You might have already read a bunch of balanced or semi-positive stories about the iPad on the internet. This is not one of those. I have chosen to find people who hate it, or at the very least, have had negative things to say, and have written about it. Sure, this is like a Fox News Story on the Health Care Bill, where the negative comments are cherry-picked, but so what? At least I’m telling you up-front. I’ll say it again:
I’ve avoided anything positive written about the iPad, and I’ve culled only negative comments.
Why?
Because even though I own an iMac and an iPod Touch, I think Apple gets far too many easy breaks in the media these days. Their stance on Flash is just foolish, and they know it. If a company like Microsoft made a device so maddeningly closed, it would be panned and Bill Gates ,who isn’t even in-charge any more and spends billions helping the poor and needy, would be called the anti-Christ.
Mainstream reviewers are scared of Apple. They don’t want to be seen as Luddites. No matter what they write, the Apple zombies will buy this thing in droves and make it a success. Then later someone will look back say “that guy thought it was bad idea, he’s an idiot”.
Apple’s 1984-like disinformation service is in high-gear on this now too. (OK, it’s their marketing team, but what’s the difference?). They have launched “Web Browsing With The iPad Site” and there are just about a dozen whole sites that can be viewed with it. 12! I wanted to start a web site dedicated to all the great web sites that WON’T WORK on the iPad, but adding everyone of the MILLIONS of sites would probably take the rest of my life.
Anyway, here is my list of negative comments. If you want to read positive ones, just go search Google for them.
Adam Frucci: Gizmondo: 8 Things That suck About The iPad: No Flash Sucks
Back breaking Failures Suck:
“A lot of people at Gizmodo are psyched about the iPad. Not me! My god, am I underwhelmed by it. It has some absolutely backbreaking failures that will make buying one the last thing I would want to do.”
No Flash Sucks:
“No Flash is annoying but not a dealbreaker on the iPhone and iPod Touch. On something that’s supposed to be closer to a netbook or laptop? It will leave huge, gaping holes in websites. I hope you don’t care about streaming video! God knows not many casual internet users do. Oh wait, nevermind, they all do.”
David Pogue: New York Times: Looking at the iPad From Two Angles (Techie Angle):
No Multitasking Sucks
“There’s no multitasking, either. It’s one app at a time, just like on the iPhone. Plus no U.S.B. jacks and no camera. Bye-bye, Skype video chats. You know Apple is just leaving stuff out for next year’s model.“
The Featureless Computer Sucks
“The bottom line is that you can get a laptop for much less money ‘ with a full keyboard, DVD drive, U.S.B. jacks, camera-card slot, camera, the works. Besides: If you’ve already got a laptop and a smartphone, who’s going to carry around a third machine? “
No Flash Sucks
“the iPad can’t play Flash video. Apple has this thing against Flash, the Web’s most popular video format; says it’s buggy, it’s not secure and depletes the battery. Well, fine, but meanwhile, thousands of Web sites show up with empty white squares on the iPad ‘ places where videos or animations are supposed to play. “
Melissa J. Perenson : PC World: First Look: Apple iPad
The Keyboard Sucks:
“…when using the keyboard in vertical mode, my small hands had difficulty maneuvering around the keyboard my thumbs couldn’t stretch across the whole device to reach the keys. Horizontal mode felt much more natural, but as a touch-typist, I still made more errors than I would with a physical keyboard. More critically, while I’ve gotten fairly speedy with tapping away on my iPhone 3GS’ keyboard, I didn’t feel anything near the same speed or affinity for the touch keyboard on iPad”
The Closed System Sucks
“I find it stifling to think that a device capable of much more than my iPhone 3GS can’t just take a USB flash memory drive and access any of an array of file types. This omission in particular is a serious limitation to iPad’s functionality”
No Flash Sucks
“Another concern remains Apple’s lack of Adobe Flash support, which means as-is services like Hulu and the full YouTube catalog can’t be viewed on the iPad. Even as some sites switch to HTML 5, the lack of Flash is disappointing, given the format’s prevalence across the Web. “
Philip Elmer-DeWitt: CNN Money Blog: What iPad’s Guided Tours Won’t Tell You
Apple Mis-Information In Their Video Tours Sucks
“The videos, which range from a minute 20 seconds to just over four minutes, are as slick and colorful as any Apple television ad, and they do a great job of selling the device. But they are also peppered with the kind of hype and hyperbole that sets critics’ teeth on edge. In some cases, their claims step dangerously close to the line.”
No Flash Sucks
” ‘With YouTube on iPad, all of your favorite videos are just a touch away.’ Unless your favorite video is in Flash, in which case it’s on another device.”
Cory Doctorow : BoingBoing : Why I won’t Buy And iPad
“The model of interaction with the iPad is to be a “consumer,” what
William Gibson memorably described as “something the size of a baby
hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in
the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with
eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes
them sting. It has no mouth… no genitals, and can only express its
mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the
channels on a universal remote.”
Update:
Mike @ thebrokenapple.com has linked to this article, and added his own things to be upset about:
“I also want to add No Camera Sucks!”
Also: Matthew clued us into this video from Adobe that shows Flash running on a bunch of Mobile devices.