Reuters reports, “Executives were keen to emphasize that the Libretto, which they expect to retail for about 120,000 yen ($1,320) in Japan, compared with $489 for the larger of Amazon’s Kindle devices, or $499 for the cheapest iPad, offers more than a passive ‘consumption’ experience. ‘Apple’s iPad is probably creating a new market in terms of consuming information, browsing and reading books,’ Masahiko Fukakushi, president and CEO of Toshiba’s digital products and network unit, told reporters. ‘But when it comes to creation or production … what we have been doing still has a lot of value. We want to continue to do both.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPad offers much more than a passive “consumption” experience: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. Toshiba’s attempt at deceit falls flat in the face of fact. Toshiba’s president and CEO of Toshiba’s digital products and network unit is either ignorant of what iPad does – i.e. he’s not doing his job – or he’s a liar trying to brand iPad as a consumption-only device. That is simply not true. Beyond the already-shipping Pages, Numbers, Keynote and any number production/creations apps (there are more everyday), anyone who’s seen iMovie on iPhone 4 (an iOS device just like iPad) understands that it (likely with even more capabilities) and many more “creation or production” apps are on the way for iPad (iOS 4 is coming to iPad this autumn).
If the iPad also-rans are going to try to use the “passive consumption” talking point, they’re going to to fail even more miserably than normal with their cheap, ugly, ill-conceived Apple product knockoffs.
When they start out with ignorance and/or lies before they’re even shipping, you know they’re doomed.