Martin, in doing these comparisons almost spec for spec, I can certainly tell these people with said familiarity with the parts that them apples are expensive, not overpriced.

To be fair, the Mac pro and higher end laptops really do need to be updated as they are gathering dust, but apple I guess decided to take a safe shit and develop a crap tablet instead.

Just let me know when someone releases an omni-tool. Until then I’m sticking with my laptop.

It does seem a bit odd to call it a “pad” or “tablet” when you can’t write on it, huh? Good point, and one that I’m surprised they didn’t do. It would have been easy enough, I would think… except that it would require a stylus.

I feel the same way about a book reader as well. I prefer just reading real books myself, but if I were to get a device for holding and reading books, I’d want something with a long battery life and screen that is easy on the eyes. The iPad provides neither of these, and locks down your books with iTunes DRM to boot.

As for Woz, I read somewhere that he was really enjoying a new Android phone (the Nexus) recently. A sign of the times, perhaps? Food for thought, at least.

I also think that many people who already own Apple laptops and iPods / iPhones won’t be interested in the iPad simply because they can already do just about everything the iPad does without having to buy another device.

1. No Camera

2. Overpriced by $260.00 U.S.D

3. Completely useless

4. Completely pointless.

5. Form follows arrogance rather than function.

6. Apple is reviving an old habit the industry calls “proprietary greed”.

7. Terrible design

8. Unproven CPU with no history of credibility

9. iPhone OS only

10. No built in Stand.

11. No industry Standard I/O

12. 16 GB HD? WTF?

13. Lack of common features sold as Accessories

14. No stylish rubber grips to prevent dropping.

It has many short comings. But a camera would have made up for many of them. No camera is 100% unacceptable. An ebook reader has always been totally useless. Just as netbooks are totally useless. A netbook and an ebook reader are nothing more than extra, proprietary gadgets that serves a 1% market share. ebooks are proprietary only because of a proprietary market provider. A good example is that crappy Amazon Ebook reader called the kindle. (Name is worse than iPad) The Kindle is proprietary due to its content providers. Just as gaming consoles are completely useless and proprietary. Apple had a good opportunity to make a product (That no one really wanted to begin with) that would make books available to all for free while leveraging apps and ads to make writers and developers happy. Instead, they played right into the hands of a greedy, proprietary market simply because Apple (Mainly Steve) wants to capitalize on apps and ebooks with ads through lock-in. This model is good for music but not good for books. I guarantee you that soon, all ebooks will come with ads inside them just as magazines and TV do. You will be given the option to buy a cheap ebook with ads or a pricey ebook ad-free. Guess who takes a huge cut off the top?

Apple is going to make a killing if this iPoop product really becomes successful. Until then, I would rather stick with my iphone that has twice the features at a fraction of the cost. If I am going to spend $650 dollars for a laptop/iphone/iPod touch hybrid, I would much rather just buy a laptop. Since I have a laptop, I would rather buy an iPhone. Since I have an iPhone, I would rather buy an iPod. Since I have an iPod, I would rather just tell Apple to stick this thing up their ass. If I didn’t have an iPhone, Laptop or iPod, I would buy this thing. Oh wait, it doesn’t have a camera and only has 16Gb. So once again, Apple can stick this over-priced Maxi-pad up their asses. I tossed my iPod touch for the iPhone. Just as I tossed my old laptops for newer ones that offered me reasons to upgrade. This is the way things are supposed to be. But the Maxi-Pad doesn’t make me want to upgrade at all. It seems like an extra anchor. Knowing that it is an extra anchor, Apple decided to make it anyway and extra heavy to boot. Their goal should have been to put the Macbook Air to rest with the iPad. The Macbook Air has sucked from day one. If this would have been the replacement to the Air, that would have been smart. All they had to do is remove the bottom assembly. By removing the the entire lower assembly, Apple could have radically cut down of cost.

