[juhgfcgvhnjm]

The iPad isn't a computer. It has a cpu, but so does my toaster, it's a portable cableTV box. The point of a personal computer is that you are in charge, you create content, with an iPad you pay to download and watch other people's content. It's the difference between writing your own blog and reading the national enquirer

[callmeed]

It has iWork. You can create documents, slideshows, emails, and plenty more with other apps (including blogging apps).

Not only is your definition of a computer narrow, it's not even accurate with regards to the iPad.

[jerf]

Did you notice when you posted that that you also fried the entire premise of the linked article? Work still beckons, email still beckons.

If it is left up to the user to not permit those things to beckon, well, gosh, I can do that right now on any machine I choose, there's nothing special about the iPad.

There is no such thing as "work machine" or "personal machine". There are only computers. Turing machines. A computer is what you make of it. In fact I'd fight anyone who tries to hide this fundamental mathematical truth, because they're probably trying to lock me in a trunk. Which in fact Apple is. (The metric works!)

http://www.scripting.com/davenet/2001/08/01/bigBlankMachine....

[glhaynes]

The existence of lots of apps (already, before the device is even available) for creating content completely refutes this absurd argument.

On both a PC or an iPad, you can (for free or for pay) download lots of other peoples' content. And on both there are lots of opportunities for creating your own content. They don't completely overlap (each will be better for different scenarios) and that's exactly why both types of device should continue to exist.

To conflate the inability for one to compile one's own kernel with being unable to be creative on the device is silly.

[_pius]

I get the sentiment, but I think you're exaggerating a bit. The device does allows you to install content creation tools and it's nowhere near as locked down as you imply.

[jrockway]

But... the icons have rounded corners. And unlimited 3G is only $30 a month. Don't you see that this is revolutionary?

[juhgfcgvhnjm]

Yes as a way of consuming content it's great (but so is any $100 screen with 3G - there is nothing iApple great)

The point is that there is a fundemental difference. The first home computers let you create your own books/fanzines, then they let you make your own websites, then make your own albums and videos.

This is going back to the 50s, you buy the hardware and pay to watch content made by large studios.

[glhaynes]

Why do you say I can't create a book or a fanzine on an iPad? What about Pages would keep a user from making a book?

Mobile devices like iPads contribute heavily to websites by uploading text/photo content. Are they the best way to start from a blank new .html file and build your whole website by hand? No, but why do they need to be? We've got computers for that.

There will be a ton of content created on iPads. I don't know why the fact that one of their main usages is likely to be for content consumption (seems like there's a hell of a lot of that going on on "computers", too) makes you think that's all they can do.

[jrockway]

Connect up a keyboard and a bigger screen, and sure, you can create a book on an iPad.

There is nothing software-intensive about creating a book. The hard part is typing it in. (If you don't have a keyboard, that is.)

[glhaynes]

But I don't want a keyboard on the device all the time, else I'd have bought a notebook.

So I can use it the vast majority of the time without having a keyboard attached. And I can make edits or small additions to my novel from anywhere in addition to all the other things that I do, the vast majority of which aren't typing-heavy. Then when I want to sit down and focus on writing for a long time, I put it in the keyboard dock or use a wireless keyboard.

If all you ever want to do with the device is to type your novel, yeah, just get a notebook instead, it'll be better for you. Which is fine: they still exist and nobody that's buying an iPad is buying it only to type their novel on the thing.

[jrockway]

Let me know how that goes.

[Terretta]

> There is nothing software-intensive about creating a book. The hard part is typing it in. (If you don't have a keyboard, that is.)

What about dictation?

"Even novelists, working in a form so very written, have needed to write by voice. Stendhal dictated “The Charterhouse of Parma” in seven weeks. An impoverished Dostoyevsky had just six weeks to deliver the manuscript of “The Gambler” or face complete ruin. He hired a stenographer, knocked the book out in four weeks, then married the girl."

From "How to Speak a Book", http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/books/review/Powers2.t.htm...

(I'm amazed by the accuracy of Dragon Dictation on the iPhone.)