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iPad Overhyped? What's Your Take?

wirelessmacuser

wirelessmacuser

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 20, 2009
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Planet.Earth
I found this article about the iPad. What's your take on it?

"The five most overhyped tech products of 2010"

Apple iPad

This is the pick that I’m going to take the most flak over, but it deserves to be on the list and I’ll explain why. There’s no denying that the iPad has been a mega-hit. Over 7 million of them were sold in its first six months on the market and it is changing the computing industry more than any single product has in the past decade. As I said in my article The truth about iPad: It’s only good for two things, it is a very good effort for a 1.0 product.

But, the iPad has been hyped into the stratosphere to the point that too many people are thinking of it as full laptop replacement. It is not. While the iPad has definitely cannibalized the low-end of the laptop market, especially netbooks, you have to keep in mind that most of those buyers are looking for a second, more portable machine. In business, the iPad is a great fit for consultants and field workers who aren’t at a desk but are out interacting with customers and for executives who spend all day in meetings. However, it’s still not a great fit for people who need to sit down and efficiently plow through a lot of work. That’s a lot of people.

Source
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/the-five-most-overhyped-tech-products-of-2010/42155
 
I have waited for this for many years since launch day I used it as my only Mac, when the MBA was announced I bought it and sold the iPad than a month later returned the MBA and bought another iPad and will be staying with this till ipad2 comes out.
 
wirelessmacuser said:
I found this article about the iPad. What's your take on it?

"The five most overhyped tech products of 2010"

Apple iPad

This is the pick that I’m going to take the most flak over, but it deserves to be on the list and I’ll explain why. There’s no denying that the iPad has been a mega-hit. Over 7 million of them were sold in its first six months on the market and it is changing the computing industry more than any single product has in the past decade. As I said in my article The truth about iPad: It’s only good for two things, it is a very good effort for a 1.0 product.

But, the iPad has been hyped into the stratosphere to the point that too many people are thinking of it as full laptop replacement. It is not. While the iPad has definitely cannibalized the low-end of the laptop market, especially netbooks, you have to keep in mind that most of those buyers are looking for a second, more portable machine. In business, the iPad is a great fit for consultants and field workers who aren’t at a desk but are out interacting with customers and for executives who spend all day in meetings. However, it’s still not a great fit for people who need to sit down and efficiently plow through a lot of work. That’s a lot of people.

Source
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/the-five-most-overhyped-tech-products-of-2010/42155
Click to expand...

I hated the pretentious adverts and I totally dismissed it as giant iPod touch that did less than my phone. Had a go on one and bought it. iOS loves a big screen.

Over hyped? O yes!

One of the best things Computing products I have ever bought? Most definitely.

Each to their own but I personally love it.
 
I thought it was overhyped until I got one for myself after months of seeing it as a big iPod Touch. I rarely am without my iPad now.
 
While I do agree that it's hard to be productive with the iPad, the article makes it seem like this is iPad's downfall. It's more of an entertainment/home device than a work device. Maybe he was trying to type that article in the iPad and got frustrated...
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yeah, it was definitely overhyped: it is in no way "magical". However, despite the hype it is a brilliant, brilliant device that I wouldn't want to be without now :)
 
I agree to an extent. I love my iPad, I think it's an amazing product, I use it more and more every day. But I think people in general expect way too much from it and then get disappointed when the iPad doesn't do something.
 
Of course it's overhyped, it's Apple after all. :D

I've played with the iPad in the shops and it's an impressive product. I've got no need for one myself but it's going to be interesting to see how it develops over the next few years.
 
anjinha said:
I agree to an extent. I love my iPad, I think it's an amazing product, I use it more and more every day. But I think people in general expect way too much from it and then get disappointed when the iPad doesn't do something.
Click to expand...

I honestly believe that the converse is true. Certainly there are people who bought an iPad to replace many of the things that a notebook might have done, but my gut feeling is that most people bought iPads to surf the web, watch video, read things, and do email.

Everything else for most people is just value added.

I think this entire notion needs a little bit of perspective. When did rumors really start to gather steam over an Apple tablet? over a year ago?

The fact that the iPad has even been able to come close to meeting expectations and hype is a testament to how insanely great of a product it happens to be.
 
Huh... I actually do most of my work on my iPad. It doesn't work as well as my iMac but works well enough that I don't bother getting up and going over to it. I can do all of my writing and the very minor photo editing that I have to do for Internet quality photos on it fine. Can update Wordpress also. The iPad 2 doesn't need much improvement to be a full fledged notebook replacement in my opinion.
 
I am visiting family for the holidays and have yet to put down my iPad (except when sleeping and eating)...I have remained in contact with the office...stayed productive...and entertained myself at the same time.

My brother brought his iPad and said that he hadn't yet found it irresistible...until he saw me using mine all the time...Next thing you know, he was on his...to the complete exclusion of his laptop.
 
