[aaronbrethorst]

"The usual fanboy rebuttal is that [the iPad] is not designed for what I do."

How does stating _a fact_ like this make one a fanboy? This re-reminds me why Dave Winer irritates me. Yes, the iPad does not offer a development environment. Yes, the iPad lacks file-system access. So what?

Dave also invokes the classic 'my mom's going to love this' line. I think my mother will too. And I cannot wait to replace her Windows XP desktop with an iPad for day-to-day computing tasks.

[mhb]

He doesn't say his mother's going to love it. He says: ...although her Mac is terribly inadequate and confusing, with so many layers of contradictions.... Too bad this product is so far from being able to replace it for her.

[aaronbrethorst]

FTA: "I expect to wow her with the map application."

Consider it to be an example of paraphrasing.

[mlinsey]

He mentions that as the only thing his mother would like about the device. The paragraph above the one you quote says this:

I also work with people who are not very deeply skilled in computer technology, exactly the kind of people this product is supposedly for. It won't work for them, because they need to multi-task too. We learned a long time ago that inexpert users don't use less resources, they just use them differently. The argument that the Mac wasn't a serious computer was nonsense. I was there when all these arguments were fresh. This is not a replay. Keep dreaming if you want, but if you give the iPad to your mother expect the light to go on for you. At that exact moment you will realize how poorly prepared it is for that.

[aaronbrethorst]

You make a good point, which proves that neither of us actually knows which phrasing Dave Winer meant. Don't be a jerk. We live in the same city and might actually meet at some point. I don't like being on bad terms with people I've never met.

[techiferous]

"Don't be a jerk."

If you read his comment carefully you will see that he simply stated a fact. Stating a fact is not being a jerk. However, by saying "don't be a jerk" you've added a personal insult to the conversation.

Tone is really hard to convey on the Internet and I also hope you don't misread the tone of this comment. I'm writing this in the spirit of a friendly reminder that I myself need sometimes, too.

[mlinsey]

I'm sorry if I came off as attacking you: there wasn't any intent to do that. I just was trying to point out where I think you misread Winer's article, which is in the grand scheme of things a pretty minor mistake, probably not even worth the downvotes. I certainly wasn't trying to make it personal.

I think one issue may have been that what I wrote in my post was just the first two sentences; the whole second paragraph is cut-and-pasted from Winer. In that paragraph Winer himself comes off as pretty aggressive, and by quoting all of that it may have made my comment read as more caustic than it was designed to be. (though I guess we should heed techiferous' point about tone on the internet and give Winer a little benefit of the doubt here too!)

This community (and discussion forums in general) is only useful if we sometimes can correct each other's mistakes and use evidence to argue against each others' positions. However, we should always do so in ways that never make it feel like anyone is being attacked, and it's my bad if I fell short of that.

I sent Aaron a direct message on Facebook already saying all this, but I wanted to clarify for everyone else here, especially anyone who flagged my comment: I was somehow locked out of HN starting sometime shortly after I made my original reply to Aaron and ending just a minute ago. My best guess is that this must have been caused by some mechanism triggered when several people flag your post but a mod hasn't decided whether to ban you yet. Just speculation, though: it's also possible my co-founder logged into my account and turned on noprocrast as a subtle message to get off HN and get back to work! :) That's actually pretty good advice that I'll be following now. Have a good few weeks, HN.

[aaronbrethorst]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate the message on Facebook. I haven't had an opportunity to get back to you yet (my day has been hectic), but I'll send you a response later when I have a chance to do it justice.

[cema]

Thank you for putting the conversation back in the civil tone!

[fauigerzigerk]

A jerk is someone disagreeing with you apparently. It is completely obvious that Dave Winer did not invoke "the classic 'my mom's going to love this' line". In fact he rejected exactly that line. Mentioning an individual feature his mother might actually like doesn't suddenly reverse the gist of his argument.

[omaranto]

I don't mean to be pedantic, but he didn't say that stating that the iPad is not designed for what he does means that you are fanboy. He merely said that fanboys would say that, which is likely true since I think almost everyone would say that (including fanboys, but also many non-fanboys).

[kvs]

Yes. iPad is for consumption not for production. Don't know when some of these guys will realize it and stop making a big fuzz. I don't see the point of it.

[mlinsey]

To me, the biggest surprise of iPad launch day was just how well the keyboard works. According to various (dubiously reliable) online typing tests, I range from 40-70 WPM on the iPad. Accuracy is acceptable; much better than the iPhone keyboard but of course not as good as full keyboard.

