Ahem. Anyway, I seem to remember music battles too. I suspect any domain with more than one option has its debates.

Next I shall quote Leviticus to argue for free lunches.

I used to work as an embedded Linux developer, and many of the projects I worked on were concept internet/web tablets. We could never pull off what Apple managed with the iPad – I tip my hat to their dev team and I’m going to buy one as soon as they’re available in Canada.

Actually, scratch that. I’m going to buy two iPads, and I’m going to name the second one Cory.

Put another way:
What you buy has an impact on me.

Furthermore:
Personally buying (or not buying) products is not the only acceptable way to express opinions about corporate practices.

You buying an iPad pushes the market and the overall gadget norms that much further from freedom. That market and those norms are something that we all have to live with, so we all have an interest in what happens to them.

Calling for the boycott of a product is a time-honored and totally reasonable response to a bad corporate policy which affects all consumers.

It’s really frustrating that we have to recapitulate these basic concepts constantly, but I guess it’s better than not recapitulating them.

With one notable exception.

Please don’t post exceedingly similar posts in two different threads, within minutes of each other.

And if you don’t like a particular post, scroll on by.

In order for reviews to be most useful, we the readers are well advised to familiarize ourselves with those doing the reviews. I have found that I tend to agree with Cory, so I’m prone to listen a little more closely to his advice. It didn’t matter in this particular case, but it did make me feel a little better about a decision I had already made.

I am a little amused by the polarized view that’s being taken on this particular subject, though. Do we really have to call people names simply because they like (or dislike) a particular product (or company)? When reviewers wrote positive reviews of Up did anyone call them Pixar Fanboys?

The simple possession of an opposing viewpoint does not necessarily make another person wrong. It’s just an opinion, and everyone has the right to their own.

While I love open source web server software, open source’s performance as a viable desktop alternative for the average (i.e. non-technical) user has been one embarrassing failure after another.

If you dorks were so rad, you’d have come up with something better than the iPad by now.

Speaking of which, since you guys hate it so much, where IS the awesome alternative that’s so much better? Surely if this thing sucks so bad, there must be something great out there we should all be using instead, no?

The dreamer in me thinks that CD’s virulent anti-iPad stance is an open prayer for a world he’d prefer to see – one in which people bake cookies from scratch, raise their own chickens, fix their own transmissions and generally know how to assemble a computer from scratch in the dark.

The pragmatist is just enjoying watching an otherwise thoughtful writer and commentator lose his s__t over something that just isn’t that important in the big scheme of things. Release the Kraken!

I assume you have a pretty big problem with advertising.

Or is your problem with sincere argument? Most advertising is so insincere it is easy to dismiss. Apple tells us to buy their products because they will make us cool or we will gain rebel street cred (the 1984 ad). That’s easy to ignore because we know it’s a cynical sham – even though we know darned well that Apple really has manufactured those images. Serious critique, however, is not so easily avoided by cynicism or irony. It forces us to consider where we stand.

Though we like to imagine that the choices we make as consumers are private arrangements between a willing buyer and a willing seller, those choices all have wider social consequences. We don’t like to think about that (myself included). Advertising encourages us to believe, not to doubt. Critique makes us question.

And I find that disturbing. I feel it is a direct result of what someone else here called the corporate zombie memes.

Somneone asked: What right do you have to pass judgement on what someone else buys?

Answer: The exact same right you have to disagree with my judgement.

danfan said:

“‘Discriminating critical thinking?’ Sorry, all I see is smug, self-congratulatory, techno-geek backslapping.”

In hindsight I think you may be right. However, I think the, erm, other side is displaying an even more non-discriminating, self-congratulatory form of fanboy/girl whipseedoodle glee.

danfan also said:

“Speaking of which, since you guys hate it so much, where IS the awesome alternative that’s so much better? Surely if this thing sucks so bad, there must be something great out there we should all be using instead, no?”

Well, I guess my questions are: alternative to what? What’s the need we must find an alternative for? What meaningful purpose, other than profitting Jobs, does it serve? What need has been gapingly apparent that this toy is filling?

