"something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka."
Uh... Google
Cory, good points. I won't be buying one, but I am looking forward to playing a bit with the 1st one I can.
It's another toy.

That about sums up why I won't be getting one either. I *like* being able to fix / upgrade / screw around with my PC and what I run on it, even in my very amateurish way. BUT practically everyone else I know is already in love with the iPad before it even reaches the UK. To be honest, I think they're looking at the iPad more like you would a TV. Overall they just want to sit back and enjoy what it does; not least because most of the chatter is about how great the apps are, not the performance specs. Not that it will be a problem for Apple - after all that approach has worked brilliantly for the iPhone.

Meh. I still want one.

And the thing is I don't think it's either/or here: I think there are lots of ways in which DIY/Make culture can co-exist with things like the iPad. I also think that there's a pretty good chance that the iPad (or something like it-- we're just beginning this) will make for a different kind of publishing model that both extends the definition of "the book" (Xeni's examples of the elements book are compelling) and "publisher/distributor" via the iTunes store. True, Apple is making a killing off of that, but the individual app developers are doing well too. So it seems to me that maybe someone who wants to self-publish an ePub of some sort might find a market via the iTunes store or other resources the same way that podcasters and indie bands have been able to market/present themselves that way.

Gah! I was almost asleep.

You are a marvelous writer Cory and this one felt right at so many levels and just what I was feeling but unable to flesh out.. BTW the concept of iPad is good and I hope that someone makes the changes your article inspires

You can use the iPad without using the App Store, and you can make apps for it that completely bypass it.

How can you do such an amazing thing? They're called websites.

Say what you will about the App Store, but Apple has put tons of work into making Safari do amazing things, and on the iPhone and now iPad, that make it possible to make "web apps" that install locally, don't require an internet connection, and look and feel like native apps. Oh yeah, and a lot of that effort benefits mobile browsers on other platforms too, since they're just about all based on WebKit.

If everyone who hated the App Store spent a little more time making awesome web apps and less time whining, we wouldn't be stuck going to the Cupertino Politburo to find cool things to do with our devices.

Tablets aren't new. They've been around for a good while, and are only now catching on due to Apple releasing one.

Respect to Apple if they can sell a product that no one has ever managed to sell well before, and respect to them if they can make it work well.

Having said that, if you want a tablet, get an Archos.

My biggest gripe is the lack of compatibility with flash.

I run a small website for an MMO community, and have flash all over the place. I even have trouble getting that to work sometimes, and can't imagine what's going to be involved in converting to html5. Basically, it's not going to happen. I wonder how many other small sites will care to adapt.

Still, I preordered my iPad and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival. Can't wait to sneak in a Netflix movie at work! (Mhaura)haha!

(Does anyone hear that rumbling in the distance? Sounds like the pitter-patter of fanboys and haters preparing for battle...)

*hides*

Nicely written and I can agree that if I am spending my hard-earned money on something I want to really and truly own it.

I also like the breadth of opinion I get here at BB. Not only can I read why the Ipad sucks, but why it is genius! Contrasting opinions expressed intelligently and without rancor. Geez, but I hope that catches on :)

I have to completely disagree; I think it's a good gadget for exactly the reasons pointed out that it's a bad one, frankly. Yes, I completely understand why Apple's walled-garden app store and the lack of a visible file structure give Linux/EFF/DRM-phobes the hives, and if there was ever an anti-Cory device, the iPad is it. But I see how my "timid, technophobic, scatterbrained mother" (literally) uses her iPod -- as a handheld-size casual computer, and that's what the iPad is... the first completely casual computer. No files. No windows. No clicking. Just apps. And, like it or not, that fills a fascinating little gap that nobody's really thought about before.

Mr. Doctorow, I agree that open platforms are preferable to closed ones, all else being equal. But does that really mean that closed platforms (like the iPad) can never produce anything of value? The iPad is appealing to me because it does a very limited set of things very, very well (or at least claims to, and I consider those claims to be credible). In that sense, it's a bit like a videogame console - another dedicated computer that it pretty much entirely closed to the consumer, that average users can't easily program for. Is console gaming harmful in the same way that you contend the iPad is?

If I buy an iPad, I'll still have my desktop. I can still program for that desktop, if I choose to. I can still build websites, including ones accessible on my iPad, for free. I don't lose freedom if I buy an iPad - I just lose a few hundred bucks. Assuming I can afford the cost, what's wrong with that?

All of the criticism aside. The most disappointing aspect of the iPad to me is that it is not intel based.

That means no Bootcamp, no tablet PC software, no linux, no ability to run the plethora of tablet orientated software on the market. I am just left to pick and choose with the app store.

I am a sailor, thus I am always searching the market for devices that make my job easier. Initally when I heard of the iPad I was instantly aroused by the idea of being able to carry around a touchscreen device capabale of running my favorite Plotting software. The idea of having an sleak and robust device in the cockpit that interfaces with my instruments was very exciting.

What a let down to hear that it is basically an over-sized iPhone using an unheard of proprietary chipset. What a shame.

Absinthe - so if flash-less devices become more popular your website will need to either adapt or die. Somebody will fill the niche that you don't want to.

