Discussion on:

10 reasons why I'll be passing on the iPad

11. I hate greasy fingerprints on my screen. There's no way to connect an external mouse or other pointing device, short of the previously mentioned dock / dongle. If people like controlling input with their fingers so much, why do they buy travel mice for their laptops?

I thought you were going to forget the unreplacable battery, but you snuck it into #9.

Wiping the screen, isn't that the same as "delete"?

Apple FanBoys never cease to amaze me. They actually trade functionality for "coolness" and believe Apple when they tell them that this is the future. No support for USB/Flash/Java? No camera or microphone? No replaceable battery? You know what? Let the army of mezmorized Apple FanBoys have their cool toy and leave real computing to the Linux and PC communities.

This is an error on the article: the iPad does have a microphone. http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

You know, if Apple's toy was so bad, why can't I buy an iPad here in Belgium because of worldwide shortage? Why did many tablet devices fail to continue into the market? Why did many tablet builders cancel their original plans, saying they're moving the launch date a few years (so-to-say)? Why is Apple's cash register bigger than Microsoft's? Why did Apple change the smartphone world with the iPhone and now with the iPad?

Just look at the internet or at your news channel. There's nothing more cool or popular than iPhone, iPad or the World Cup 2010. We're talking worldwide here.

P.S.: You don't like it, you deny it. There will be plenty of alternatives in the future. When the iPhone came out, Google started its Android platform and smartphone builders took it over. Now just wait for the tablet builders to copy the iPad, so you can buy it.

The recent roll out of iPhone 4 proved to be driven by previous iPhone users at the rate of like 77%!! I wonder what the percentage of fanboys were suckers for the iPad. At least with all the other devices out, you don't have to have special 'holding instructions'! I saw a post yesterday about how a guy fixed his iPhone with SCOTCH TAPE! And he was happy about it! His picture is in the dictionary next to 'fanboy'.

Yes, I confirm. The industrial (external) design of the iPhone 4 really sucks. That's why I'm not buying it. I'm really sure that this is Apple's first big blunder in like 10 years.

There are some hardcore Apple fans, but I hate them too. But Apple products aren't just used by fanboys, but normal people and even by many Fortune 500 companies.

Disagree - "it's still a decent product ..."

Agree - "... and can only get better."

One principle in corporate IT is to not buy Microsoft software until the first service pack is released. One rule in consumer technology should be never buy Apple hardware until the third version. That's when they finally get all the features right and the price settles to about half of the original product. Let the bleeding edge, 'gotta have it' crowd spend their money and then complain a year later about how they got ripped off.

I was never crazy about the Iphone in the first place. I am not a big fan of small touch screens, But this thing is just an Iphone only bigger.

This thing make a Kindle look like a good idea.

Since this device has no phone capability. I guess you could jailbreak it in some fashion to run VOIP over the WiFi connection.

I really like my Kindle but the Kindle DX is roughly the same price and does nothing more than display books in black and white.

BTW, you don't have to jail break it to use VOIP, you can do that now on the iPhone and it works on the iPad as well.

No, they made the iPod Touch bigger. Comparisons with the iPhone are nil because it actually offers more by way of telephony features, camera, and gps.

There may not be Flash, but the iPhone does officially play YouTube videos, so it follows that the iPad would do the same. But I agree that it is silly to lock in a device that is supposed to be used more like an ultraportable PC than a phone. If it's the same as the iPhone, it also means no Java and no way to directly sync PDFs from your computer.

You've hit on almost all the same beefs I have. I'll add one more. I believe that this is Apples vision for the future of computers. I utterly reject it.

Exactly...I would rather use my phone,or my Laptop.
I already have enough stuff to wear/carry...seems
like an under powered over-priced SCREEN, and if it
at least had a USB port your phone could RUN IT!
FAD.FAGIDBOUDIT.

1 reason NOT to read your article. The title. Please stay with Windows and a PC.

1 reason NOT to read your article. The title. Please stay with Windows and a PC.

If you don't want to read an article, skip it. Don't try to dictate content to the rest of us. It's a big web, with plenty of room.

I think we are about to have a barrage of pro-apple articles with normal apple replies.

> I don't ever use USB anyway
> I don't need storage because my photos from the iPhone camera are really lo-res
> I don't fly to Australia

etc ad nauseum.

Lets get ready for another round of iDenial and iMissThePoint.

iDenial lol

We will also be seeing a lot of iWinSnob replies here as well.

You are going to get iWantAProductWithSomeFunctionality responses.

Please note
1. you cannot buy anywhere the type of tablet this is, size, wieght, function.
2. this is not a laptop/netbook/etc it is a tablet.
3. instant on, wireless n support, 10 hours battery life, full size screen dot and size wise, this is the perfect answer to general email/web browsing/facebook etc.

4. simple simple os. I bet anyone can get this to an older parent and have them up and running email and web in minutes. Try that on a windows device.

someday we will get this form factor with win-x, but right now I will buy one and gladly use it with the limitations of this hardware/os, also knowing that future updates will add more features, and in 5 years from now the version 1 will still be a decent email/web client

Took a new win 7 installation on a laptop, customized it and has been running with no problems and has not asked for help once.
Older folks problem is not the hardware or software, it is the brickwall that separates physical reality from the ether or electronic reality

iPad was intended to be a portable device, but it was not made to be portable enough. What i think about portability is : get a device and you can put everything and do anything with that everywhere

Well it's a touchscreen connected to the WiFi in your house. Have one on the wall in the hallway, one in the livingroom and one in the kitchen. They can all run apps that transforms them into different things. I don't think ppl will carry these around.

