Yes, there are extreme moderates.

I pointed out where you’re factually wrong, how you are constantly trying to show that you weren’t wrong went you blatantly were, and you’re the one freaking out.

Not to mention, you ask a question, I explain with examples of others and what I’m trying to say, and you accuse me of de-railing. The mention of the iPhone is a perfect example. You’re the one losing your mind and being unreasonable.

My first quote was about your research and also about how others agreed with me – it’s not just a big iPod. It was a quote, not me calling you anything. You were the one who got all uppity and did the name calling.

It’s not worth arguing with you. You utterly refuse to accept that something you said was inaccurate when it clearly was.

Have a great day!

My point was that it isn’t that the hardware is the fastest, bestest, most amazing thing which makes the device revolutionary. It’s the implementation of it. IE: Saying the iPad isn’t astounding because the hardware is not new holds no ground

I didn’t say that. I said that neither the hardware nor the software is revolutionary. I didn’t say that about the iPhone. In fact, I specifically said that the iPhone’s UI – the software! – was revolutionary!

The iPad’s software doesn’t do anything that the iGiant couldn’t do. If you want to prove that the iPad is more than the iGiant, you’re going to have to disprove that statement – otherwise, it’s pretty clear that the iPad is not much more than an enlarged iPod Touch.

(especially since it’s a newly designed apple processor that IS new).

From all indications, the processor is just a modified ARM processor. That’s interesting, but not revolutionary.

You are complete WRONG about the iPod. When Steve Jobs pitched it to his engineers they said, “That’s basically impossible.” And he made them do it anyways.

Uh… what? How was I wrong? I specifically called the iPod’s interface – the wheel – revolutionary! Are you telling me the iPod wasn’t revolutionary? Or was it revolutionary for some other reason?

Are you trying to be obnoxious?

You’re an idiot. You’re one experience with signing doesn’t represent the whole nor does it represent all the software possibilities. http://labs.moto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/diytouchscreenanalysis3.jpg

Uh… drawing straight lines is so different from signing a legal document that it’s not even funny. I wasn’t talking about art. I was talking about signatures. Every single electronic signature device I’ve ever used has sucked. Signing with your finger sucks, because our brains are not trained to write with our fingers, they’re trained to write with pens and pencils. Handwriting depends a lot on looking at what you’ve already written, and the nature of touchscreens gets in the way of that – your finger blocks the letter you just wrote!

And, had you actually read what I wrote, you’d know that I wasn’t referring to just one experience signing electronically. I was referring to lots of similar devices – like the ones you use every time you pay with a credit card at the grocery store. Those even make you use a stylus, and your signature is still unreadable! Signing with your finger is demonstrably harder than signing with a stylus. Are you seriously trying to claim it’s just as easy?

Wow, I didn’t say how long it was to open the app.

You did on messenger the other day. Or am I supposed to pretend that the only comments you’ve ever made on the iPad were made here? Remember – you told me that it was instant. Your word – instant. Want me to dig out the log files?

And actually, working on Pages won’t be as QUICK maybe to regular laptops (more expensive what a shock).

I assume you mean regular laptops will be more expensive? Sure, if you buy a macbook. But go to dell.com – you can find a dozen laptops (not even netbooks!) listed for less than the iPad, and you’ll get a bigger screen, more RAM, a faster processor, more storage space, and a tactile keyboard and mouse to boot.

For cheaper than an iPad.

What was your point again? You’re saying exactly what I’m saying – using the iPad for writing documents while switching between Pages and Safari won’t be nearly as fast as using a laptop.

I’m not saying the iPad is inherently worse than a laptop. I’m just saying that for office productivity, it’s not nearly as good, precisely because it doesn’t do multitasking.

You’re still holding on to your January 26th notions of what computing is.

So… OMG TOUCHSCREEN! is your argument? That revolution started a long time ago, and not by the iPad.

If not the touchscreen, to what are you referring? The software driving the touchscreen? That wasn’t invented on the iPad either (see: iPhone), so the revolution there wasn’t by the iPad.

The iPad is merely an iterative improvement on existing technology. Compare that to the iPod, which was a completely new way to interact with a music library, or with the iPhone, which was a completely new way to interact with a mobile computer.

What is “completely new” about the iPad? Nothing! It just took what worked for the iPhone, and made it work on a larger device.

