What is particularly strong about the iPad? It's a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Great 400-year old phrase to prop up your ignorance. What's "Jack" about any part of the iPad 2? Which App? Which part of the hardware? OK — ONE of the cameras is not a 5 megapixel camera like every nerd would love to say they have. But other than that, I think the iPad is Master in just about every area.
And while I'm on the camera subject... who wants to take hundreds of pictures with a tablet? Not the right device at all! I took 400 pictures on vacation during this past springbreak week. All with a real camera (a Nikon D90). You take a lot of pictures, get a real device designed for really great pictures. Or use your phone! It's the right size, most have flashes now and most take decent 5MP pictures. Apple's cameras are for high-quality 720P video, Facetime videochatting and for capturing fun Photobooth facial warp effects. Those wanting a high quality camera for shooting stills need to get a grip. No one would use it for that and they would look like a fool doing so. That and their arms would fall off from holding this 1.3lb device up all day.
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Google HAS JUST RELEASED Honeycomb. Competing tablets are slowly trickling in. And Apple has the second one to market and is bulldozing sales. What tablet do you own? It sounds like you have serious buyers remorse and are simply jealous.
What the iPad is strong at is advancing the Apple brand that is known to stand for style and elegance. The iPad is beautifully made and quite gorgeous, but that doesn't mean it's any stronger than any other product on the market.
Well — SOMETHING is moving truckload after truckload of these things. Perhaps it's the near 70,000 iPad apps (as well as, if you must, you can run another 180,000 iPhone apps). Mayhaps it's the great price-point that no competitor is able to match without a cell-phone company 2 yr contract subsidy. You throw around the words "style", "elegance", "beautifully made" and "quite gorgeous" like they're just... um... words. They actually convey those exact things in a product that you can buy, use and love. Not just a tagline that Motorola might use at the top of their advertisement.
Can you enumerate some specific uses that the iPad can do that no other device can do? Or if that doesn't exist, can you name a use that is performed better on the iPad over all other products?
Why should we step up to YOU? Who are YOU? We all know what the iPad can do. Why don't you tout all of the things that your favorite tablet can do that the iPad 2 can't. Maybe we'll be impressed and switch immediately, but I'm kind of doubting that.
Remember, people are plunking down between $499-829 — the product as a whole is what's important. Not that one Google app is cool and would be nice having. Or that HP Palm's notification system is better. That might sell some tablets. Great. Competition is good for everyone. But, the fact remains that Apple has invented this whole category: a tablet computing device designed to run software strictly used by the human hand. Craplets before that just tried to glom on lame windows and use a stylus AND THAT FAILED. No one liked it and no one wanted it. What Apple has done is revolutionary and if you don't like that word — TOUGH!
I would even accept the iPad's utility if it could do a handful of common tasks decently well such that there was efficiency gained by only having one device. For almost everyone, however, the iPad requires a computer. It replaces nothing.
You obviously do not own an iPad and most assuredly have not used one for more than a few minutes in a Best Buy or Apple store. If you actually had one, you'd get it. You're simply trolling today.
Objectively, within Apple's own product line, there are better products that are as equally portable. The 11" macbook air offers more features than the iPad for only a small amount more.
I don't agree. You hold the Pad in your hand and manipulate EVERYTHING with the other hand. It is far more intimate than a laptop sitting on your lap, using a keyboard and trackpad. For someone to get an iPad 2 for $500 that is EXACTLY the same as the high-end model sans more SD space and a 3G radio, I think you're missing something. "Small amount more"? No. MBA's start at $999. You're comparing the high-end iPad to the cost of the low-end MBA. Lame, dude. Your cost comparison FAILS.
The iPad really is a toy for people to sit on the couch and surf the web or watch movies in bed. There's nothing wrong with that, but there are other devices that most people already own that can do that just fine. Spending $500-930 for such a thing is essentially product lust.
Your opinion, but... here's an old saying I'll use at this point:
"Opinions are like ******s. Everyone has one."
And it's not $930 -- it's $829. Why you tacked on an extra $101, is beyond me. I suppose to try and dupe some more casual MR surfers. And don't say tax because we all know that's extra and you didn't mention it when you said "$500" which also, is $1 too much.
What you need to do is head over to iTunes and download the iPad introduction keynote from Apple. Steve said very plainly that the device between a cell phone and a laptop needed to do 7 key everyday things BETTER than a phone or laptop or it had no reason for being: internet, ebooks, photos, music, email, video and games — I believe the iPad and now iPad 2 fills the bill. In fact, it does all of that and SO MUCH MORE. Apple never said it was trying to REPLACE anything and is quite happy to sell someone all three — They work so nicely together — ebooks instantly come to mind between Pad and Phone with round-tripping of your place, bookmarks and highlights all transferring to keep you right where you left off, now matter the device you grab and took with you that day.
You're just too biased against Apple as a whole to see the simple fact that the iPad is superior to it's competition. But we'll all see a little clearer in another few years when iPad is still reigning supreme.
Again there isn't anything necessarily wrong with this since we all have our favorite things. Some people like clothes, others like classic cars, and some like i toys. No one should be berated for buying one. What we shouldn't do is pretend like this product has some great technological advantage that makes it worth the cost. It doesn't.
For someone who claims "there isn't anything necessarily wrong" with buying our tech, you certainly have spent a lot of time bashing people's reasons for doing so.
People have been bashing iPods since 2001 (you probably were one then, too) and now 10 years later, which music player is still #1?
Oh I forgot — it's just a "jack of all trades and a master of none" too. iPods, iPhones, iPads... when will people learn they've simply been wasting their money? I guess they're too busy using them in a billion different ways to be concerned about those like you.
MBP 