In my opinion the iPad is like the iPhone in that it fulfills a need that only became apparent after the marketting, advertising, bot-blitz meme artists, and product placement created that need.

It fits an agenda perfectly. If you wanted to offer an honest critique of the iPad… you could talk about the fact it’s impossible for a blind person to use, the same goes for the iphone/ipod touch… or you could take an even more difficult position and critique chinese labour practices or government policies– that’s a pretty big deal?

Instead the posted critique mentions the app approval process… can you think of ANY store owner that doesn’t test and approve products he or she features in his or her store? Apple has a prudential impetus to approve applications, just as every store owner approves the products he or she sells.

Focusing a critique on such petty, and narrow issues deprives it of it’s validity. You might as well just sit there and say I don’t like it because it’s silver.

I agree with much of Cory’s lobbying, but sometimes it comes off as a bad PR stunt.

Ditto. Now what?

No folder os and closed network:
http://www.jblogg.com/2010/04/04/ipad-review-folder-free-os-on-a-closed-network/

“… can you think of ANY store owner that doesn’t test
and approve products he or she features in his or her store?”

Um, Walmart? FutureShop? Canada’s Harper government?

I think that people who claim not to see the use for this device are people who’ve never been plagued with tech-support calls from Baby Boomer parents. Or people who’ve tried to help their grandparents use a computer. Or, really, a lot of people who need to participate in the online world (email, web surfing), but are non-technical and hate computers.

I have yet to see a good argument for why people who are bad with technology must be forced to grapple with it. I know a guy who has zero interest in computers, and finds dealing with his a daily hassle. All he needs to do is send emails, use the internet, and perform basic text editing. The iPad couldn’t be more perfect for his uses.

I think it’s really weird to label the iPhone’s usefulness as somehow invented out of thin air by marketers. That comment simply paints you as a hater, whose either never used one, or never met anyone who uses theirs to do real things they need to do.

I have used my iPhone to edit website documents in a terminal session. I’ve used it to restart web servers. I’ve taken it on vacation overseas where it replaced a bunch of awkward printed maps and heavy guidebooks. I’ve used it on airplanes as entertainment instead of carrying a DVD player or several books. I’ve used it in a pinch when I don’t have my camera with me. The list goes on and on.

Err, no. A Xeon in a laptop would make as much sense as a lit match in a gas tank. You’ll have a core 2 duo and like it buddy boy.

What do you care if I buy an iPad, unless you secretly feel inferior if you don’t own one?

Granted, you may have cause to be concerned about the vendor lock-in. But you know what? That truly will be decided by the market. If people care enough, it won’t happen. Apple is now bigger than Wal*mart, and is encroaching on Microsoft-size territory. If they start losing sales because of DRM, you can bet that they will reverse direction faster than you can say “lock-in.”

We get enough of that in modern politics with people trying to pull us to the far left or far right despite the fact that most wouldn’t mind being in the middle. I’m starting to wonder if it’s just symptomatic of the times and nothing to do with politics.

Exactly. It’s not just “Why should I want an iPad?”, but “Why should I want this sort of device?”.

Let’s be honest – the iPhone was a game-changer. When they hit the stands, I looked at them and thought: ‘I want one’. Then I looked at the cost and decided I didn’t want one that badly. And when other companies started producing similar devices, I realized that I didn’t, in fact, want an iPhone. I just wanted something of its sort. More importantly, I wanted it for a rational price.

But when the iPad came along, I looked at it and thought: ‘Meh’. And I LIKE gadgets. I REALLY like gadgets. But I just don’t see what an iPad (or any iPad-like device) has to offer that I would actually care to have.

It IS shiny, though.

“I’m of the opinion that anyone who tells anyone else what they should or shouldn’t do, buy or think is secretly ( or unconsciously) insecure about what they themselves do, buy or think.”

That must be a very handy heuristic for dismissing any opinion you do not already hold. However, you might find some downsides to relying on it.

How exactly does a philosophical rant by a person who has never used the product in question constitute a “review”?

I daresay Cory’s fans (myself included) would be put off by a “review” of one of his books by a critic who had never read it and didn’t want anyone else to either.

Not a ‘product’, but relevant:

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/