Zach, if they had invented the iPad first, before the iPhone, then I would have called the iPad revolutionary – but then later, when they would come out with the iPad nano, the iPhone would not be revolutionary, because it would merely be the iPad made smaller.

Sorry, the touchscreen revolution already happened, and you can’t pretend the iPad’s touchscreen started the revolution that the iPhone started years ago.

I’m not saying that you thought anything about the iPhone. I’m saying that you’re saying what the iPhone people said! Except your comments are about the iPad! How you aren’t making that connection is beyond me.

Well that’s exactly why I don’t understand why you brought it up. See, the iPhone was revolutionary. Nobody had ever made a touchscreen mobile device that was usable by the average American. Now, it’s not “astounding” – they’ve just taken something that already existed and made it bigger!

I ask you again: can you show me one significant difference between my hypothetical iGiant and the iPad? The iGiant would definitely not be considered revolutionary. What makes the iPad so much better than the iGiant that it’s not only interesting, but astounding and revolutionary?

Remember: you’ve argued on multiple occasions that the iPad is far more than just a big iPod Touch. You really need to explain how exactly it is more.

The iPad is everything that a regular user is going to want in a computer without all the garbage of a computer.

Is it?

There’s no Flash – so no Hulu, or Facebook games. Or Netflix.

So no, it’s not everything a regular user will want in a computer. In fact, it’s missing something so important to the internet (Flash) that Apple had to write a special Youtube app just so people wouldn’t flip out about the lack of internet-based video on the iPhone!

And there’s a lot of other things that a regular user would want it to do that the iPad simply won’t be able to do. How about messenger apps running in the background? Non-3G models won’t have push notifications, remember, so they simply won’t be able to use things like eBuddy that work through push notifications.

Oh wait, that’s multitasking, and you seem to think nobody needs multitasking. I guess you’ll have to explain that one for me. Why, exactly, do you think regular users don’t want their messenger client running in the background?

Why, exactly, do you think regular users don’t want anything running in the background?

Oh, that’s right, I remember now. Apple has already decided what people want to run in the background (i.e. basically nothing), and you think nobody should ever disagree with Apple.

This is why people like my dad, his co-workers, my mom, our neighbors across the street, regular people see the iPad and go “That’s what I want!” They don’t want to search and find their documents folder, their downloads folder. Why would you ever direct them to go to C:\windows\?

… You send people to c:\Windows\ when they can’t find a document? What the freak is wrong with you? I’ve never told anyone to do that.

People are very comfortable stashing everything in My Documents. That’s all the iPad does – it stashes everything in a single “storage area”. Guess what? That storage area is merely a single folder on the iPad’s filesystem.

And guess what else? People like being able to sort files into folders. It’s called “organization”. Based on the videos of the iPad’s version of Keynote, for example, it doesn’t let me do that – it just keeps a list of all of my presentations, and when I open the app, it lets me choose one to open, or create a new one.

And if it does let me organize things into folders, then we’re right back to having a filesystem, which is what you’re claiming the iPad gets rid of.

I’m having a hard time seeing your point.

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with.

Yes, this is a problem. No, the iPad is not the magic cure for it.

The magic cure is better software design. It’s not that hard to make usable software for desktop computers. Apple has proven that with their own desktop software.

There are some tasks which are going to be inherently easier with the more precise control offered by a mouse. Image editing, for example, where you can see exactly which pixel you’re going to edit. Touchscreens can’t do that – your own finger gets in the way of seeing exactly where you’re going to touch!

The solution to image editing programs being too complicated is not the iPad. It’s better software.

The same is true of every difficult-to-use piece of software on the market.

Yes, the iPad will make some software easier to use. But it’s not magic, and we’re going to see a lot of software written for the iPad that’s really hard to use.

Let me repeat myself in case you got sidetracked: The solution to the problem you’re describing is not the iPad – the solution is better software. (Whether some of that software can be done on the iPad is largely irrelevant.)

Keyboards are, again, really about making words, and a mouse is a legacy pointing device that is mostly not ideal.

I can’t disagree more. The mouse is hardly “legacy” other than in the sense that it has been around for a long time. By that standard, the keyboard is a “legacy input device”.

