have been laughable for awhile now, and now their tech stories are every bit as comical.
For a good laugh, MSNBC is your man…
I also agree with the author, but only until May 28th when the iPad ships in the UK.
1. His ridiculous, extreme statements are clearly designed to get lots of press and commentary.
2. Deleted any links I had to MSNBC, as any publication that allows such blatant opinions shouldn’t be trusted.
3. I love my iPad, it connects me in a way I didn’t know existed.
Hmpf!
But its so shiny!
I used an iPad for a full evening and part of the next morning, and…I find myself agreeing with this article. I adore all my APple products (including my iPHone), and I’ll probably still get an iPad, but darned if it wasn’t heavy and awkward to use.