Everyone knows I love Apple and have done so for a long time – before iPods, before they were on Sex and the City and before there were Apple stores run by Apple themselves. I spent $4,500 on my first Apple Performa that had a 1.2gb hard drive back in the old days so I feel I am somewhat entitled to jump on the soapbox about the iPad.
Note – I have a Macbook and an iPhone – I know I am not the person they are marketing the iPad to and I know that if I didn’t have a Macbook I would have probably been one of those people lining up for one on 5th Avenue. Much of this is focussed on the aesthetic of the iPad and I realize that this is not the most important aspect of the iPad. Although, by already having a Macbook – this is what really ends up becoming the crunch factor in a purchase of this kind and this is where the iPad has failed me.
If you have an iPad already, you are no doubt thinking it is the most beautiful piece of electronica on earth.. if you are pining for one then you are going to get it anyway so my views won’t matter. But I have to rant on this as I have been holding on to my thoughts on the iPad for too long.
I was following the conference from California the day the iPad was announced and when it came up on the big presentation screen I felt nothing. Absolutely NOTHING. Now I get excited at Apple announcements – like when they announced an overhaul of Mobile Me… the rush that I felt when they announced the iPhone (while I was watching it all happen at 3am in Melbourne!)… and the absolute excitement when I first saw the Macbook Air. So at first I felt nothing but then I got angry… yes I felt real anger because you know why? The iPad is UGLY. And what makes it ugly – THE ICON SPACING! It is the most hideous icon spacing I have ever seen and a total waste of space on the screen – it looks cheap and nasty and for that kind of spacing, the icons are too small. It looks like a toy. Or like something that would have been used as a prop in ET for when he was trying to phone home. It does not look cool and it does not look clean – it looks cheap. To look at that spacing would drive me up the wall to no end. It just isn’t on!
Then – the iPad in action. Now I have seen 3 people with these on the train and quite simply – they look even more ridiculous. To see someone squashed into a corner on the G-line and you see the tell-tale white headphones you think “Sweet!” then you look down and BANG… they are watching TV on this stupid screen and seriously… to me all it is screams is absolute try hard of the highest order. That was my honest feeling. It looks absolutely ridiculous to be sitting on a 10 minute commute holding this contraption in your hand while still trying to look hipster cool and balance your coffee in your other hand. Almost like those people that get on a 42nd Street, sit down, open their laptop to look all important working on a stupid spreadsheet only to alight at 14th Street. But seriously – seeing someone sitting there watching the latest episode of Big Bang Theory on the train on an iPad just leaves me feeling AHGHRGHRGH. It is just too… showy.
Another thing – The iPad is NOT AN EBOOK READER unless you want to wind up with aching, weary bloodshot eyes and that feeling that you would have after doing an all-nighter in front of a computer to get an assignment handed in. It is not a Kindle killer, it is not going to revolutionalize the eBook market – because it isn’t an eBook reader at all. If eBooks could be read easily on screens then we would all be sitting on our laptops reading eBooks would we not? While it is handy dandy to show off your virtual bookshelf to pals on an iPad or flick around for a couple of minutes – quite simply that is all it is good for. If eBooks were meant to be read on a normal screen why would e-ink have been developed? Repeat this mantra and you will forever save your sanity – A BACKLIT SCREEN DOTH NOT MAKETH AN EBOOK READER. eBook readers are developed by Sony, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and a stack of other companies. They use e-ink technology and are meant as a pure reading device.
I am an Apple faithful and will always be so. This extends to my love of Apple right down to the fact that when I bought my first iPod back in the day, I actually spent $50 on the pack of those colourful iPod socks and have even bought Apple blank DVDs. They have not lost me with the iPad… they just have not won me over.
(My view on eBook readers has not changed either – I yearn for a Kindle but would have to get a Sony simply because I prefer to borrow library books rather than buy them when I can. The Sony wins because allows full access to library collections – so I can borrow an eBook as opposed to the Amazon model of purchasing – which is obviously ok because they need to make money! I just wish they would offer the library option as well.)