The mouse has a lot of important uses – image editing and gaming come to mind – especially where pixel-level precision or very fast reaction times are extremely important.

And that’s not even taking into account the fact that if I’ve got my iPad in its keyboard dock, and I want to switch between Pages and Safari, I have to lift up my entire arm…. whereas on a regular computer, I can just alt-tab. Or if I want to select a block of text, I have to sit there holding my arm up, waiting for the iPad to decide I’ve pressed the screen long enough to select the block and pop up a “copy” button… whereas on a regular computer, I can just select with the mouse – again, precision, rather than having the computer guess what I want selected – and press ctrl+c or right-click and click copy.

Yes, the iPad will be easier to use for some things. But not for everything, like you seem to think.

In fact, there’s ridiculous statements about how the iPad is not portable because it can’t fit in your pocket…

And yet again you’re derailing the discussion by bringing up points I’ve never mentioned. Why are you bothering mentioning what other people have complained about?

You’re either trying to red-herring the argument to get it sidetracked, or you really believe that if other people said something bad about the iPad, then everyone who doesn’t think the iPad is Jesus’ favorite toy must think that same bad thing about it.

Seriously, dude, you need to chill out.

Here’s one thing that’s a huge difference which you didn’t point out: SOFTWARE CAPABILITIES. You might want to add that to your list on the original post.

Except I did mention it. Specifically. Look at my original post. I’ll even quote it for you:

Let’s pretend for a moment that we want to make a device that is, literally, little more than a giant iPod Touch. We take the existing device, and enlarge it to 10″ diagonal. We upgrade the internal hardware appropriately for its new size, and we redesign the UI to take advantage of the additional screen space. [...] Let’s call this hypothetical device the iGiant.

What is it about the iPad’s software that you wouldn’t also do for the iGiant? Can you name a single thing?

Redesigning Mail’s UI to take advantage of more screen space, for example, isn’t “revolutionary” or “astounding”. It’s expected. You’d do it for the iGiant’s UI.

You seem to be making this argument: “The iPad is more than just a giant iPod Touch because it does some things different than the iPod Touch.” Yeah. It has some UI polish.

The iPad software capabilities is significantly more than the iPod.

Like what? Seriously, I’ve asked for examples half a dozen times. What can the iPad do that the hypothetical iGiant couldn’t do?

Now you have, and you can barely admit that your explanation of computing with the iPad was wrong.

Uh… watching the videos proved that I was right. The videos showed me a device that was exactly what I expected: an oversized iPod Touch, with some extra UI polish. You want me to get excited about multitouch? Sorry, I already wasted that excitement on the iPhone. You want me to get excited about iWork? Sorry, I’ve already explained why it’s not a silver bullet for office productivity. You want me to get excited about the best** web browsing experience ever? You want me to forget that Steve Jobs’ own live demo showed a website with a missing plugin (the New York Times)?

**not applicable to web sites that use Flash, Silverlight, or Java. Please try to forget that that’s half of the Internet.

What exactly is it that you want me to see in the videos that makes the iPad so astounding?

You quote me as calling you stupid AFTER you had called me something first.

Excuse me? You called me stupid in post 3 (by quoting someone else saying whoever thinks the iPad is not astounding is stupid). Where did I call you something insulting before that, other than generically referring to “apple fanboys”?

Yes, I really am going with “no, you started it”. Fight fire with fire, and all.

Look, I don’t know why you’re so angry about this that you had to pull out the insult quotes right up front. Seriously, it was the first thing you quoted.

I said the iPad is interesting and that I plan to buy one. Why is that not enough for you? Do I really have to worship the iPad as the best thing since sliced bread for you to decide I’m worth treating with respect?

You’re just as much as a fanboy and always will be.

I’m a fanboy? Of what? There’s no such thing as a “middle fanboy”. In fact, I’m very much not a middle fanboy. I have very polarized anti-Apple opinions on a lot of topics. I have very polarized anti-Microsoft opinions on a lot of topics. I even have very polarized anti-Linux opinions on a lot of topics.

Guess what? I also have very polarized pro-Apple opinions on some topics. I have very polarized pro-Microsoft opinions on some topics. I have very polarized pro-Linux opinions on some topics.

