Comments on: New study says fewer people thinking of buying an iPad now that they actually know what it is

By: ObamaPacman

ObamaPacman — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:10:52 +0000

@12.
Fail. Sounds like the same FUD used for iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iTunes app store.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:24:43 +0000

You are all missing the point …

Just as a gaming platform it is an instant hit … there is nothing like it !!
It is a bigger iPod Touch, and that is what gamers want.

And for just $100 more than the Touch … it is a steal.

I know in my house we will be buying several iPads, and my kid’s friends all want one.

As far as being a computer replacement … Well … it is NOT. Nor is the PSP, the iPod Touch, the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader or any of those devices that the iPad will replace.

By: Kent

Kent — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:18:37 +0000

No 16:9, no multitasking, no handwriting recognition, no flash, no camera,..Oh and did I say no handwriting recognition! I wanted to take this thing to class & use it to take notes & scribble formulas (windows tablets can do this but the “iPad” does not!?!?) Steve what the hell were you thinking! Mr Jobs you could have made this thing so totally awesome, (light years ahead of anything currently out there) instead you have given us this big steaming pile! The ipad sucks period! Perfectly put, and well said:-)
What was Steve Jobs thinking when he put this thing out!? I thought for sure it would (at the very least) have all of the features that their old defunct Newton device had but alas it does not. That thing (the Newton) has more functionality and is more capable of filling the roll I just outlined above.

The tablet space that we all thought they would enter has a clearly defined set of functionalities this is precisely the reason that everyone was so disappointed with the iPad. It had NONE of those features.

Think about it, if Apple had just come out and said they were developing an advanced ereader like nothing else you’ve ever seen, we would have been impressed, but to say this whole time they were developing a tablet, and then show this? They killed their own hype by claiming this device was something it wasn’t.

You can’t just come into a space that has been in existence for over 10 years now, say you have something to add to it, then change the definition of the space to fit your device.

A tablet has been, is, and always will be a device that is a fully functional notebook you can write on. It should be a notepad replacement. It CAN be a convertible laptop, OR a slate type device, but it needs to be a fully functional computer to fit the definition. Even a netbook is a fully functional computer at it’s heart.

The iPad is a big iPod touch…not even an iPhone. And it HARDLY fills the space they claimed it would.

Even Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field couldn’t help him this time.

By: J James

J James — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:15:04 +0000

While I do see your point my reason for holding out is simple. No Camera. I’m not big into iChat or Skype by a tablet device that would allow for me to surf the web easily, check my email and have simple video conferencing would change to becoming my primary means of communications at home and in the office. I would also use it in the field to take simple notes on jobs and look up information in the company online databased while taking photos of things to send info back to the office. These are things the iPhone is just too small to do effectively. Taking my laptop (17″ MBP) would be too much of a hassle. While you can use the camera for photos its too tough to orient, it weighs a ton more, and I don’t need a full keyboard in the field. So if it had a camera I could see the iPad being the perfect intermediary, until then, while I want one for techlusts sake, I won’t be getting one until there is a camera.

By: Micah Woods

Micah Woods — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:47:54 +0000

@darrel Forgot to mention, when you use your Mac, you basically are running linux! Just has a much nicer User Interface. Let’s not get into the discussion of Micro-Kernals vs. the Monolithic kernal used in Linux. I am talking about the Unix environment. Bash is the default shell for God’s sake, and although bash is not Linux, Bash would not be without linux.

By: Micah Woods

Micah Woods — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:40:59 +0000

@darrel 140,000 Apps and 35% of them are high-tech whoopee cushions.

Slingplayer isn’t a threat to Apple, only one affected by this is ATT. 90% approval rate, LOL!!! How many apps were never developed to begin with? A company won’t make an investment if the product won’t be approved. How many programs sell you music (not from iTunes) on the iPhone? Why isn’t their an app to purchase music from Amazon or Walmart? These would be great features/apps.

If you bought a Mac, then you did buy your computer based on open source ideology. All of the programming languages are open source which appeals to developers. If you are using a closed source app that you paid for on your Mac, then you are using open source technology.

@Peter Neal you are exactly right, and that is why the product is so scary. The average computer user, checks email, maybe does some word processing. Power users obviously can’t afford to make iPad there main platform. But the millions of people that only own a computer to facebook can have a computer, that is virtually maintenance free and serves all their needs for very little money. It is even wireless EVERYWHERE.

I am not normally opposed to change, but I can imagine one of these being in almost every home. This is not the iron clad nazi future that computer users need. I love Apple for it’s strong points, but this is a major blow to computing as we know it.

By: Jonro

Jonro — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:00:17 +0000

I wasn’t that impressed after the keynote, but I’m more interested in it now. I think there are some good markets for it. Aside from typical consumers, students are a great potential market and mobile workers (i.e., insurance adjusters). A lot of workers need to use email, word processing and a access a corporate database. You can do all of that with the iPad. As I already have an iMac, an MBP and an iPhone, I really want the camera (for videoconferencing) and Netflix capability before I invest in an iPad. For me, iPad that does all of that, coupled with downloadable newspaper subscriptions and its eBook reader could make it a “must have” device for me.

My parents, who don’t have any desire to use a computer, are interested in an iPad, but the 80+ demographic isn’t a real growth market (with a few significant advances in medical nanotechnology, maybe it will be).

I could see this form factor becoming dominant with a few caveats. I couldn’t do any real programming work on an iPad display. I use dual 24″ monitors now. There’s no way I could switch to a single 1024 x 768 display. If the iPad could act as a full screen keyboard and work with wireless displays and storage when on my desk, well, I might buy two.

By: Olivier P.

Olivier P. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:52:29 +0000

“Yes, and I think I would like to buy one” goes up from 3% to 9%. How can this be interpreted as “fewer people thinking of buying an iPad “?

By: Peter Neal

Peter Neal — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:23:22 +0000

I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again. My mother called me after seeing it on the news and asked me when it was coming out because she wanted one. Now though we bought a MacBook a couple of years ago, she only currently uses it to read email, browser the web etc; exactly the features offered by the new iPad.

This product is perfect for the 50 something or other market, who don’t or didn’t use computers in their day to day work (yes lots of people still don’t) and just want something that’s easy to use and doesn’t require them to phone their children frequently to ask for help.

These are also people who tend not to answer tech polls. So I think this product is going to go down a storm in the real world, although many techy people like myself aren’t that impressed. One aside to this, if they’d added a camera for skype etc, it’d of really been a killer purchase for my mother.

By: fridge

fridge — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:02:46 +0000

As with any survey this data can be interpreted in different ways to suit the point of view of the person using it. It shows after the announcement 3x as many people sampled would definitely like to buy an iPad – good news for Apple. Also the shift from 26% to 52% is a little misleading as up to 17% of this is made up by the people indicated by the blue section in the left hand chart. i.e. people who hadn’t heard of it and weren’t interested, who after the keynote became people who had heard of it and still weren’t interested.