The iPad has been drawing a litany of complaints from people who complain that it’s nothing new, it’s underpowered, and is an all-around imperfect device. Tuan Nguyen at Tom’s Hardware addresses some of these complaints, pointing out that “better” tablets exist and have existed for years, but have entirely failed to take off.
Nguyen gives five reasons tablets have failed to sell, at the same time explaining why the iPad is by and large an exception to these reasons:
- Tablets are niche devices.
- Full OSes were always there, yet those who complained that the iPad doesn’t have one still never bought one.
- High-end hardware specs sometimes don’t matter.
- Interface, interface, interface.
- Lack of tablet apps.
Nguyen makes some pretty good points. For all that people seem to want tablets to offer “full OSes,” those OSes simply are not designed for tablet compatibility. The iPhone OS, on the other hand, is designed that way from the ground up.
By being designed purely for finger and multitouch use and eschewing a stylus, the iPad bypasses the problem of what you do with a stylus when you’re typing. And the existing library of iPhone applications means that a lack of apps designed for finger use will not be a problem.
Apple seems to keep coming out with new devices that detractors can find plenty of reasons to hate that eventually turn out not to be applicable. Looks like the iPad might just be another.
i agree with him 100 percent.
Once the iPad hits Best Buy… BOOM! Watch it hit record numbers this year.
jk on the run agrees, too, in a pretty savvy post based on years of tablet experience.
We can hope that Android gets the message too, and delivers a touchpad performance in the same league. Then in 2011 or thereafter, maybe Windows Phone Series 8 might be adapted to slates and tablets, for a third choice.
— asotir