Calling someone a “fanboy” in technology is the same as calling someone “extremely right/left-wing” in politics. Moderates are inherently not extreme – that’s what “moderate” means! I’m a technological moderate. I have both pro- and anti-Apple opinions. That inherently means I can’t be a fanboy, because fanboys by definition have only “pro” or only “anti” opinions!

This statement is factually false, yes I was referring to the On-The-Go playlist. Even if it wasn’t your point, you falsely represent the device. Research is important! You should do it before making posts and trying to defend yourself.

Making more than one playlist was the crux of my complaint. “On-the-go” doesn’t help me when the current on-the-go contains entirely different music than what I want to listen to, and I don’t have time to rebuild a different playlist – this happens a lot when I’m driving my car. Yes, I should have said “just to make more than one playlist”, but that was really tangential to my point – you can’t create an on-the-go playlist without destroying the current one. You can’t save the old one for later.

If I wanted just one playlist ever, then sure, on-the-go would suffice. But I don’t. I want to be able to create more than one playlist. That should be natural for a music player. Naming a playlist should be a natural part of creating it. Should I really be forced to browse through the current on-the-go playlist to remember whether it’s the music I want?

If you keep arguing the playlist point you’re just being obnoxious on purpose. The iPod cannot create multiple playlists without the aid of a computer, period.

Sorry, forgot to mention this. This statement is factually false, yes I was referring to the On-The-Go playlist. Even if it wasn’t your point, you falsely represent the device. Research is important! You should do it before making posts and trying to defend yourself.

The hardware and software /together/ was revolutionary. It completely changed the market. It changed the way companies are handling smartphones. They are trying to keep up with Apple. Even Google is. GUESS WHAT THE INTERFACE IS HARDWARE!!! It’s a combination of…gasp…Hardware and SOFTWARE! Whoa, I swear I said this before! Wait, hold on.

“It’s what they are able to accomplish with the hardware, at it’s price, and what they’ve done with the hardware (a brand new processor is worth mentioning).” -Me

You are complete WRONG about the iPod. When Steve Jobs pitched it to his engineers they said, “That’s basically impossible.” And he made them do it anyways. The same with the iMac. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1118384-1,00.html The implementation of the hardware and software (there were bigger hard drive, other multimedia devices that could do more things, etc.) that made it revolutionary.

Actually conceptually the iPad is a better web experience! You, like many, are holding on to your January 26th notions of what computing is. You say in one breath that the touch screen is revolutionary and the interface is revolutionary, but say the internet experience is worse than a laptop…

I said MOST smaller laptops don’t play 720p. Showing me an example of one that does proves nothing, except that you’re explaining my point further. Which is funny cause it’s irrelevant, I already said it.

YES TILTING ME IPAD AROUND WON’T BE AS ANNOYING BECAUSE OF VIEWING ANGLE WHICH YOU JUST TRIED TO DISMISS! Wow. Your individual points are so counter to each other it’s incredible. lawl.

As for games, that’s your personal experience I guess. I don’t know what crappy games you’re playing but I’ve played Terminator, Geofighter, Blades of Steele, Kroll, and Dungeon Hunter all with joysticks and it’s been fine.

You’re an idiot. You’re one experience with signing doesn’t represent the whole nor does it represent all the software possibilities. http://labs.moto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/diytouchscreenanalysis3.jpg

You may also want to consider what art people have been able to create (that’s been sold and printed) with the iPhone, thanks to the apps that were created.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/iphone-art-incredible-dra_n_352602.html

My GOOD example is a PERFECT example, assuming the software was created (which it can be easily) to implement it well.

Wow, I didn’t say how long it was to open the app. I specifically mentioned a 6-8 page project being opened once the app was opened. You’re too dense to even read my sentences about this. Even then, on a laptop similar apps take time to open. Most home computers for regular people Word takes a few seconds to start up (I tutor these people with their computers, maybe not YOU, but regular people who don’t have i7′s and tons of RAM).

And actually, working on Pages won’t be as QUICK maybe to regular laptops (more expensive what a shock). But it’s more supposed to be compared to a Netbook which would take /just as long/ or longer. Not to mention, Office products are less intuitive on a laptop than on the iPad, which is the whole point. You’re still holding on to your January 26th notions of what computing is. But I went specifically and played with several Netbooks at Best Buy and they are sluggish, slow, horrible, the OS itself barely runs. Trying to play a video took 20 seconds. Opening the browser took 10 before I could actually do anything.

