The below was written for a 3rd party website that no longer requires it’s use so I have now decided to post it here instead. Enjoy!

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I get it, everyone is writing about the iPad. Good, bad and indifferent the usual old/new media is busily suckling at the teat of the almighty rivalries that the launch of any new Apple product brings. I normally like to go against the flow and do something a little different however after finally wrapping my head around most of what people have had to say on the device I have decided that it is time to weigh in and announce how yet again the despair and disappointment that is running rampant amongst the community  is brought about by nothing but your  unwavering logic that unless Apple shits solid gold bars containing a cell phone, camcorder, dog walker and multi tasking neckbeard trimmer they have somehow wronged you and wronged the world and should file for bankruptcy because obviously if you wanted exactly 16 USB ports and a can opener then so did the rest of the world.

Whenever Apple launches a new product we always end with this mangled seething pit of nerd rage and desperate cries for attention claiming the downfall and subsequent abandonment of Apple from all the different camps. Some PC users, some mac users, some none of the above they just like to join in with the crowd. This is normally played off simply as the users being passionate about Apple or perhaps even “technology” in general. I however have a much better theory and I dare someone to prove it inaccurate.

A lot of people busily slamming their fingers into their greasy bacon covered keyboards spewing forth nothing but heaping piles of toxic waste on the iPad are the so called Apple fans themselves. This rage and incessant need to point out the device’s failures stem from the fact they spend 11 months of the year allowing themselves to be whipped into a frenzy by any number of untold Apple “rumor” sites who in the chase for the mighty add dollar keep these people in a constant state of awe shock and amazement with headlines such as  “OMG NEW TIP JUST IN! iPAD TO SHIT SOLID GOLD AND PERFORM HOUSEHOLD DUTIES!”, “iPAD TO USE NEW SAMSUNG MILLION INCH PANELS *rumour” and my always favourite “iPhone TO REPLACE SEEING EYE DOGS, GROW LEGS AND LEAD THE BLIND”.

Now most of us are able to take the constant stories and rumours and use logic to sort fact from fiction and allow ourselves to remain somewhat reserved in our judgements or ideas in regards to what is likely to be released. The history of Apple teaches us that usually while we are usually heading in the right direction it’s normally far off what we actually wanted and as such you grow accustomed to not whipping yourself into an uncontrolled hype every time some tiny Chinese news rag releases so called “spy images” of a 50 foot iPhone.

It seems that no matter what Apple does for these people it always ends up being wrong “just because”. You cried and whined for a good 12 months about wanting a slim notebook that was not a netbook and Apple delivered and how did you repay them? By crying about USB ports, LAN interfaces and refusing to buy it. That gamble really paid off for them did not it? You asked, they delivered and you then proceeded to bite the hand that fed you because they did not craft it specifically to your wishes. The same thing is now clearly being repeated for the iPad. I do not know how anyone could not of logically seen this coming any other way, its Apple. “Think Different”.

Take for instance the biggest complaint and this comes not just from the fanboys themselves but from many camps including the PC user side of things:

If it was running a full sized operating system and had some USB ports and was open I would buy this in a heartbeat it would sell millions!

I have news for you, this device already exists. Its called a tablet computer and you can buy one now from most vendors and have been able too for many years now and yet it has the market penetration of Star Wards branded tampons. Why? Because that is what you want, not what consumers want. Most people do not want to be messing with a stylus and a start button, fumbling through file managers and messing with handwriting recognition. They just want to get on their machine, shoot off an email, check the news and then get back to whatever far more important task it is they were doing.

Oh but my netbook can do this, and this, and that and all these other things that people who are going to buy the iPad probably do not want to do in the first place!

That’s amazing. What you are saying here is that the netbook suits a purpose for you and it suits that purpose just fine. Well what if my purpose is to read e-books and I wish to buy the device to do that? Why should I then be attacked because “A NETBOOK CAN DO IT TOO”. Yes it can, poorly. It cant be held in one hand comfortably, has terrible ergonomics for most reading positions and has a battery life equal to that of a pocket projector running off watch batteries. You cant attack the iPad because it can perform functions XYZ and but not ABC and when it was never intended or market for those functions in the first place. Chances are that it will serve its intended purpose just fine and most consumers will take that device over the jack of all trades device any day.

