The Apple Ipad. Apple has announced that it has sold one million of the things in the first month. While Apple fans look for justifications to buy one, Apple haters have been very vocal denouncing its shortcomings and calling it a huge waste of circuitry.
The most interesting thing, though, has been the arguments about how the Ipad is so lame when compared to a netbook.
True, the Ipad has less storage. It has no camera. It runs a less robust operating system. It is a controlled environment. In short, it is everything a netbook isn’t.
Yeah, and what’s your point? 
In my view, comparing these two devices is a false comparison. Apple is creating an entirely different class of computing device with the Ipad. True, this is Apple’s answer to the netbook, but in the process, they are thumbing their nose at the netbook and saying it is a bad solution. As Jobs himself said, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”
A netbook is nothing but a laptop with a small footprint. It comes with all the potential headaches of a regular computer. Not everybody wants that.
For long-time PC users, it is hard to imagine people who get truly confused using a regular Windows computer. They get confused by drivers, security issues, the settings. They end up having to call a geek over to their house in order to fix things. The truth is that most of the world isn’t that computer savvy. They just want something that works out of the box and requires zero maintenance.
Enter the Ipad. Sure, it isn’t as capable. On the flip side, it fills a huge gap that no Windows-based device could possibly fill. It is simple and literally anybody can pick this thing up and use it without any manual. You’ve got a huge one-stop shop for software. No complicated installation routines. No security headaches. Just turn it on and go.
In short, this isn’t a netbook killer. This is an entirely new breed of computing device. It is a netbook alternative.
And to the Apple haters’ chagrin, I think it is going to succeed like crazy because, quite frankly, this isn’t something that anything powered by Windows could ever pull off.
Just like Apple did with the Iphone, they wrote the standard that all others try to emulate. With the mobile market, finally Android entered the scene with enough clout to give Iphone a run for it’s money. In this new classification that the Ipad has created, Apple again finds itself being first. Now, we’ll watch the other companies try to come up with something to compete with it. And I expect they will.
Like what you read?
If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below:
You do make a valid point about the ipad, yet unfortunately Apple overcharges for their hardware. As a tech enthusiast myself, Apples internals on all of their products are usually average yet they price the parts like they are high end and then try to lock down their OS to keep people from saving money by putting something like OSX on a netbook to boot.
While I agree that they are catalyst in changing the focus of the markets, they are rarely innovative. They merely take an old concept and put a spin on it with a few novelties to shake things up. But in the end, thanks to them my dreams for a fully functional tablet device should come to fruition in the next few years.
As an Apple user since the 80′s, I’ve owned nearly every product they have sold over the years. My 3G iPad arrived on Friday, and I must say I’m impressed. True, it’s not a computer. What is it? An amazingly creative productivity tool. Finally, I have an easy to read tool that makes accessing my contacts, calendars, and emails quick and easy. In just three days, it’s made me completely rethink how I handle the flow of information for my real estate business. As an artist, writer and photographer, I’m eagerly anticipating how this powerful gizmo will assist me at buyer, seller and specialized presentations. WOW!
This is a very good point. I made this mistake before the release of the iPad, but since it’s launch I’ve slowly realized that the iPad is too unique to clump it into arguments like this.
Last week I read a blog post by someone whose mother wanted to get an iPad and the author of the blog when on to mention how he talked her out of getting one, making comparisons against laptops and netbooks. It kind made me sad because the iPad is probably just the device she needs and she’ll never know because of him. He also compared it to some other cheaper tablets, but I doubt it would even be worth getting those because they are probably not even that feature filled compared to an iPad.
I visited my Apple store and played with the iPad – I ordered one to “replace” a 2001 laptop that is only now useful for surfing and a few other jobs as it is extremely slow.
In preparation I downloaded iTunes to start getting used to the interface – iTunes wouldn’t install on my Windows XP SP3 desktop. I called my Apple store they put me through to Apple Care and a really helpful technician helped me install it. I had to disable all security features (anti virus, firewall and spyware scanner). However, when I tried to view an iTune tutorial video the PC crashed. When I tried to play a song – the PC crashed – even with all the security disabled.
So this “simple” and “magical” is difficult to run without the 98Mb iTunes.
I’d still like to buy one but do not want to buy a replacement desktop as well – perhaps the “dropbox “ app may be a solution to sync the iPad with my PC – any thoughts?
Yeah, Apple has never been very good at making software for Windows, hence the Itunes crashes. Could be that your Windows box needs to be “cleaned out” some, because even when I was running Windows, Itunes wasn’t THAT bad.
All the ipad is, is a big Iphone, and like the iphone it’s going to suck. Not all netbooks are powered by windows a lot of them are run on Linux. If I’m going to pay more than 50 dollars for something I’m going to want to do anything I want with it not just run what they say you can run and do what they say you can do with it. I only know 2 people that even has an Iphone everyone else has a blackberry and Android based phone nether which aren’t anything like a iphone
I don’t like apple (in general, because of their proprietary bs, that IMO is actually worse than anything Microsoft has ever done, which the Macheads are quick to point out as their reason for hating MS and loving mac). I don’t (and will never) own an iPhone. I do however, find the iPod to be the best MP3 player ever made. And I know that their products are user friendly and work well.
“All the ipad is, is a big Iphone, and like the iPhone it’s going to suck”
I don’t think the iPad makes phone calls, and, even though I won’t switch to AT&T, the iPhone doesn’t suck. It took years after the iPhone to make an alternative (android) to come close to giving people what they want. An easy to use, fully functional smart phone, with full web browsing and full touch screen. Yes, this is what people want. How many millions have been sold? (Yes, I am using the products’ popularity to describe how much it doesn’t suck.)
And Linux powered net books, while awesome, aren’t a thought for the majority of PC users. (considering >50% aren’t geeky enough to know that there are alternatives to IE, using Linux really isn’t an option).