I’m not saying that you thought anything about the iPhone. I’m saying that you’re saying what the iPhone people said! Except your comments are about the iPad! How you aren’t making that connection is beyond me. I never said “You said the iPhone blah blah blah!”

You see, I have explained it. The iPad is everything that a regular user is going to want in a computer without all the garbage of a computer. You want to hold on to your January 26th notions of what computing is. Yes, I’ve said that a couple times now. This device changes everything about that. The elimination of a file system and management by the apps (yes, it existed in the iPhone but this doesn’t appeal to regular people as a computing device only as a smart phone) is a huge change for simplicity. This is why people like my dad, his co-workers, my mom, our neighbors across the street, regular people see the iPad and go “That’s what I want!” They don’t want to search and find their documents folder, their downloads folder. Why would you ever direct them to go to C:\windows\? They’d just get confused and probably end up destroying their system. This device is made for these people. It’s changing the way we thinking about computers. But you refuse to accept that this changes that. You refuse to see that the implementation of the…gasp…hardware…by the software will create a new experience that everyone will enjoy.

“Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with.”

“I’m often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they’re thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.

With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.”

http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html

“As I pointed out Monday, something as seemingly basic as the file system is a total mystery to most people. And forget keyboard commands. For the vast majority of computer users, keyboards are for typing and nothing else. In the iPad, Apple has a product that addresses the idea that in 2010 everyone has – or needs – a computer in their lives, but almost all of the interaction models we have are based 30-year-old concepts of keyboard and mouse as primary input devices. Why? Keyboards are, again, really about making words, and a mouse is a legacy pointing device that is mostly not ideal.”

http://madebyfight.com/2010/01/apples-win-wrapped-in-a-miss-rolled-in-confusion/

This is why I defend it. This is why I defended not having multi-tasking. For most users this doesn’t matter! In fact, there’s ridiculous statements about how the iPad is not portable because it can’t fit in your pocket…

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/04/10-reasons-to-pass-on-the-ipad-tuaw-fact-check/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/2010/01/that-new-ipad-calls-for-some-seriously-deep-ipockets.html

Yet Netbooks, Laptops, PSP’s (not PSPGo), and Kindle’s are all perfectly fine yet many of them have the same limitations (can’t just through them into a pocket). These people are being intentionally stupid.

BTW, you’ve failed to present anything that convinces me it’s just a big iPod, and just slightly more. The only people who might agree with you are the stupid people who claim that the iPad isn’t portable because it can’t go in a pocket. Here’s one thing that’s a huge difference which you didn’t point out: SOFTWARE CAPABILITIES. You might want to add that to your list on the original post. The iPad software capabilities is significantly more than the iPod.

I’m arguing factual points. You quote me as calling you stupid AFTER you had called me something first. That’s hilarious. I said that I’m responding “in turn”. My point of that quote was to help you realize you hadn’t done your research. Which you hadn’t. Now you have, and you can barely admit that your explanation of computing with the iPad was wrong.

I’m not an Apple Fanboy. Guess what? I still hate the mouse on the Macbooks. I hate pushing the whole button in. I’m not a fan of the Magic Mouse. It bugs me that Apple doesn’t have much gaming support and I have to dual boot. I think the Mac mini is more or less garbage and I’m surprised Apple would present a lesser experience for users.

I was just as excited about Windows 7. I beta tested it, everything worked. I loved it. I think that Microsoft’s Table was way cool and used at restaurants could make life completely different. I didn’t think it’d catch on like I do the iPad, but I appreciated how neat of a thought it was. I was at the Tablet Event announcement for Windows! Many years ago and was excited and thought it was creating the best collaborative environment possible. While the tablet didn’t catch on, the collaboration thought really has. Does this make me a Windows Fanboy?

You’re just as much as a fanboy and always will be.

The iPhone was also criticized for it’s hardware and look where it is today.

You say that like I was one of the people criticizing it. Guess what? I wasn’t. It’s irrelevant and derailing.

Actually, the hardware is revolutionary because it’s all been brought together to create a specific device.

There was nothing revolutionary about the hardware in the iPhone. Other phones that came out around the same time had similar hardware specs.

No, what was revolutionary about the iPhone was its interface.