At the end of the day the device may fail or it may exceed beyond even the highest of expectations but it will not rise or fall because Steve Jobs failed to create the device to your exact specifications. Apple does not exist solely to serve your every need and desire and failing to design their product to meet your exact specification does not mean that the product is designed to fail. They make and market devices to serve a market not the individual and if they wish to continue turning a profit they should continue on their current path rather then listening to the rants and raves of cavemen like fanboys.

If it fails it will fail because they were unable to create and market a device that people will want or need in their lives on a day to day basis. Either because it does not meet a users requirements or because it offers nothing new over any existing competition to make it worth a purchase in the long or short term. Not because you stayed awake until midnight clicking refresh on the Apple store hoping for a device to love and treasure you forever that never came.

From the title of this post you may believe that I have some sort of bone to pick with the iPad but you will find that its rather the opposite. It’s simply a little dig at the unintelligent majority who are unable to express their concerns with the device in a legible and well thought out matter.

I am not going to bother to describe the iPad to you or tout its features because if you are reading this then the chances are you already know what it is and have an opinion of your own on the device.

My issue, nay concern is the rampant attacks as per usual against the device which occur whenever Apple launches a new product. The arguments themselves are normally formed by people who allowed themselves to be conned in the first place by the multitude of Apple “rumor” sites who whip them into a frenzy with their “IT WILL SHIT SOLID GOLD” headlines every second day until the product actually launches and they find that instead it really only shits out sterling silver and thus depression and rage set in.

There are a couple of key points that I would like to make during this article and I shall attempt to keep them as brief as I can.

1. Only noobs will buy this, I can buy a 20 cent netbook that can heaps more!

Now first of all yes I am sure that a netbook could do more then an iPad but if that is what I wanted then I would of bought a netbook in the first place. Secondly this argument also suggests that a netbook can do everything the iPad can do just as well.

I dont want another tiny, cheap ass, plinky plonky piece of plastic that is pretending to be a real notebook while being unable to do any of a notebooks task with any comfort, performance or ease of use. Netbooks are nothing but an uncomfortable fad for the cheap and those that honestly believe that this year will be the year of “Linux on the toilet seat”.

What about all the things that the iPad can do that the netbook cant? A superior, well proven and easy to use interface? Battery life that far exceeds that of any netbook on the market? Ease of physical use for mobile applications? You cant lie down in bed and use a netbook with any ease, whereas I could with a tablet/ereader of the iPads size. I could not roll under my car with a netbook and use it for instructional purposes and I certainly cant walk around my house using a netbook with only one hand like you could with a device of this nature. They are two different devices with what is going to be two very clearly different markets to begin with.

2. Its not open, its too locked down WAH WAH WAH.

I will let you in on a secret with this one. CONSUMERS DONT CARE. They really dont, trust me on this. They dont know what open means and they dont want to know. They want to read the news and check yahoo mail and when they are done they do not even want to know at the end of the day how they achieved that they just want to get in the car and go to work. They dont care because they have better things to worry about. Also need I point out some other closed systems?

Think of it like a car. 90% of the population does not care about what is under the hood or how their car works. They just want it to look nice and get them from A to B without hassle and someone else can take care of the rest. The rest in this case being the mechanic, in our case it would be Apple. As much as you or I would love this to be open to do with what we wished this device will sell to millions of people that do not care and do not want to be bothered with such issues in the first place. Not because they are stupid but because in their mind they have better things to do and they will be buying it for a specific purpose not to meet the requirements of 100 other different devices they could also purchase.

I should finish up I guess, I am on the fail netbook and I am sick of using this keyboard to type.

in order to understand why this is going to sell and sell well you must understand who this is being targeted to and what it is being presented as. On its most basic level it is an e-reader that can do so much more then display text. Think of them as an added bonus. It can display video, email and web all things which can serve to enhance the usage of such devices in the real world. E-readers are amazing products but not many people I know are going to dedicate such a large amount of coin to devices that serve only the one purpose. When you have a device that you can use to read the manual for your car but you can also now use to display the video of the procedure you have a winner on your hands and due to its size and physical properties this will extend to many applications that a netbook just can not touch.

Will I buy one you ask? Time will tell, I like to buy gadgets from all walks of life so only time will tell I guess.

In conclusion, you can all bite me.