Overhyped? Yes

Underwhelming? No

What I mean by that is, before the announcement folks expected a Mac OS X tablet PC, what they got was another iOS device. Such hype had given a twisted perspective. It is not a laptop, notebook, netbook, or otherwise. It is a new genre of device, and if you are buying it for what it's good at, you will be pleased. If you use alot of propietary software, and expect to use it as a laptop replacement, you might be disappointing. But if all you use your laptop for is web browsing, e-mail, and as someone said "Media Consumption" then that sucker is gonna be collecting dust because the iPad does it faster and is so much more fun. It also does it without fans, heat, or the need to be recharged every couple of hours.

That's why I, personally, prefer a big iOS device. I get alot of utility out of iOS, but the screens of the other devices aren't big enough to do some things. If the iPad were an OSX device, it would probably be much heavier from heatsinks, bigger batteri(es), plus the heat and whining fans (smaller fans are louder). No thank you, plus bootup time!

$0.02

-John
 
Over-hyped?

By Apple = no, just standard advertising retoric.

But by virtually every media outlet (run by retards who know only how to sell advertising slots and not actually give factual and unbiased reports), unqualified cyber-"journalists", self-proclaimed analysts and many technically inept = oh hell yeah.

The internet has allowed individuals to make claims and pass judgements anonymously, and as such many do so without fear of reprimand for failure to support their statements through the use of logical thought backed up with facts.

Just look at how many are claiming that the next iPad will have a "retina" display, or at least a sizeable resolution bump. Fact is, there is no information to go on, only wild speculaion off a rumour that the next iPad will include "new screen technology". To me, that statement does not support (nor does it undermine) assumptions of resolution change. But it doesn't stop people getting all excited and screaming from the rooftops that the next iPad will have a screen that's got better resolution than the real world.
 
I think that there is a fair bit of hype surrounding the iPad but that is just the nature of our culture and news. Always looking for something to generate interest. For myself, I have been trying to find a way to use a handheld tablet as my primary computer ever since my first table PC, a Compaq Concerto. A Motion M1300, then a M1600 and a Futjitsu ST5112 later and I have now found it in a 64gb Wifi iPad.

My only frustration is that Apple hits the hard balls out of the park but seems to struggle with the easy stuff (ie printing, file transfer etc). But I am confident that these will all get straighten out and I am hopeful that I have purchased my last laptop.

I will also be quite happy to see lots of competition in this market since it hasn't had much innovation in the past.
 
Phil A. said:
Yeah, it was definitely overhyped: it is in no way "magical".
Click to expand...

I don't know, I thought the word "magical" was over the top at first also, but I recently witnessed by 78 year old father and 3 year old niece in the same room, both playing with two different iPads and enjoying the heck out of them. That's pretty magical. I can't think of any other technology-related device that's ever been able to do that (most technology intimidates older people and confuses very young people, but almost anyone immediately gets how to use an iPad, with the right apps anyway). Sure, "magical" is marketing fluff, but there is a bit of truthiness to it also.
 
HiRez said:
Sure, "magical" is marketing fluff, but there is a bit of truthiness to it also.
Click to expand...

Definitely. The iPad has completely changed the way my family uses our computers on a daily basis. My laptop has been completely replaced. Everyday, I use the iPad for work, traveling, video, games, and my band just used a couple of them as instruments in a live show. I personally would say it's easily my best purchase in at least the last 10 years.

Overhyped, maybe, but still amazing.
 
Why do you think the ipad is overhyped

The iPad is what I'm using to type this, I use it all the time, some times I'll admit I get another when it crashes every once in a while but it hardly ever does, I mean I've had it for over a month and I love it especially with iOS 4.2 being released with multitasking,folders,gamecenter and more it has made a better experience for me.
 
diabolic said:
Definitely. The iPad has completely changed the way my family uses our computers on a daily basis. My laptop has been completely replaced. Everyday, I use the iPad for work, traveling, video, games, and my band just used a couple of them as instruments in a live show. I personally would say it's easily my best purchase in at least the last 10 years.

Overhyped, maybe, but still amazing.
Click to expand...

How did your band do that?
 
underhyped

.

As much as Apple sells the KoolAid, I have found personally
that all the Apple products I have purchased have been
understated. This includes the iPad, iMac, iPhone 3GS and 4,
and iPod.

Apple offers good value on the initial purchase and reinforces
this value through continued updates. Their integrated system,
focus on excellence, and easy to use products for me, has been
a game changer in my life and has given much more than I
expected.

Heck, after years of struggling with PC products, I was just happy
to get something that worked reliably. I got much more than that !

dxr

.
 
It's been overhyped by the media. I love my iPad, but it is has flaws and some deep unforgiving flaws at that. It was such a sea change from the previous PC tablets that many are willing to give it a pass on its flaws.

For example, just try to listen to a podcast in Safari and browse to another "window" with a site like Engadget loading. Your podcast audio will stop. So you think, OK, well I'll just go back to the podcast page and resume the audio. Nope, Safari will then reload the page. Things like that are pretty aggrevating and happen to me all the time on the iPad.
 
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