It's perfectly fine for email, posting on message boards, etc. I also will probably use it to write documents when I'm out and about, and using it today I felt like I would like to be able to code on it (though ssh or jailbreaking are probably the only ways that will happen).

24 hours ago, I would have agreed 100% with you that "iPad is for consumption not for production". After a day of using one I have changed my mind entirely. The iPad can be an adequate device for production, and it has the potential to be a great one.

Specifically, having a software keyboard has large and untapped potential advantages over a physical keyboard, once basic typing is acceptable. The buttons on a software keyboard can change to adapt to the situation. We already see see small examples of this with the built-in keyboard: when the address bar in safari is open, the space bar disappears and the forward slash and .com buttons take its place. Imagine alternate keyboards for things like LaTeX markup. Furthermore, your pointing device (finger) is much closer to the keyboard, so no moving your hand from your keyboard to your mouse. I think apps that really take advantage of the possibilities of the interface are yet to come. Once they arrive the "tablets will disrupt the laptop" argument sounds sounding really plausible.

[jacquesm]

What a computer is used for should not be up to the manufacturer of the device.

[aaronbrethorst]

Don't get me wrong: it would be awesome if the iPad was just as good for production as consumption.

My girlfriend (a university professor) is in the process of finishing her first book, and would love to do the rest of her writing and revising on the iPad in Pages, but she doesn't see it as being realistic. She's still really excited about being able to watch Battlestar Galactica on the iPad. (regarding BSG: yes, I am lucky.)

I spend all of my time writing code in Ruby and Objective C. I'd love to be able to get access to MRI, the Rails gems, MySQL and TextMate on the iPad in order to do my work there, but it's just not realistic. And that's ok: because I am unbelievably excited about the web browsing experience and the games on the iPad.

Edit: I amend my comments above with a Tweet from the author of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air: http://twitter.com/stevenbjohnson/status/11564792495

[webwright]

Everyone realizes it. I think the contention is (right or wrong) that a pure-consumption device isn't what people want or need (given the other things that they have in their lives). It's redundant. It doesn't replace anything.

I think if they had multi-tasking it'd go a long way to shutting up this criticism.

[aaronbrethorst]

Hey Tony - Pity that seemingly everyone in Seattle is staying in tonight. Crappy weather... Two things:

1. You've probably forgotten more about this sort of data than I'll ever know, but I look around at folks on laptops in cafes and see nothing but Facebook or Gmail on Netbooks. I think we, as a class of users, are the exception: most people on computers spend the bulk of their time consuming information instead of producing it.

2. Rumor has it that iPhone OS 4 will be announced at WWDC 2010 (big shock) and will feature multi-tasking.

[lotharbot]

Facebook and Gmail both have production and consumption. A device that excels at consumption and is inadequate for production will not serve as a replacement for many people. It sounds like the iPad is adequate for at least some limited typing, but it remains to be seen whether it's adequate for what most users do.

The bigger critique, though, is multi-tasking. I like to be able to consume music and webpages at the same time. A consumption device that won't let me multi-task is inherently unsuited for my normal day-to-day use.

[Maktab]

To be clear, both the iPad and iPhone do allow you to listen to music and surf the net or use other apps at the same time, but only if you use the iPod application.

The problem has never been that the iPhone and iPad can't support multi-tasking, it's that Apple has only permitted some of its own apps to multi-task.

[webwright]

Heh-- yaw, I'm not certainly I AGREE with the contention. No one ever went broke overestimating the vapidity of consumers. Still, I wonder. IM Facebook, and email are content creation. Will the swoosh-factor of the iPad make up for inconvenience of an onscreen keyboard, no multi-tasking, etc?

[kvs]

True, but "people" you talk about are like you and I who wish we could poke around with this device a lot more. Most people just consume and hardly produce anything-- other than, perhaps, emails, todo lists, & recipe notes.

I think the relevant verdict would be delivered not by the Pogues or Mossbergs but by mom, dads, and the 4-5 year-olds who see this device for what it is. Because, for the first time we (as in majority of the general public) can look at a computer as a consumer device as oppose to a general purpose device that needs training or learning. I think most reviews I read missed this aspect.

[gloob]

This review explicitly notes that aspect. It notes it in order to make the contention that such a belief is incorrect, but it does note it.