It was the same with the original iPod. The hardware in the original iPod was not exactly the best on the market, but what made the iPod successful was its slick, intuitive user interface. They repeated their UI revolution with the iPhone, only that time they did it with a touchscreen instead of a wheel.

You still haven’t explained what, exactly, is “revolutionary” about the iPad. I can point to a dozen small laptops with better specs and a larger screen, though they won’t be touchscreens. The iPad’s touchscreen isn’t “revolutionary”, it’s merely an improvement on existing hardware.

The best web experience: You’re getting the fact that it’s a thousand times easier to browse the web on a larger screen.

Yes… it’s better than the iPhone, but it’s not better than a laptop. That was my point.

Video: Most small sized laptops don’t play 720p video. Larger laptops which do are rather annoying.

Most tablets don’t either. What’s your point? There are netbooks capable of playing 720p. This one, for example. The “visual range” thing hasn’t really been an issue on most LCD screens on laptops for several years now.

Heck, I’m typing this laying down and tilting the screen is really annoying especially when I move around.

And you think it won’t be annoying to re-tilt the iPad as you move around? Don’t be absurd.

However, on iPhones, you can create your own playlist. Your lack of knowledge doesn’t make it impossible.

Is it? Please enlighten me. There’s no “new” button on the Playlist menu in the iPod app on my iPhone. Holding down my finger on a song, album, artist name, or playlist doesn’t pop up a secret context menu. I can’t drag songs anywhere. (If you point me to On-The-Go, you’re missing my point. That allows you to create just one single playlist. You can’t rename it. You can’t save it and create a second On-The-Go playlist.)

So tell me, how do I create multiple playlists on my iPhone without using iTunes?

Joy stick controlled games? Because (as I noticed before) it seems you’re talking without any experience or research.

No, I couldn’t possibly have download any joystick-controlled games for my iPhone. Of course not, that would be impossible.

Zach, I’ve tried several joystick-controlled games. They’re not very friendly. They’re inconsistent. It’s too easy to bump other things near the joystick while simply trying to “tilt” the joystick in one direction or other. It’s hard to half-tilt without looking at it. It’s hard to see where it currently is without lifting up your thumb.

Joystick controls on the iPhone are annoying and frustrating, period. I don’t say this based on random assumptions, rumors, or speculation. I say this based on personal experience using the control method. I’ve played dozens of joystick-controlled iPhone games.

I didn’t call them a miserable failure with reference to their financial success, I called them a miserable failure with reference to their usability.

What I’m getting at is that virtual joysticks are not the way to go for touchscreen gaming. I don’t know what is the right way to do it, but I know virtual joysticks are not.

I never said you said the iPad is a worthless device. Stop arguing against things I’ve never said (to quote you).

No – but you’re acting like I’ve said that. Why so defensive of the device, if I don’t think it’s worthless? Why are you so defensive about the iPad, when in reality I think it’s interesting and worth buying?

To get a signature on a contract, write the contract, print the contract, and put it up on a projector? A laptop simply can not do that (except tablet laptops, which are more expensive right now).

Uh… what? Touchscreens are terrible at signatures. You were there when I signed for my iPhone on the Apple Store employee’s iPhone – it didn’t even vaguely resemble my name. And you’ve used the electronic signature devices at supermarkets those are extremely hard to sign properly, even with a stylus, and the iPad is not meant to use with a stylus! The fact of the matter is, it’s not user-friendly at all to make people sign things with their finger.

In other words, you’ve picked as your “good” example the singularly worst possible use case for the iPad!

Contracts should not be signed illegibly with fingertips on touchscreens. Contracts should be signed by hand, with pen. That contract I “signed” at Apple’s store? By what got recorded on the screen, there’s absolutely no way to verify that it was actually me – you can’t even compare it with other signatures, digital or otherwise.

And now that you have, you are sounding more incompetent by not recognizing the differences.

But I do recognize the differences – and they’re all UI polish. The iPhone already took the “UI polish” revolution. The iPad’s UI polish is no longer revolutionary, because it’s merely improving the same revolution the iPhone started.

And furthermore, the vast majority of the UI polish done for the iPad would have also been done for my hypothetical iGiant. What makes the iPad’s UI any more special than what you’d do for the iGiant?