The entire idea of apps just disgusts me. You buy a device, and to fully realize the potential of that device, you have to buy apps that you haven't even gotten to use yet. You have to buy special dongles to do things like expand the memory or connect your camera. You have to buy a special dock and keyboard to use the thing for doing actual work.

Do I think the ipad is brilliant? Yup. It's a wonderfully constructed piece of machinery. But it's not for me.

Well put. Thanks. And thank you for the Danny O'Brien article as well.

I have to agree that buying an iPad may not be the best choice. I, though, feel this way about most e-readers, because one of my favorite things to do with books is share them. Reading, enjoying, and then passing onto friends is what makes a book so different from anything else. Until e-books can be shared the same way, I'm out of this market.

All of the points made here are also why no-one should buy an xbox or ps3 or nintendo ds or wii or psp, right? Seriously, why rail against the iPad specifically?

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Seriously, you've really crystallized my thoughts on the iPad in an infinitely more eloquent way than I ever could have. Well done (as usual).

Exactly. The iPad is another piece of clever corporate crack, another something for the rest of them. I wish Vonnegut were still around.

Gah! Yes! Ever since reading Farhad Manjoo's many calls for a computer that acted like an appliance, I've been trying to get out what Cory just so well stated. Bravo!

I feel like the iPad succeeds in little else but removing the drive for individual creation or expression through creation. I'm holding out for the hypothetical Microsoft Courier. The idea of a digital paper pad is appealing to me in a way I didn't think possible.

Eric, you don't need to buy a special dock and keyboard. Any Bluetooth keyboard will work.

I'm not really a gadget guy (despite the fact that I read BB), don't really care about the iPad, and as a result don't really have a dog in this fight. Be that as it may:

I was a comic-book kid, and I'm a comic-book grownup, and the thing that made comics for me was sharing them. If there was ever a medium that relied on kids swapping their purchases around to build an audience, it was comics....So what does Marvel do to "enhance" its comics? They take away the right to give, sell or loan your comics. What an improvement. Way to take the joyous, marvelous sharing and bonding experience of comic reading and turn it into a passive, lonely undertaking that isolates, rather than unites

I think this is a really good point, and everyone--gadget guys or not--should really consider this. The empirical data is pretty much in, and just about everyone who has examined the issue has found that the sense of happiness and meaning we find in life has a lot to do with the connection we fell to life (specifically,the connection we feel to our fellow Home sapiens). I think we need to keep this in mind when we think about technology.

And this is a very, very complex issue. Some technologies that seem, on the surface, to unite us (and some "social media" things come to mind) are assumed to unite, and some do, but you have to consider just what kind of connection they create, what the human implications are, and what kind of connections are sacrificed.

But all too often the subtlety and nuance of the issues are kind of glossed over in our hurried manner of evaluating things new.

Technology is altering our lives--there is no denying this--and in some ways it seems pretty obvious that it is for the better. But what we shouldn't do is just assume that it's always for the better; we should enter into the discussion in a very lucid and clear way. Cory's example above is very illustrative. The naive analysis is "more access, more often, to greater quantities" is better, but this misses some very real, very human considerations.

It's not just the iPad. I hope you extend this line of logic to everything digital, Cory.
No smartphone that requires the use of the carrier's channel to buy and install apps. No digital downloads of any media that is governed by an EULA, especially one that cuts off a lending or reselling channel. The used CD market is going to suffer just as much as the used comic book market for instance.

I like the Maker manifesto - I became and engineer solely because I liked taking things apart to find out how they worked. I love to tinker and create stuff. But I'm enough of a realist to know that there will always be _two_ markets. One that's relaxed, open, home-brewed, and one that's slick and corporate. I don't see how the open proponents can reconcile the corporate world with their ideals. Maybe they don't want to, but it's pretty hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

As long as there's always an outlet for the alternative route, I don't see the problem. I can own an iPad and still build my own stuff with an Arduino.

If you want to make software and content for the iPad, you should really make it for the web instead; this is the most important thing the iPad is, a great physical form factor for a web browser.

I bought a new laptop last fall. I love the Dell. It has a 9 hour(+!) battery. The screen is very crisp. The keyboard is comfortable. All this with a huge disk drive for something like $700 total.

But, I was one of those people who thought Windows 7 was going to solve some problems I'd been having with XP. Instead, It's been a nightmere. After seven months, I still haven't been able to upgrade all of my old programs to work under Windows 7, even though I even upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. That only "bought" me one of my old programs, and the ability to run remote access should I ever need it.

I really regret not buying an Mac laptop.

In a few years, when I buy a new laptop, I think I'd like something a little more tablet-like, but I still want a keyboard. I've found the electronic book readers like the Kindle to be just too small to read comfortably, so I will always need a bigger screen. I guess I'll never be able to migrate from a laptop to something smaller.

"So what does Marvel do to 'enhance' its comics? They take away the right to give, sell or loan your comics. What an improvement."

I'm sorry, Cory, but how has Marvel taken anything away? It's not like they've stopped selling printed comics - this is just another way to read them. If you still want to read and trade your floppies, you're completely free to do so. If that doesn't matter to you and you don't want the clutter (or the dead trees), then hey, this is another way to access the content.

I'm still skeptical about the iPad, but let's try to maintain some perspective here.

I agree with some of your points, Cory, but I think they're stretched a little far to one extreme.

