Oh wow, look. How rare; another post from no one of matter about the iPad!
One of my goals for 2010 is to start to be a bit more … mindful of the things I think. Twitter is like a magnet for the opposite of that, but it’s a work in progress.
I’ve had all day to mull over the iPad, and I’ve had a few friends and family ask my opinion about the product (some didn’t ask, but they got my opinion anyway). I figure, why let the great void of the interwebs go on without my armchair opinions; plus, this is a good place to point my family to.
A Heck of a Lot of Work
I have a few friends that work at Apple, and to them I have to say it is obvious there was an amazing amount of work put into that product. (We have a don’t ask / don’t tell policy about Apple stuff so I am only guessing this based on the product demos.)
Apple made a whole processor for the thing. That is pretty amazing. I mean, I’ve always been impressed with their hardware when I’ve taken Macs apart, but building your own product down to the processor – that must have been all kinds of fun.
The rework of the iWork and iLife products are very, very nice. They look great on the device. I wouldn’t mind having some of those UI elements on my Mac proper.
I don’t want to belittle the work that went into the device, the hardware or the software. It’s not like anyone cares about my opinion, but from the product demo, the software and speed of the iPad was top notch.
Concerns
Now, I wont be buying an iPad, and judging from the direction Apple appears to be heading, I am not sure how many future products of theirs I’ll be buying. I have two major concerns that were brought to a head with the iPad launch.
1) Apple appears to be becoming Zenith
Mac OS X is the best OS I’ve ever used; however, it appears to me to not be Apple’s main focus anymore. Apple appears to be less and less of a computer company and more concerned with turning out Jef Raskin devices that use the iPhone OS and are tied to the AppStore. Heck, they dropped “computer” from their name, which maybe I should take as a hint.
I half expect to see the iBlender, iToaster, and iRefrigerator come out soon – all running the iPhone OS – and they only work if Apple approves of the food stuffs you put into them.
Granted, I am taking things to an illogical extreme here, but my concern is basically that the power, freedom, and workflow that first got me hooked on Apple products, specifically OS X, is going bye bye and getting replaced by devices that have little to no real world geek value; work value; unix value. Modern DVD players.
I vehemently disagree with, but can understand, the locked down nature of the iPhone because it’s a phone. I see the move of using the iPhone OS in the iPad as a sign of “things to come” (which I think they even said in the presentation).
2) The cake is a lie
Perhaps the history I thought I knew about Apple is wrong. I wasn’t there obviously, but I’ve met a few people who were. I’ve also seen movies and read things online that seem to backup what I’ve heard.
Apple’s core goal originally, I thought, was to free the computer from the clutches of the likes of IBM*. Woz and Steve built one of the first computers and showed it off at the Homebrew computer club with the idea that everyone could have the freedom of their own computer – they wouldn’t have to bow down to a multi-billion dollar corporation to ask permission… you see where I am going with this right?
So what’s the goal now? It appears to be a manifestation of what they were against in the first place. Or, perhaps, I was just confusing myself – which is completely possible.
I mean, there is no freedom with the iPhone, there is no freedom with the iPad, it’s all corporate controlled and you need to ask permission – repeatedly – to use almost any aspect of it. This is the vision of things to come?
It has become clear to me that Apple is just another company, another “IBM”*; there is nothing special about it, and that makes me a bit sad.
Well played sir, well played.
Dude, I thought you were talking about the iPad?
Yeah, sorry. The iPad, for me, wasn’t just a failure of what I wanted it to do, what I wanted to use it for, and how I was hoping the ecosystem would work, it was Apple jumping the geek shark. (Still dig Mac+OS X though.)
If the iPad looks like a product you would like, go buy it. If not, then don’t.