So that brings me to the pure myth that feature additions would have driven the price higher. Bullshit! With features such as a Camera, built in Aluminum kick stand and other “essential features” this glorified iphone lacks, Apple could have easily kept the entry price at around $350 U.S. Like I said, knock the lower assembly off of the Macbook Air, and run the iphone OS on it and there you have it. How much is the Macbook Air? $1,499. What’s included in the lower Assembly? Everything except the screen.

1. The Keyboard and all related parts are gone. (Gone in the iPad)

2. The optical drive (Gone in the iPad)

3. All I/O (Gone in the iPad)

4. CPU (Gone in the iPad)

What’s that leave? An iPad without touch features. So now we are getting to the truth by sifting through the lies. If the iPhone, which is now nothing more than a small iPad with better features, can find a price point of $199 U.S.D for its best model, why not the iPad for an additional $100.00 for the extra screen size? Apple now has a hard time convincing me that a larger version of the iPhone screen would/should cost so much more with or without the additional features. Yes… With or without.

I personally don’t believe Mac’s are overpriced in general. However, the Macbook Air, iPhone 1.0 and now the iPad are, despite any stretch of the imagination, far, far over-priced. This is coming from a Machead that would rather die a slow and painful death rather than use a Microsoft product.

Apple can throw together a ridiculous video featuring top Apple brass speaking to us consumers about the iPad in such a manner that you would think they engineered a Golden Goose that shits 24k eggs 4 times per second. They look with wide eyed wonder, use hand gestures and of course, Jonathan Ive and his ridiculous, unruly style of illustration and communication. You wonder if they all dropped acid before they went on Camera. They call the Maxi-Pad “Magic”. Magic? What fucking magic? Black Magic yeah. Or even Voodoo Magic. Possibly bad magic. But not Merlin the Wizard “cool magic”. No… Not that kind of magic. The childish, ass hat kind of magic. Kind of like Lucky the Leprechaun type magic.

If this thing is being sold for so much with 0 features, Apple could have had the class to run a modified version of iPhone OS that allowed true multi-tasking.

So why does iPad suck so good? Because of Cannibalism. Apple doesn’t want to cut into their laptop market or their iphone market. So they just took a safe shit and called it the iPad. In the end, it is a product conceived of fear and squeezed out calmly for the ignorant shit eaters of the tech consuming world.

The most baffling thing missing from this tablet is that you can’t write on it. That is the main reason I would want a tablet, so I can write my notes, draw diagrams, and have a digital copy. For the last nearly 20 years I’ve carried a clipboard almost everywhere I go. I’m always taking notes. A tablet computer is something that is a no-brainer for me, yet I find nothing compelling here. If I’m going to get a tablet, it better be made to take abuse. That’s not what I see here. It’s made of glass for crying out loud and it doesn’t even lay flat! It’s built to break. It’s also a disaster when it comes to it’s environmental limits. According to the specs I couldn’t even use it here in Florida half the year. Something like a simple Livescribe Smartpen completely owns this giant iPod.

The other main reason I’d get a tablet is as an eReader. I’d love to be able to carry a large number of books in a convenient form factor. The display on this thing is extremely disappointing. Power hungry, very low resolution, back lit LCD is just silly for an eReader.

As a multimedia device the screen is equally baffling, especially for a company that pioneered high res widescreen monitors. On the other hand, the original Mac line had a 1:1 aspect ratio, so they haven’t come full circle quite yet.

Something else that blows my mind is the lack of cameras. This could be the ultimate augmented reality system. Give it a clamp and a swing-arm and spatial positioning and there is no shortage of techs and mechanics that would kill for this thing. Toss in a barcode reader and RFID reader and you could have a brilliant purchasing guide or inventory management system. I thought these guys were forward thinkers? Entire industries could be clamoring for this thing if they just tossed in $30 worth of parts.

Apple has just been stupid for the last 20 years. Aside the iPod, and maybe the editing software they snatch up, they haven’t done much to win many fans. The way they’ve closed their systems in the last few years is an insult. My first Apple came with circuit diagrams and complete source code. Now they won’t even allow non-Apple interpreters to run on their system. Woz must be shitting himself.