7 Reasons To Hate The iPad

hate-the-ipad

You’ve heard the hype. You’ve seen the specs.

You’ve read why we think the iPad will be a big deal for music.

You’ve probably read the buzz about the iPad.

Tweetfeel, a company that trends what people are saying on Twitter, analyzed people’s complaints about the iPad and came up with this list:

7 Reasons To Hate The iPad

  1. It’s just a big iPhone!
  2. It’s got a silly name!
  3. Feminine hygiene jokes
  4. No Flash!
  5. No multi-tasking!
  6. No camera!
  7. AT&T SUX!

A lot of these complaints are obvious. What’s not so obvious is that Apple agonized over the design of the iPad and has solid reasons for their decisions.

No camera, so you can’t videoconference

If you put a videoconferencing camera on the hand-held iPad, it would capture jiggly-cam video that would make the person on the other end, watching you jiggle around, want to hurl.

Apple will probably address this with image stabilization in future models, but they’ve got higher priorities right now.

No Flash

Apple’s betting on HTML 5 and working to marginalize Flash.

This means that you’ll miss out on some lame Flash games and banner ads for a while and that Hulu won’t work until next year when they get program.

Yes – that’s dismissive about something a lot of people are passionate about – but lack of Flash hasn’t exactly hurt adoption of the iPhone.

No multi-tasking

The iPad is designed to be an Internet media toaster – something grandma can figure out, and Grandma doesn’t get multi-tasking. Also, Grandma doesn’t like having to recharge her Internet media toaster every 2 hours because background tasks sucked her juice dry.

Multitasking is something that Apple will add eventually – but not until they can do it without it being liability.

Other Reasons To Hate The iPad

Synthopia readers came up with better complaints about the iPad than the typical Twitter user.

The biggest complaints were:

  • lack of connectivity;
  • DRM/lock-in/lack of openness;
  • the iPhone app approval process; and
  • the fact that it’s not based on OS X.

These are all valid complaints – and will keep some people from considering the iPad.

2 months from now, though, you’re going to be able to buy a wicked-fast multitouch tablet computer for $500 that can run 140,000 applications – and there are going to be hundreds of new music apps.

Tell my why you think that won’t give computer-based music making a swift kick in the pants.

24 thoughts on “7 Reasons To Hate The iPad

  1. "Hate" ? I don't hate the ipad, I simply think its not worth my money, totally out of sync when looking at current developments and in the end a waste of my money.

    I'll leave the hating to the many Apple fanboys (no, this is not meant as a sneer) who will willingly pay money to replace their device because it crashed once again after the warranty period ended.

    Context: Dutch consumers TV program; people wondering about the ipod. They bought one, it broke after a year. Send it for repairs, got a new one back. That broke after a year as well. And now they had an issue; their original warranty period was 2 years. That ended so now they had to pay. I mean; WTF?! And they weren't alone in this.

    No offense but if you take crap like that and willingly pay for a replacement then I think you got your priorities mixed up. Especially when your paid for replacement… breaks down after a year.

  2. People so miss the point. It's not a computer! It's a consumer device that happens to have a processor and memory inside it. So does my Wii. So does my digital TV recorder. For all I know so does my washing machine. They do what they do and I never need to know what's inside them. And that's great. I want to play with my Wii, watch TV, wash my clothes.

    My car is not so great. Sometimes I need to know that it has a combustion engine inside it and how to fix it, and that's a drag – I'm getting greasy and playing with spanners when I want to be going somewhere. Likewise my laptop. I want to browse the web, make music, chat with my mates, write a letter, not poke around in the engine with a virtual spanner. Sometimes I have to.

    I like my iPod touch. I don't need to know what's inside it. I'd rather use it than my laptop, but (1) the screen's a bit poky and (2) there are still some things it can't do that my laptop can. Also (3) I'm not mad keen on having to connect my iPod to my laptop from time to time.

    Well, the iPad addresses point one and a little bit of point 2. It's a start. I anticipate iPad 2.0 will be closer to replacing my laptop…

  3. People so miss the point. It's not a computer! It's a consumer device that happens to have a processor and memory inside it. So does my Wii. So does my digital TV recorder. For all I know so does my washing machine. They do what they do and I never need to know what's inside them. And that's great. I want to play with my Wii, watch TV, wash my clothes.

    My car is not so great. Sometimes I need to know that it has a combustion engine inside it and how to fix it, and that's a drag – I'm getting greasy and playing with spanners when I want to be going somewhere. Likewise my laptop. I want to browse the web, make music, chat with my mates, write a letter, not poke around in the engine with a virtual spanner. Sometimes I have to.

    I like my iPod touch. I don't need to know what's inside it. I'd rather use it than my laptop, but (1) the screen's a bit poky and (2) there are still some things it can't do that my laptop can. Also (3) I'm not mad keen on having to connect my iPod to my laptop from time to time.

    Well, the iPad addresses point one and a little bit of point 2. It's a start. I anticipate iPad 2.0 will be closer to replacing my laptop…

  4. its just another cute useless gotta be cool gadget… only for the same people that buy macs over much more powerful and less expensive pcs… they should include a gold chain so you can wear it around your neck… american technology being all about fashion and ease of use simply trails the much more advanced asian countries. while we're busy looking cool, they're busy making new relevant advancements. now if we could take a page from the european design and precession we might actually make something worth buying.. but we're too busy being lost in a materialistic mentality.

  5. its just another cute useless gotta be cool gadget… only for the same people that buy macs over much more powerful and less expensive pcs… they should include a gold chain so you can wear it around your neck… american technology being all about fashion and ease of use simply trails the much more advanced asian countries. while we're busy looking cool, they're busy making new relevant advancements. now if we could take a page from the european design and precession we might actually make something worth buying.. but we're too busy being lost in a materialistic mentality.