Yeah, Apple used to include schematics with their olde systems, but did you honestly see the day when YOU would crack open your iPad to fix it? You also used to be able to fit a wrench into the engine compartment of a car -- not so much anymore. Technologies mature, they move on, they shrink, they accrete, and they eventually move away from Joe-sixpack and his screwdriver. A blender is one thing to fix; a cutting-edge tech device is another. I'm a hacker at heart, but even I have reasonable expectations.

I'm not usually one to comment, but the echos of Rob Malda are too strong not to. iPad may not be for the Free Software crowd, I'll grant that. Some people just want to tinker, and I'm fine with that.

My great hope is the iPad turns into something like the iPhone phenom. I love my iPhone, but I recognize that Android is a good-(ish) platform and Windows Phone 7 has a lot of potential. It's my sincere hope that Apple manages to kick people out of their 'PC' mentality and develop competition to this device.

So... don't so much pooh-pooh the iPad, tell us how you'll do things better, or, better yet... SHOW US. MAKE something better. The world will be a better place for it.

I agree with your statement - that's my point.

I blame Apple for killing my site before I was ready to put effort into fixing it. :p

Unfortunately, I rely a lot on the expertise of others for my site. I'll have to wait and see what fixes all of you experts come up with!

(b'.')b

"The entire idea of apps just disgusts me. You buy a device, and to fully realize the potential of that device, you have to buy apps that you haven't even gotten to use yet."

You mean like...every modern computing device?

"No files. No windows. No clicking. Just apps."

Um... it's called "easy peasy", a Ubuntu remix for eee PCs. Someone else has done that before.

I love reading all the hater posts -- exclusively, by people who have zero direct knowledge of the product beyond what they read in someone else's post -- who pooh pooh said product and promise its imminent demise. Like Commander Taco's infamous slam on the iPod, these naysays are doomed to be dredged up repeatedly as proof of the speaker's idiocy.

OK, full disclosure, I'm a total Apple fanman. However, I'm not super interested in the iPad and probably won't buy one.

But dude, before you slam something, play around with it. What kind of geek forms an opinion based on supposition? What kind of hacker decides something is unhackable without at least trying? At the very least, the iPad sports an elegant form factor with a decent processor under the hood.

Phone designed for consumers: iPod = brilliant success
Open source phone designed for hackers: OpenMoko FreeRunner = abject failure

Only a fool creates products for the latter group.
Only a hacker with weak 'fu lets that defeat him.

Disappointing post.

We're taught that electronics is a black art and that the devices we buy aren't fit for user servicing - a lot of the time this plainly isn't true.

How about just being able to change the battery? Why do users have to send their device away for 'servicing'?

A lot of the manufacturer's arguments are disingenuous. The real reason is almost always profit.

It seems that you are not familiar with the capabilities of web applications on the iPhone OS platform.

"it depends on ongoing and continuous network access making it inconvenient and battery-hungry" - nope, webapps can be installed locally. take a look at Pie Guy: http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/257187093/pie-guy

"it is disconnected from the native purchase mechanisms (and you can't make an alternative native-code purchase system without Apple's approval.)" - if you want to participate in the native system, there are rules. if you don't like the rules, there's the web. and there's no reason you can't limit access to your webapp to folks who have paid you, it seems to be working for these guys: http://www.hottrixdownload.com/secure/index.php

There are things about the App Store that suck, no doubt about it, but its not the only game in town, and its not the only thing the device can do.

I am a fan of BoingBoing, and even more importantly, a fan of Cory Doctorow. I save the episodes of This Week in Tech that he appears on because I find his perspective laden with truth and a heavy dose of reality. I not only appreciate where Cory is coming from, but all of the research and experience he has in regards to intellectual property, DRM, and personal rights/space.

All of that said, I find it disingenuous to read a glowing review of the iPad on BoingBoing (written by the fabulous Xeni Jardin) - it was in fact, one of the first reviews that I read - to be followed hours later with Cory's glowering disapproval of the device. It seems like a house divided...

Now, I will agree that Apple is also disingenuous - that DRM will appear in the iBookstore after it was vilified by Steve Jobs (when it was convenient to lash out at Amazon and their DRM-free music offerings) is hypocritical at best. And I would also agree that one of the best benefits of print media is the ability to share it - I've done that with comics and books my entire reading life. I would add though that if I were to travel back in time to my comic book prime in the mid-late 80's and had a chance to talk to execs at Marvel and DC, they would *strongly* encourage me to have my friends by those books I was all to eager to share. Publishing houses were never happy to lose revenue based on the concept of sharing. I'm not saying this in their defense; I only raise this point because we make it seem as though DRM (in any form) is a "new" concept. Had the technology existed 20 years ago, it would have been imposed then. What then would have been our reaction to this in a pre-internet pre-proliferation of information age? Whatever you call DRM - self-preservation, a scab crossing the picket lines of content, evil, the last hope for content creators; I don't care - it's not made with the END USER in mind. And it's getting harder to avoid. The slouch towards piracy is directly correlated to this inability of the modern user to have content the way he or she wants it. The cable companies are still enforcing their version of DRM by never intending to move towards an "a la carte" structure of channel selection. And so, I (and many others) have gone elsewhere for content. And it's the same for books, music, comic books, etc. I fully intend on reading all of Cory's novels on my iPad (in their PDF'ed DRM-free versions). There may come a day when the media consuming hordes will rise up and push content providers and distributors to remove the restraints and abandon the ideology that when we purchase their "stuff" we're not purchasing a license to view/read/listen to their product. We become partakers in media the moment that we click buy-it-now.

