I was reading the comments for this story on Slashdot and this one really stood out to me:
I know some people will just “love” iPad … but think, for a second, rationally.
What the heck it is for? You cannot put even USB stick into it! You cannot run any “office” software, no IDE, not even Web with flash or even Java … well you can read a pdf … wow.
There has to be a reason, for most people, to buy it, right? What it is? Price – no . Battery life – no. Connectivity – haha! Usablity – not even a test editor! Multitasking … everyone remembers Microsoft idea of limiting this to three – can Apple pull out with one? I don’t think so.
I admit, I’m nerd the worst kind, but … your question: I won’t buy it if it does not do a single thing I want. And nobody I know neither, nerd or not.
I’m sure you can take this guy’s comment apart line by line and find all the inconsistencies and arguments that don’t really make sense. But I didn’t post this comment to blast it, I posted it because this guy is right, the iPad is not made for him. But I think he and other people don’t realize there are different kinds of nerds out there. He admits:
I’m [a] nerd[,] the worst kind
I agree and like most nerds he isn’t very self aware. There is a whole segment of nerds out there that don’t really want to accomplish anything. They buy computers so that they can change hard drives, switch out memory and graphics cards and as he says, “put even USB stick into it!”
For him this is fun, and more power to him. But I think he doesn’t really realize that he’s not accomplishing anything. Apple makes computers and devices that are ready to make you productive at whatever real world task you want to do such as reading a book, browsing the web, listening to music or watching movies. They don’t need new hard drives or more memory (at least not very often) and Apple understands that the USB stick has been replaced by the modern home network.
50 years ago there were home inventors and “tinkerers” that had a basement full of projects, none of which worked, and they considered themselves to be productive. Now, we have guys like this guy. You can tell he’s not even productive at developing software because he complains that the iPad doesn’t have an IDE. Really? He would consider writing code on a device like this?
I’ve been writing code every day for the past 15 years and I merely tolerate using my notebook if I need to get out of the office to a coffee shop or the library. For real productivity I need to be in front of a big screen with lots of power. I would never dream of torturing myself with trying to write code on an iPad. None of the serious developers I know would want to do that. But this guy would, and he’s not wrong to want it because he would just like the fact that it was there. He’s use it to write one or two lines of Perl.
Anyway, I’ve been rambling, but my point is that there are many different subclasses of nerds and they all think they are in the majority. But really, they’re all tiny little minorities, which is good, because that’s diversity.
The iPad will sell well for normal people.