Everybody, it seems, has a damned opinion about this iPad. And since everyone is so happy to tell the internet what that opinion is, it’s very easy to fit them all into neat little categories.
The Fanboy
This guy will buy anything Apple releases, no matter what, so of course he pre-ordered an iPad as soon as possible. He feels like his entire life has been leading up to buying this product, because it’s the most revolutionary thing to ever have been designed by a human being rather than the great creator himself. It changes everything, people! You’ll see, you’ll all see!
The Media Dinosaur
This guy has been working in journalism since the Great Depression, and is relying on the iPad to make his business viable again. He doesn’t trust Apple one bit, but sees no other options. And hell, even if it doesn’t save newspapers, it might keep ‘em alive long enough for him to die before they become completely obsolete.
The Mum
The iPad is just so cute and shiny! She saw it on the Today show and it seems like just a fun thing to use to check her email and keep tabs on the kids. She’ll have her son order her one, as he’s the tech-savvy one in the family.
The Open-Source Fanatic
This guy can not get over his indignation that Apple only allows apps through its own App Store and that he doesn’t have access to tinkering under the hood. Everyone who buys an iPad is doing the equivalent of drowning a Linux programmer in a bathtub. INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE, YOU SELFISH BASTARDS!
The PC Nerd
This guy likes the idea of a tablet, but have you seen the specs on this thing? That processor would’ve been fast in 2008, maybe! And come on, how about throwing some more RAM in there? Talk about unjustified hype! Have you guys ever heard of these little things called netbooks? They’re like half the price for the same specs! This is just another PC form factor, people!
The Reluctant Pragmatist
He knows he doesn’t really need it. And he’s not sure he wants to support Apple’s increasingly skeezy behaviour. But making a stand on principled reasons seems dumb when he just wants to surf the web on that thing while pooping. I mean, come on. It’s a gadget, why take it so damned seriously?
Mum photo via Flickr user American Virus, used under CC licence. All other images used for purely illustrative purposes and are in no way intended to represent direct opinions or quotes, so don’t get mad, Lance Ulanoff. Also, Andy Rooney pic used instead of David Carr out of respect for David Carr.
Kevin Hingston
Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 5:04 PMOh man, make a facebook quiz of this. Instant hit.
Reluctant pragmatist, out.
matt
Monday, April 5, 2010 at 11:04 PMI not a fan of open source, and I hate the closed nature of the iPad.
Open source Nuts are arrogant lazy people with big self esteem issues and thus think they could never be financially successful from their coding, but, because they are soo awesome, think nobody else should try to make money off of it either. they for some reason think that all information and ideas should be free and open, they fail to grasp that just because an “idea” is not some physical object, that someone doesn’t deserve to be paid for the many hours they spent coming up with it. Time is money.
now, I can tell you that you don’t have to be one of those people to think that the closed nature of the app store is shit.
you have Apple trying to make Jailbreaking illegal. who does that hurt??? and then them rejecting apps because they “duplicate functionality that we plan to implement in the future sometime… maybe…”
I don’t think that I am in any way eccentric to think that this is bad. I support the “app store”, I think its a great step forward in accessibility, but I’m against it being the ONLY way, for seemingly no good reason. I suppose there’s android. here’s hoping they win.
(also, I know that the majority of open source projects are done by good people for good reasons, for instance it is the primary tool in education and professional development for many developers. please don’t think I hate open source. I just saw the movie “Antitrust” recently and it made me sick, I was seriously rooting for the “Bad” guy, even after he inexplicably became someone who even a bond villain would look up to.)