I am an IT professional by trade. While I appreciate the frontier spirit that Cory mentions regarding the Apple ][ and it's ability to be hacked, the iPad isn't in the same class of device. Many of the devices that I use on a daily basis fall into the same category: I don't hack my microwave, or my calculator, or my watch. I know that comparison is weak, but I do believe that the iPad is a game-changing device for all of computing. Whether it's the first generation of a brand new way to interface with technology or it's destined to become the best way to integrate media into our lives - well, we're not far enough down the road to see what the future brings.

One of the greatest uses of the iPad will be for the modern student. I never quite understood why Amazon didn't relentlessly pursue textbook publishers to IMMEDIATELY put their content on the Kindle platform. It might have saved that device. As it stands now, I think that the Kindle will be the "e-waste" of tomorrow that Cory speaks of - it's a bad iteration of an ugly one-use device. I can see my oldest son (who is 8 years old) using a gen 1 iPad for schoolwork. It will be the textbook medium of the future.

I have always and will continue to appreciate Cory's dedication to the end-user. I just disagree with his take on the iPad.

"The entire idea of apps just disgusts me. You buy a device, and to fully realize the potential of that device, you have to buy apps that you haven't even gotten to use yet."

Huh? Did you ever use a PC out of the box without buying software? Your argument holds no water.

I think Cory's argument ignores the fact that there are multiple levels of "tinkering" and "making."

For some people, these activities involve intimate messing with computer hardware. For people like myself more interested in making top-level software or website content, I want the hardware to be invisible. Opening and tinkering with an iPad or an iPhone, for me, would be a complete waste of time, time that I could be spending writing, coding, or drawing.

I think the assumption on Cory's part that all making and tinkering needs to be involved on the hardware level comes off as a little haughty.

I don't think you understand the power of HTML5. With HTML5 you can make a Javascript-based application with near native look and feel that actually installs onto your computer (or iPhone/iPad) -- with no need for network connectivity after installation, and no need for the Apple Store. A bit hard to see how one could charge for an app delivered in such a manner, but for open source stuff it seems ideal (and not just on Apple hardware, either; an advantage of HTML5 is that it's cross platform)

The problem with the iPad isn't that you can't code and compile whatever you like to run on it. You can.

The problem is that Apple charges you $99 a year to do it.

If you pay for an ADC membership, you can experiment to your heart's content, compile whatever the heck SDK guideline-smashing binary you want, and even share the source code with other hackers (who have ADC memberships) to compile for their devices.

What Apple really should do is to change their policy so that you only need the $99/yr ADC program to sell through the App Store. Compiling for your device should be free.

You make some interesting points, but the parenthetical in your headline ("[I] think you shouldn't, either") really bothers me. It's fine that you don't like the iPad and what it stand for, and I don't disagree with some of your arguments, but why should everyone have to feel the same way? You're implying that there's no room in the market for both open devices/standards and the iPad, but I don't see the evidence for that. If the iPad is truly the second coming of the CD-ROM or AOL and won't be able to compete with the little guys, won't the problem work itself out? Why tell people not to buy it and turn this into a philosophical battle?

One more point -- freedom and choices can be great, but unlimited choice isn't always a good thing. The reality is that most people don't want to tinker with there electronic devices and don't want to spend hours and hours customizing their products or figuring out how to use it. Simplicity and ease of use often trumps choice and flexibility.

"Incumbents made bad revolutionaries."

You lose me right off the bat. You're going to claim than that Apple has been a "bad revolutionary?" I would argue that they've been phenomenal revolutionaries in hardware. I'm actually hard pressed to come up with someone who's been successful and more revolutionary in the realm of technology people interact with: iPods? iPhones? AIW PCs? Laptops? Sure, in every case, Apple was a tangential participant, then became a dominant competitor with a walled garden, proprietary strategy.

Would I rather tinker with my iPhone/iPad? Sure. And for $99 I can without much headache. Can I make stuff that's consumable by the world without apple's say so? No, and I do see that as an issue. I also do think that control has done some good along with the bad. It's not an unmitigated terrible thing to have a controlled app store, and it's enabled a generation of small publishers who were floundering in the "shareware" model, unable to control their IP or effectively make a living off their stuff.

On the publishing side, as someone who makes a decent portion of my living writing for Magazines, I do believe that the iPad is a great experiment. What Wired, NYT and the WSJ are at least attempting to do is a path towards a future where people pay for the content they most appreciate.

I don't think it saves publishing all by itself. But I think we'll look back in a decade and point to this little experiment as a harbinger, just like we look back to the Gen1 iPod and the iTunes music store as a harbinger of how the music business would go.

I say all this never having touched the darned thing. My point is simply "closed=bad, always and without exception" seems a thin argument.

I think politics are important. You don't need to use a device to disagree with restrictions that Apple put in place.

This made me laugh:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.media

We can demonize the consumer all we want by painting him or her as an ugly, sweaty eyeball filled with impotent rage - but the simple fact of the matter is that we are all consumers of some sort and, moreover, I warrant the vast majority of us are far more consumeristic than creationistic in nearly every facet of our lives.

