The iPad will fail

I just watched Keynote 2010 and while the iPad seems great at a first glance (Jobs doesn't, he looks really skinny and ill) I think it will turn out be an epic failure. It's priced at $499 for the 16GB version. Jobs says that for the iPad to have a place in the market it needs to be better than a laptop and a smartphone for browsing, email, photos, video, music, games and ebooks. Let's look at each one of these areas.

Browsing: like the iPhone the iPad has no Flash support. If it doesn't offer support for the web content that's out there then...Fail.

Email: sure, with an iPad you can read and compose emails in bed if you want to. Pass.

Photos: the iPad will let you look at photos, great. You can also use it as a picture frame if you want to. But it can't compete with a laptop when it comes to editing. Fail.

Video: the iPad doesn't offer full HD support only 720p and it has no HDMI-out. Fail.

Music: would you bring the iPad to the gym or when you go jogging? Fail.

Games: needs no explanation. Fail.

eBooks: this is where the iPad excels compared to a laptop or smartphone. Pass. Still there are cheaper alternatives out there like the Amazon Kindle reading device.

To me it seems that Apple released the iPad just to have a new cool thing on the market.

[edit on 13-2-2010 by cripmeister]

reply to post by cripmeister


Wow, okay. I thought it looked like a great product (from what I had seen briefly), obviously isn't...and the price kind of makes you think...why not?

So, Thanks for the heads up.

...and for pointing out all the big things that it clearly hasn't got...

reply to post by jinx880101


During the first minutes of Steve Jobs presentation I also thought wow great this will be the next big thing. But when I actually thought about it, not so great.

I still believe this will be the way to go in a few years when technology catches up, but the product must be better than a laptop at everything.

reply to post by cripmeister


Well, in the presentation...they did make it out to be better than a laptop. I watched he whole thing....they obviously didn't mention all the things it was missing...

reply to post by jinx880101


When Jobs browsed the NY Times website there was a missing Flash plug-in box right there on the page. Everyone in the audience must have seen it, but Jobs said nothing about it. Big mistake.

reply to post by cripmeister


From what I've read on the prices, there seems to be 3 different models... Do the more expensive models have more features, or some of the missing features you mentioned above?

But all that aside, surely, it couldn't be that difficult to manufacture the ipad with the above said features...why didn't they just do it the first place?

You know what, in a couple of months they will have a upgraded version of the i-pad...with all the extras, and it will be 10 times the price!

I was so very excited for this product. I thought it was the portable video player i have been waiting for.

No USB and using the iPhone OS ruined it for me. The iPhone OS is great... ON THE iPHONE! The iPad should run a large font version of OSX. I know they would not get as much battery life BUT they could easily scale down an OSX version.

I'm sorry but i don't understand why i need it instead of my iPhone or iPod (which i don't have).

The one consolidation is that i am sure it will be jailbroken and some team will build a better OS for it.

I own everything Mac. My laptop, my phone, my desktop.... All apple.

But this is a truly useless product. I'd much rather buy a 300 dollar netbook (even if it does run windows....) and be able to actually use it like a computer than buy what is essentially a huge I-touch.

The name fails. Call me a sicko, but it sounds like a new kind of sanitary napkin.:shk:

reply to post by HarvestMoon




MadTV thought that also, a few years before the Ipad even came out

Great concept, bad execution...

I too agree that it will likely be an epic FAIL, once consumers really consider buying one, and then find it doesn't have the right features to support what they want to do with it...

I forgot to mention that it doesn't have a DVD/CD drive or Ethernet connection. You can't even download a simple PDF file and store it on the HDD. The iPad is basically an oversized iPod touch/iTunes vending machine.

btw I think OS X is the finest OS ever made, I'm not an Apple/Mac hater.