. It’s like they are all always open (and it takes .5 seconds to load the 6 or 8 page file with graphics and text).

.5 seconds? You didn’t watch the keynote presentation, then. They opened Keynote, and the screen went blank for two or three seconds while it loaded the opening presentation screen. Pages did the same thing, two to three seconds. That’s four to six times as long as you’re claiming. Surely you know as well as I do that a three second stall every time you switch between apps is unacceptable when you’re trying to be productive.

Say I’m doing some research in Safari, and I want to copy things into my report in Pages. I select a paragraph, press Copy, press the Home button, press the Pages icon, wait two to three seconds for my document to load, then hold down my finger in the right spot for another two or three seconds for the Paste button to pop up. So that’s what, seven seconds to copy something from Safari and paste it into Pages? Where a laptop can do that in half a second.

Yeah, you’ve definitely got a real desktop-class work environment there in that iPad. *eye roll*

I’m not saying Pages will be bad. I’m just saying it won’t be as nice as working on a laptop if you need to switch between two or more apps regularly.

This is exactly what was said about the iPhone. And if you think the iPhone has had an “interesting” impact as opposed to an “astounding” impact on the market then I would conclude that you simply are being stupid.

Yet again you’re deciding that since other people said about the iPhone what I’m saying about the iPad, therefore I must have said the same thing about the iPad. Please stop doing that.

The fact that I think the iPad is merely an improvement over the iPhone does not mean I think or thought the same of the iPhone when it came out. You keep bringing it up as if you’re refuting something I’ve said. If you know I’ve never said that, then you’re deliberately bringing up a red herring.

And, by the way, it was in fact you who started the namecalling with your quotes of other sources:

“Lets get one thing straight: if, after todays press event, you still think the iPad is an oversized iPhone, you’re being stupid.”

Obviously, you were aiming the quote at me, else why would you have bothered quoting it in reply to my post? If you weren’t aiming it at me, why did you quote it at all?

Oh, and before you answer, keep in mind that you’ve already proven that you were calling me stupid:

Now, I never said you said the iPad was JUST a big iPod, I was pointing out that people would be stupid to assume so. To assume it’s just SLIGHTLY better means you’re just mostly stupid. That addresses what you said specifically.

So, Zach. Since you have still failed to explain what makes the iPad “astounding” or “revolutionary” – i.e. what makes it significantly different than my hypothetical iGiant – what should I assume? Should I assume you’re working on an answer? Or should I assume you don’t have one?

Your only answer to my question has been “if you don’t see what makes it astounding, you’re stupid”.

Even though I’ve stated repeatedly that I think the iPad is interesting, and that I intend to buy it.

… this is exactly why some people think Mac users are snobs.

This is exactly what was said about the iPhone. And if you think the iPhone has had an “interesting” impact as opposed to an “astounding” impact on the market then I would conclude that you simply are being stupid.

You’re the one who started raging. I said you were less qualified than bloggers because you hadn’t even done the research. Then you start making up things that I’ve said, name calling, and freaking out. You’re the one being the fanboy. I’m just responding in turn.

The best web experience: You’re getting the fact that it’s a thousand times easier to browse the web on a larger screen. It’s significantly better than the iPhone which is an inconvenience that only serves as a convenience when there’s not al alternative. There’s a HUGE difference. One serves as an alternative whereas one can serve as your main browser (except currently for flash sites, which is continually being addressed).

E-mail: Nothing you said can be verified and there’s definitely more than those two options.

Video: Most small sized laptops don’t play 720p video. Larger laptops which do are rather annoying. Heck, I’m typing this laying down and tilting the screen is really annoying especially when I move around. The visual range is ridiculous especially if you’re showing something to someone else. The iPad specifically addresses these issues. Lose a lot of screen space? Do you complain that the theaters often use black bars? Or that almost ALL DVD’s don’t fill the entire screen either? That they still have black bars? Unless of course you zoom in and crop the picture.

Music: It’s hard to really make this better. However, on iPhones, you can create your own playlist. Your lack of knowledge doesn’t make it impossible.