We watch TV - be it ABC or Hulu or Netflix or whatever. Not many of us create TV.

Same with movies.

We listen to music but how many of us compose? How many even play an instrument?

We read - but we don't write. Without wanting to rankle, even you did not actually create the comics you passed on - you simply were an intermediary. A librarian, if you will.

We browse the web and largely, we don't create the web. (Flaming ranty posts notwithstanding...)

If you are a grognard deep down in your soul, then yeah the iPad is probably a poor choice as a primary computing platform.

But I think that most folks are consumers. Honestly, I think that most that even name themselves as creators are, in their more honest moments, consumers who aspire to more. It's not that I will ever actually write a novel - it's that I need to beleive I *could* if I wanted to.

And the silly part is, I actually am not hindered in that in any way by this device. If I want to build something, I can. Noone is forced to trade in their PC for the iPad. And as this ubiquitous computing model gains traction - new methods to use it creatively will emerge. Let's not fool ourselves, the first PCs were not great build devices either. Rather, they were devices you built. Literally. We might get high-fallutin' about 'building our own PCs' today as opposed to purchasing them - but we're not doing much more than assembling them. They are the Sauder furniture of electronics. I might be able to snap together a kit for a bookshelf. I don't fool myself into thinking I'm, therefore, a carpenter.

Look, I see your point - I do! In fact, I don't own anything by Apple except an iPod (which I won at work years ago). I don't have a smartphone of any kind - let alone an iPhone so I am not shilling here for a Jobsian future.

Wanting to be creative and constructive and instrumental in "futureneering" does not preclude the purchase of an iPad.

Your best point (and, really as far as I can see, your only valid point) centers around the ownership of the stuff we buy. Who owns the movie? Who owns the comic? How does (or rather; Should) DRM factor into this. These are not problems that will go away by boycotting the iPad as the eTab or the nGizmo is sure to be hot on it's heals. Producers of content are looking to maximize control over their content in a worlkd where loaning a comic book to a buddy no longer affects two or three sales, but can potentially be 'borrowed' by thousands.

They have a legitimate concern. You have a valid point about ownership. The real war is not with Apple but with the tension between these two points of view.

Safari is reason enough for me. I can't think of a better way to get at all the amazing free content out there. In bed that is.

"Sorry, you're saying that, in a review of the iPad, I shouldn't comment on the constraints in iPad apps if you could buy the same content somewhere else without those constraints?"

Not at all. I'm just saying that your comments aren't entirely accurate, and that you're accusing a company ("Misney," in the grand Obamacare tradition of mockery by abbreviation) of something it plainly hasn't done. None of your rights as a consumer has been taken away.

Also, are you really comfortable calling this a review? Have you actually even held the device in your hands yet?

I won't be buying one, for the same reasons I have become disenchanted by my iPhone. The UI has some fundamental flaws, that are fixed when I Jailbreak my phone (a process which Apple thinks should be illegal).

If I am in an app, or on a contact page, and I realize that my brightness is too low ( I frequently lower my brightness to save power), the process is ridiculous.

Exit the app you are in by hitting the home button.
Find the settings app.
Find the brightness adjustment, and adjust it.
Exit settings.
Find the app or page you were in all over again.

By Jailbreaking, I have the ability to stay in the app I am in and just do the following.
Swipe my finger across the top of the screen bringing up a menu with the ability to toggle wi-fi, adjust brightness, toggle 3G etc.
Adjust it, close that little menu, and you are still in the app you were in.

If you have 50 games downloaded, why can't you put them in a folder, so you don't have 500 icons to swipe through on the screen? Jailbreaking will let you do that.
If I am not looking for a game to play, why should I need to see all of those apps? I have 90 apps on my iPhone, and by using "categories" a folder program, I have everything on 2 pages.
If you want to check your email while listening to Pandora, you can't unless you Jailbreak your phone.

It's an easy tool for consumers to get content. But best of all it helps lower the bar for the artist who create content. Few will create their art on the pad, but many will create with the pad audience in mind. Take a close look even with Apples crap stores and rules talented people can get their products into a large market place and get paid for it.

Cory you have grown and matured over the years to the point you are one of the incumbents, you should know and remember it's not about the viewing gadget but the continent viewed.

One the one hand, this is one of the best-written pieces I've seen from Cory, and I also happen to agree with the sentiment. On the other hand, I just have to laugh at the seriousness at which Cory approaches this Important Question of Our Time: to iPad, or not to iPad? Surely this must be the subject of intense debate! The future depends on our answer!

Or, you could just look at it and go, "Eh, I don't think I need one of those."

I think it's also important to not just focus on this ONE product, or Apple's unrelenting trend towards "hands-off" products, but to the changes it could effect across the board. Imagining a future where more and more "consumer" electronics are nickel and dime transaction appliances that can only do what the manufacturer deems acceptable is dire at best.

What of OpenOffice if PCs only allowed M$ Office? How many more times do we have to learn that always needing an internet connection to use a piece of software is a bad idea (especially in a country falling behind in the broadband game?) In many ways, a pad without the ability to morph and change and become the device you need is really just a fancy newspaper.