At $500 each? Maybe for you, but there are plenty of things I'd rather do with $1500 than these toys.

The only way I see this working is one in each conference room in a company, as a means to share a discussion, documentation, graphics, without having to bring in your laptop, and plug it in a beamer.
Or hang them, in the cantine, the reception, and so on. I agree, I dont think these will be carried around.

20 heads all trying to get within 3 feet of the screen.

With the laptops, the weight and heat are passed on to your laps. And the screen placement is also quite comfortable. But it won?t be comfortable to place the IPAD on the lap and work looking down on the screen.
Another way would be to hold IPAD as if you are holding a baby in your arm or you are holding a book to read with both hands. In both cases you cannot keep that same position for long. Though the weight is only 1 pound, it will still hurt when you are in the same position for long with your arms and hands.
I don?t think it will be quite helpful for business users either. One might carry it to the conference meetings, but what can he do with that small screen and no external connectivity. Yes he might be able to impress the client by the hi-tech savy image, but businesses are not won by technology alone, but what can you do with that technology that will add value.

Israr Shaikh

Millions of Kindle users have some how managed to figure it out. I don't think that holding it will be a problem.

Personal opinion:

I was looking forward to this device I had my own hopes.

I wanted to get out of the study a bit more and spend time with the family but still stay connected. Even a laptop is a barrier, would have been great to ahve a iPad that suited my needs.

I have no concern over the HDD space, if i could access network shares on my home network and network drives. I would have prefered an OS X experience as well.

I was hoping the product would be as such: a OS X striped down OS where I could multitask (I wanted to be able to read an ebook on the couch, with Safari in the background and a messaging client where I could switch or size the windows on each. As a result this is a pretty big deal breaker for me, perhaps I should wait and see when MS releases info on their dual screen book thing, that looks more up my alley.

I am not sure if the tablet has the features but it would have been nice and would have been a great market share. If you could draw on the screen directly, make it like a Wacom Tablet. Students would love a long battery life, virtual notepad to make university lecture notes and swipe to the next page and take it home with them. Coupe this with the ebooks and if i was going back to uni this year ild buy one just for this feature! A HDMI wireless connector that you could plug into the TV to connect with the ipad to show your notes on the big screen, a movie, or anything would have been a nice feature as well.

Perhaps I am looking at this from more of a enthusiast point of view that the standard consumer as I want more from the "revolutionary device." But I think this is a want of most enthusiasts; a tablet that isnt just for pure entertainment.

I will keep on dreaming for this revolutionary product.

Call me old fashioned if you will, but I'm finding Apple's closed policies seriously onerous. I wouldn't touch their **** with a borrowed 10ft pole, iPad or no iPad.

at the first day buyers on TV.

That is about it.

I thought it was bad, then I read this article...

seriously, what was apple thinking?

an ipod/iphone OS on a computer? no USB's?

and when people start taking them to work - no domain connectivity, printing? outlook email, webmail,
When I watch movies and play games on a system I want to be able to check my work emails - in fact I want to check email on everything I use!

Kindle is 10 bucks more than iPad, not double the price. And I guess you get a lot more with the iPad.
I don't see why battery would be an issue. Besides, making a swappable battery enlarges the size. TEN HOURS. Are you just trying to make them up to 10 reasons?
The reason it runs iPhone OS is the wide success the iPhone had with touch features. Sure, I would've liked it to be multitasking but apart from that, the experience you'll get here is not like all those other netbooks that cramp up all that info in one small screen.
You're simply trying to compare the iPad to a netbook, which it is not. It was made for reading, browsing, multimedia viewing, gaming, and some office stuff. And as far as I see it excels in those. And this is what Apple is good at, not to stick all the technology you MIGHT use to take along.

So what you are saying is that among the things apple excels at is not including things?

I expect you would pay extra for a car with no spare tire since its rarely used

well, design is what you are paying for. Want all the bells=and-whistles? Buy a laptop. Want a portable media browser? Buy an iPad.

I would consider a portable media player something that I can use to simply watch and listen to media - not an $800+ device. If Apple is promoting the iPad as a "portable media player" they must think consumers are idiots - oh...wait...

It's not even 16:9

And that's not something you can change with a software update.

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You can keep on finding as many reasons as you want. Same thing when iPhone came out. With Apple, you get a different experience. You can compare it with netbooks and say that you don't have USB's, Flash Player, etc. But, I bet you can't find any product right now that's got quality screen as high as this, user experience as easy and powerful, and it's the little things that they work on. That is, you can open a video or pdf file on any device, but with iPhone (and iPad) these things open in a snap, and play very smoothly. I still see poweful Windows laptops that still don't play videos that well. You get the smooth scrolling too, like with the iPhone. And well there's no touchscreen like theirs. I don't know whether you've ever worked on an iPhone, but if you did, you'll know what I mean. Now you probably want to repeat the same issue, NO FRIGGIN USB!