Games: Applying the similar experience of a smaller screen, an inferior processor, less RAM to that of this device is just plain silly. It really doesn’t deserve a response. Many joystick games have been very successful on the iPhone either way – Geofighter being amongst one of the most popular. How many first person shooters have you played on the iPhone? Third person shooters? Joy stick controlled games? Because (as I noticed before) it seems you’re talking without any experience or research. Given, a laptop is capable of significantly better games for now. We’ve yet to see what people have up their sleeves for the iPad.

Now, I never said you said the iPad was JUST a big iPod, I was pointing out that people would be stupid to assume so. To assume it’s just SLIGHTLY better means you’re just mostly stupid. That addresses what you said specifically.

I never said you said the iPad is a worthless device. Stop arguing against things I’ve never said (to quote you).

The iPad can be significantly more useful as an all around use for everything device in the workplace, home, etc. It’s easily portable, small, doesn’t weigh very much, and would be easier to interface with than a laptop. To get a signature on a contract, write the contract, print the contract, and put it up on a projector? A laptop simply can not do that (except tablet laptops, which are more expensive right now).

Here’s what you’ve failed to notice. In our conversation you said “I want to have 5 different projects open!” If you had watched the Keynote you’d have seen that THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS. That’s why I stopped talking about that point specifically. You will technically “never” have 5 open. You press the open and switch between your files and then Pages will load whatever one you select. It’s like they are all always open (and it takes .5 seconds to load the 6 or 8 page file with graphics and text). Your question showed a complete lack of understanding of doing any research.

And now that you have, you are sounding more incompetent by not recognizing the differences.

- Browsing the web
- Email
- Photos
- Video
- Music
- Games
- eBooks

Browsing the web depends on what websites you frequent. Steve Jobs calls it “the best web browsing experience you’ve ever had”, but I guess that means he never visits any site that uses Silverlight or Flash. If you like Hulu and Netflix, then no, the iPad is not better at browsing the web. Call it a wash, since I visit both of those sites frequently.

Watching Jobs browse around the New York Times site (which shows a missing plugin, too, so you can’t even get the full NYT experience!) is just… exactly the same as browsing on an iPhone, except on a larger screen. Touching a link is not actually any easier than clicking a link with the mouse. In fact, you might say it’s harder – you have to move your entire arm, instead of just your hand!

Email? Managing multiple e-mail accounts on the iPhone is a horrendous pain; it takes no less than four clicks to switch between the inboxes of two different accounts. The videos don’t show how the iPad handles switching between inboxes on different accounts, but it’s entirely possible that it has the same issue. My computer lets me do that in one click. The iPad is thus either worse than laptops at e-mail, or just the same.

Photos? I’d be willing to concede that it’s probably better than the iPhone at managing photos, and that its interface is better at looking through them than a laptop.

Video? I would much rather use a laptop than an iPad to watch video, even if you have the iPad case to hold it up for you, especially if I can use a widescreen laptop. You lose a lot of the iPad’s screen space with the black bars that keep the aspect ratio of the video intact (Star Trek wastes ~30% of the screen space during Steve Jobs’ demo!), the laptop is going to have better speakers, and you can adjust the laptop’s screen orientation for optimal viewing pleasure. The iPad is not better than laptops for viewing videos.

Music? The iPod is designed to be optimal at managing music – but even so, it has a glaring problem in that you have to use iTunes on a computer just to make a playlist. Even my Sony Ericsson w580i cell phone can make playlists right on the device, and its screen is far smaller than the iPod Touch’s. If you assume the iPad will allow you to make playlists, then you might say it’s better than laptops because it’s more portable. Thus, the iPad will only be better than iPods and laptops at music if it can make playlists right on the device. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Steve didn’t mention playlists at all during his demo.

Games? Hah! Every single attempt to make a joystick on the iPhone’s touchscreen has failed miserably. Accelerometers and a compass are not always a good interaction method. Touch is not always a good interaction method. The kinds of games I play are not well-suited for touchscreen-only devices (i.e. first person shooters). There are some types of games that it might be better at, but it’s largely a matter of taste. I’ll call this one a wash.

eBooks? Definitely, the iPad wins on this one.

So what’s the score here? The iPad is, if you analyze Steve Jobs’ own list, better than both iPods and laptops at just two things: Managing photos, and reading eBooks.

That’s hardly revolutionary, and certainly not astounding. Interesting, yes, but not astounding.

Is your argument really just “it’s astounding because it has more screen space”?