Can we wait to have this argument until after the product's been on the market for a month or two, and people have actually used it?

Anything until then is pure speculation. I only ever-so-rarely use my laptop, and am seriously considering an iPad as a replacement for it. I'm not sure it'll "change computing as we know it," though it looks like it might be a fun little internet appliance.

Wrong. Wrong. An HTML5 app works perfectly fine in airplane mode. That's the whole freaking point. No Network Needed. No, they don't go away after a reboot (I just rebooted by iPhone to see and the HTML5 app I'm writing is still there). The only point where you are correct is that you can't access the sensors, but that's what it means to write using open standards. Not every device has sensors,

Like Absinthe my main gripe is that any device that's designed to browse the web should let me enjoy sites with Flash-based content if I want to. I do have to disagree with Cory's overall premise that "closed system" equals "bad user experience" however. An iPad probably isn't something that content creators are going to be lining up to get for all the reasons Cory mentioned, but that's like saying an iPod is a poorly designed music player because it's difficult to customize. (I know many people hate the iPod for the same reason but it's hard to deny that the device is largely responsible for bringing the MP3 player mainstream.)

95% of the consumers don't care how their electronics work as long as they do what they're supposed to. As long as there remain open source alternatives I don't see why we should mind Steve Jobs or the slick little toys he peddles.

Well, I don't live in Topeka, but I am a consumer - and I suspect a more typical one than you. I don't always want to create (although as content creator I do it all day long some times), I want to consume content from people more talented than me (most people probably).

And no - the ipad won't last forever. But the concept will, I suspect.

The thing I love most about the iphone (the closest comparison you or I can make)? The democratisation of software development and FINALLY the realisation of the shareware model of software distribution, where low cost software makes money from mass and easy distribution. So long, expensive apps. I like that. I can live with the restrictions to get it too - I'm a realist. Plenty of free stuff there too - but that evil DRM stops this low cost software being pirated and distributed for free, and allows smaller developers to charge less, and make a living. Are you against that?

And in this world, whether you like it or not, media is software. Your comic book swapping idea is commendable, and if it could be implemented via the iPad, I'd like to see it, but it's not the same as visiting a store - a brick and mortor store with costs, costs to travel to it etc.

You know - on balance, as far as software goes, I like where Apple is taking the world. There may be some stupid, arbitrary mistakes along the way, but that's life.

Wait -- you're accusing me of setting up a false dischotomy? That's...bizarre.

You're committing to the same faulty logic a lot of other iPad commenters who don't like the device do: You're assuming most people - and this is the clue here: most people - use these kinds of devices like Matthew Broderick used his modem in War Games. To hack, to write code, to enter into an esoteric world of the unknown.

Most people don't. They don't care, and they shouldn't have to care. They don't hack into their cars, they don't hack into their Nokia cell phone to write assembly code, and they certainly don't hack their very slow, very annoying PC.

They just wan't to use it. The whole jailbreaking scene is pretty much dead, I don't know anyone with an iPhone these days who bothers to jailbreak it. Why? Because it didn't turn out to be very useful, nor did it turn out to be very stable. Endless possibilities, perhaps, but if you have to put up with annoying, you quit.

Oh, and I hope you are able to fix the motherboard of your ThinkPad if it dies. Anything else would be a total failure.

The most annoying thing of all: pretending Apple actually controls ALL content in the entire world. Geezes. You have obviously found peace with Ubuntu and a ThinkPad. Great. You want everyone to use Ubuntu? Why? What on earth would my sister use Ubuntu for? My dad? My girlfriend? They. Don't. Need. It. Not as in "they probably need it, they just don't know it yet", but as in "they really don't need it".

Imagine that.

You want to know what I think? I think Jef Raskin would've loved the iPad. Criticizing it before even trying one, lame... I understand Cory that it is the Apps Store infrastructure you are slamming more so than the device itself. So, fine. Don't buy one. I hear you loud and clear but you are tilting at windmills.

I completely agree with Cory.

iPad is really nicely presented, and very slick and nicely done, but it's' basically an expensive toy. It isn't a laptop, despite all the articles touting it as the "laptop killer".

You can't create *anything* on it. You can't really work as a graphic artist on it, or a 3D artist, or write code, or design something beautiful. All you can do is consume what Apple thinks you ought to see.

And yes, that bothers me. I love Apple very much, but I think they have gone so far in terms of control that it is becoming dangerous to think of their vision of the future internet. An internet that they approve or disapprove of. An internet where you have to pay for every single thing and only under the strictest regulations.

I really am bothered by Apple's attitude since the last few years. It worries me a lot. I applaud them for their success, but I will start to boo them very loudly for the things that they have done because of it.

"(less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you)"

I understand this argument is more of a "free your stuff" kind of thing, but for the amount of crap apple takes about this single issue, I don't think I've heard about anyone having issues with those batteries dying. I hear quite a few stories about original 5GB ipods STILL running and being able to be charged.

1) The costs of hardware hacking have been increasing and standardisation makes it less appealing. Software hacking is now more prominent. Software tends to be easier to interfere with. Thus, the iPad can be hacked. Apple can not completely wall off access to the OS.

2) I agree with your sentiments regarding sharing. I would be interested to know your solution to this problem.