  6. The competition is probably already getting ready to low-ball them. If Apple, and their notorious mark-up, can put together this baby for $500 then it shouldn't take long to see a $400 one from Dell that runs Ubuntu (with an optional Windows 7 install) and hence FLASH!

    The iPhone is just now (how many generations later?) getting basic stuff that HTC's phones could do 6-7 years ago, like AD2P(Stereo BlueTooth). How many generations will it take them to get this iPad up to snuff and do basic web-surfing?

  7. The competition is probably already getting ready to low-ball them. If Apple, and their notorious mark-up, can put together this baby for $500 then it shouldn't take long to see a $400 one from Dell that runs Ubuntu (with an optional Windows 7 install) and hence FLASH!

    The iPhone is just now (how many generations later?) getting basic stuff that HTC's phones could do 6-7 years ago, like AD2P(Stereo BlueTooth). How many generations will it take them to get this iPad up to snuff and do basic web-surfing?

  8. "Hate" ? I don't hate the ipad, I simply think its not worth my money, totally out of sync when looking at current developments and in the end a waste of my money.

    I'll leave the hating to the many Apple fanboys (no, this is not meant as a sneer) who will willingly pay money to replace their device because it crashed once again after the warranty period ended.

    Context: Dutch consumers TV program; people wondering about the ipod. They bought one, it broke after a year. Send it for repairs, got a new one back. That broke after a year as well. And now they had an issue; their original warranty period was 2 years. That ended so now they had to pay. I mean; WTF?! And they weren't alone in this.

    No offense but if you take crap like that and willingly pay for a replacement then I think you got your priorities mixed up. Especially when your paid for replacement… breaks down after a year.

  9. "Hate" ? I don't hate the ipad, I simply think its not worth my money, totally out of sync when looking at current developments and in the end a waste of my money.

    I'll leave the hating to the many Apple fanboys (no, this is not meant as a sneer) who will willingly pay money to replace their device because it crashed once again after the warranty period ended.

    Context: Dutch consumers TV program; people wondering about the ipod. They bought one, it broke after a year. Send it for repairs, got a new one back. That broke after a year as well. And now they had an issue; their original warranty period was 2 years. That ended so now they had to pay. I mean; WTF?! And they weren't alone in this.

    No offense but if you take crap like that and willingly pay for a replacement then I think you got your priorities mixed up. Especially when your paid for replacement… breaks down after a year.

  10. I bought the ipod touch ONLY for mobile music-making and remote-control duties … i didn't need a mobile mp3 player, a game machine or a web browser with a small screen. Now i have to sell my ipod touch because all software developers will "upgrade" their apps for the ipad. Pity. No "serious music" future for the ipod touch.

  11. I do believe this is one small crappy step in what could be a good long walk. All else aside, what can be applied musically in this one step, will, i believe, revolutionize what we know as, "an expensive love."
    "Fuck the Table, I got a Pad."

  12. I bought the ipod touch ONLY for mobile music-making and remote-control duties … i didn't need a mobile mp3 player, a game machine or a web browser with a small screen. Now i have to sell my ipod touch because all software developers will "upgrade" their apps for the ipad. Pity. No "serious music" future for the ipod touch.

  13. I bought the ipod touch ONLY for mobile music-making and remote-control duties … i didn't need a mobile mp3 player, a game machine or a web browser with a small screen. Now i have to sell my ipod touch because all software developers will "upgrade" their apps for the ipad. Pity. No "serious music" future for the ipod touch.

  14. Abstraction is a sorely needed advance and Apple is blazing this trail like no other. When I'm running Logic for example, I have everything I need inside the app. I would love for there to be a version of OS X for my iMac that would ditch all the background processes and run LOGIC alone. That would make the app so efficient. The AU engine will take care of sounds and some sort of ReWire runtime can host another layer for Reason and such. After I back out and bounce I can go back to normal mode and email the track to my client and catch up on my twitter.
    The iPad does it this way but the app switching is so efficient. It's like OS 9 on steroids. I think it's perfect and will get way better after the iPad hits the streets and feedback starts coming in. I'm not a fanboy by any means, I just feel as John Gruber used an analogy about the automatic and stick in cars. Another layer of abstraction would simplify peoples lives and allow them to purely concentrate on the task at hand. Brilliant.

  15. Abstraction is a sorely needed advance and Apple is blazing this trail like no other. When I'm running Logic for example, I have everything I need inside the app. I would love for there to be a version of OS X for my iMac that would ditch all the background processes and run LOGIC alone. That would make the app so efficient. The AU engine will take care of sounds and some sort of ReWire runtime can host another layer for Reason and such. After I back out and bounce I can go back to normal mode and email the track to my client and catch up on my twitter.
    The iPad does it this way but the app switching is so efficient. It's like OS 9 on steroids. I think it's perfect and will get way better after the iPad hits the streets and feedback starts coming in. I'm not a fanboy by any means, I just feel as John Gruber used an analogy about the automatic and stick in cars. Another layer of abstraction would simplify peoples lives and allow them to purely concentrate on the task at hand. Brilliant.

  16. i would like to see these 'advancements' that seem to become CONSUMER PRODUCTS in these other countries.

    Cause there are plenty of american labs building amazingly advanced technologies

  17. i would like to see these 'advancements' that seem to become CONSUMER PRODUCTS in these other countries.

    Cause there are plenty of american labs building amazingly advanced technologies

  18. but they are expensive and cannot be produced on a mass-scale. Much like most of these "relevant technologies." Which, by the way, when referring to a device such as this, relevance is determined more by the people and how they use a device, not the device itself.

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