3) The App store is successful because it is valued by developers and consumers. Is the walled garden approach as problematic as you state? I tend to think that a walled garden is one solution to the problem of a disruptive product. A business that has a disruptive product will tend not to have the supporting product infrastructure to encourage adoption. Such a business has three choices: build it, partner, or wait. Apple built it. This does have the effect of limiting consumer choice but, does not mean the weakening of market competition. Apple can only maintain the walls to the extent to which competing offerings are seen to offer inferior value.

4) I disagree with the association of the iPad and by default the iPhone as products that kill imagination, creativity and innovation. If anything, these products are being used by consumers in situations and ways not imagined by Apple. These products are acting as enablers of the very thing that you believe they will destroy.

5) Finally, closed and open systems can coexist. It seems to me, that you have a naive dislike for closed systems. It is akin to the debate between markets and organisations. Where markets work then, use markets. Where organisations work then, use organisations. Where a something in between works then, use it!

Steve Jobs argued fervently against expansion ports in the Apple ][. The early Macs had none. Nor could one upgrade the RAM. This is who we're dealing with at Apple.

"The fact that if you bought them somewhere else, you would get them is irrelevant to the person who bought the comics in the iStore."

Again, nobody is forcing anybody to buy the through the iStore. The world is free to continue buying comics in the same way they always have. Nothing has changed there; no rights are being trampled by the Misney stormtroopers. If you want to try this new thing, hey, you're free to do that too, but the rules are a little different.

"Yes. It is a review of the terms of service, business practices, and legal and technical systems underpinning the device. You can't hold them in your hands, but you can read them and follow them, and I have."

By that logic, I could review new-release movies by staying home and reading the Blu-ray EULA. Calling this an iPad review really diminishes the credibility of the (several very good) points you're making.

I'm a die-hard maker, and I like the iPad a great deal. I'm not at all put off by Cory's perception (perception, mind you) that it's closed. It's a tool, and one that I can do a great deal with. It's a multitool, in fact, able to do *many* things with the switch of an app, and it will continue to gain new functionality over time as the next great and wonderful app is released by -- wait for it -- another maker-type like me, toiling away in his workshop to realize a brilliant idea for something nobody had really thought of before. And that maker can sell his new and wonderful application to me and actually make some money on it without being a giant corporation or having to negotiate a complex distribution deal or having to put a bunch of money into it up-front.

Seriously, what's wrong with that?

this is just flamebait. won't read it. nobody expected you were going to buy one anyway.

This article reminds me a little of the new government created in "When Sysadmin Ruled the Earth."

If a system is closed, someone (or thing) has to act as a gatekeeper.

If this gatekeeper is a company, what would stop the company from acting purely according to financial interest? Who should the company be accountable to?

How can we be assured that this person / or groups of people are going to act in a fair and honest manner for the benefit of all?

If you follow all of these questions through to their conclusions, it becomes obvious that we're dealing with a situation which is more closely aligned to politics, than commerce.

We have to debate the issues involved. I think it's essential.

Without prior debate, I think it's quite logical to argue that 'all closed systems are bad'.

HTML5 apps have access to multitouch, device rotation and geolocation (if the user opts-in). They may store data remotely, but have access to local database storage that the user can delete at any time.

The only common sensor they don't have access to is a camera (which isn't on an iPad anyway).

I ordered an iPad for my 70+ year old father. He has been surfing the web on a Dell/WinXP laptop for a number of years now and the sheer frustration he exhibits using Windows, with the attendant problems, makes this purchase a no-brainer.

I agree with bulk of Cory's points above. However, for that 95% of the population who are not makers or hackers a locked down machine that will performs the bulk of the functions of a laptop, the applications that my father uses e.g email, web surfing and viewing photos. Apple will sell a gazillion iPads for this reason.

On the other hand, my young children have (relatively) accessible hardware such as a PC and a Mac desktop. When they are a little older, I will introduce them to Linux. And the Apple IIe that is still in our the basement somewhere.

I am undecided on the iPad as yet. Yet, I have to take issue with two of your statements.

The lesser of the two is that in *every* comic shop around here, the "back issue" selection is limited at best, and it's because they can't sell them. Maybe it's a regional thing, but I'm not sure the market is as robust as you seem to imply above.

The second, however, regards the iPad. I work on and with computers for a living. Have done so since 1989. Folks like you and me, we like to tinker.

And we are in the MINORITY.

Most people don't *care* how it works. They don't care about "Screws versus glue". They just want it to turn on and *work*. And like them or not, Apple *excels* at this. This is not, nor has it ever been, a product aimed at the tech-head market. It is for the rest of the world, who do not care about Open source, the EFF, and the rest of it.

At the end of your article, you enumerate 3 groups who the iPad "isn't for". And while all may be true, the truth is that combined, that probably doesn't comprise 20% of the consumer market. And because it's not for you, this doesn't mean that it's not "for" everyone else.

As for me, I'll have to test one out to see if it will do the things *I* want it to do.

HTML5 is still in it's infancy. Much of what's promised won't be available for a long time.

As far as I can tell, the main reason Apple like HTML5, is because one part of HTML5's modular specification includes a way to embed video on the web. Without the ability to make use of HTML5 video, Apple would have to support Flash.

Apple don't want to support Flash, because it would affect their bottom line.

It's in Apple's interest to ensure that the richest user experience is provided by 'Apps' only available from their online store.

did anyone see Xeni on KNBC this morning? my goodness, it is not news, but one big advertisement for everyone to go out and buy this product. Anouncing a product release is one thing, but having the news anchors telling everyone they should buy the product is another. And everyone thinks MSFT is evil.

"You can't create *anything* on it. You can't really work as a graphic artist on it, or a 3D artist, or write code, or design something beautiful. All you can do is consume what Apple thinks you ought to see."

Why do you believe that apps for coding or illustration or rendering won't be available for the iPad?

Or comics for that matter?

Simplification does not equal disdain for the user. That's like a doctor saying, "I respect you too much to help you with this illness. Here, read these wikis and forums and figure it out for yourself. You might die, but if you don't you'll be better for it."

We can argue all day about the merits of Apple's closed App Store and its strange inter-workings, but the fact remains, that without it there are a lot of small shop developers who are now making a living from something that they developed to work inside that "walled garden" you despise so much. Could they have done that releasing their work as free and open source? Can they feed their families with good intentions and principles?

I bet The Omni Group would be amazed to hear that you can't create anything on the iPad. I guess they'll need to take OmniGraffle off the market. Same with the guy who wrote Brushes. And the iWork team at Apple, who'll need to destroy all the code they wrote for the iPad versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

And all the teams building content creation apps that haven't been announced yet. Man, life must suck for them right now.

Any chance that Thinkpad has wireless? Any chance it's using proprietary wireless drivers?

I don't care who does or doesn't want to buy an iPad. I figure people are generally smart enough to make up their own minds.

I found offensive is the stance it takes regarding creators and consumers. I'm not a creator. I cannot write very well, I am all thumbs with tools, I have trouble hanging a picture, i cannot pain or draw (However, I am fortunate enough to be married to a wonderful woman who is an artist). So I am a consumer. I love to read, look at art if different forms, love museums, galleries, and cinemas. They provoke me, fulfill me, and add joy to my life.

Apparently though, according to Cory - albetit through a quote - I am some beast in Topeka that has less worth than anyone who is gifted enough or determined enough to be a creator. I guess some people are more equal than others in Cory's world

Thanks Cory for belittling my existence.

I think you have your perspective wrong. The iPad doesn't address the "I think $COMPUTER is too complicated for my Mom" crowd, it addresses the "My mom thinks $COMPUTER is too complicated." There's a huge difference. Geeks are looking at the iPad and scoffing; Mom is looking at the iPad and thinking "Finally, a computer I might be able to use."

I'm of two opinions. Part of me agrees with you. Apple should open their iPad up to hacking. But the other part of me realizes that to do that, they would need to make tradeoffs that they're not willing to make, and which I think they have compelling reasons for, if not reasons I entirely agree with.

"Screws not glue" and "user replaceable parts" gets you a certain type of machine, but it's exactly the wrong kind of machine for people who don't want to deal with computer ephemera. There are plenty of tablet machines out there that *do* offer this, and you're free to buy (and recommend) them instead.

However, the "Mom" crowd is starting to be a significant force in the computer market in their own right. Previously we, the geeks, have enjoyed our status as the recommenders, or even gatekeepers, telling people what computers they should and shouldn't buy based on our own biases. Now the "Mom" crowd looks at the iPad (or even its predecessors, the iPod & iPhone) and see something which yes, may not have all the features in a side-by-side comparison (who really knows what all those acronymns mean, anyway!), but which they can largely figure out why, and how, it works on their own without constantly calling us for help.

And, unfortunately, as long as the DRM doesn't get in the way of this, they're not going to care two whits. As a previous poster alluded, even such sacrosanct institutions as comic book trading will have to adapt or die.

Welcome to the messy side of the digital revolution. It's not all flowers and bunnies. It's social institutions, some most beloved, being turned on their ear and forced to change.

As for all the hewing and moaning about "social interaction" and "digital isolation," those have been floated since the dawn of the Internet. I still have yet to see empty streets and people who don't naturally long for social interaction. Computers will always have to accommodate and facilitate that fundamental human desire, in just the same way that they "have" to be designed to be used humans, with our hands, our eyes and our ears. Anything that doesn't do this will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

very good article. it just misses an important point: webapps are the future. have you seen the quake html5-demo? you can programm what you want - the web is still free. everyone can use your apps: windows, mac, iphone, android...

I dunno, Xeni Jardin seems to like it.

By which I mean, she seems to like it and like using it. You know, because she likes how it works and what it can do. I'm just picking her as one familiar and trusted example of a person who's saying, "the things this thing can do are things I want done."

Since Cory's responding to some comments here (much appreciated), let me just ask--is buying an iPad (or an iAnything, really) just a poor consumer choice, relative to costs and specs and megahertz and pixels and such?

Or is it a bad moral choice, as in wrong-no-matter-what? Don't get me wrong, I totally understand saying, "nah, I don't want to get tangled up in Sony/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple's stupid proprietary whatever, so I'll choose something else." But then you start talking about the kind of world your daughter grows up in and I start to wonder if what you're really saying is that buying an iPad is an evil act, one that not only shuts me out of the "creative universe" and the "fair world" but helps deny them to our children and our children's children.

I think those moms matter, though, Cory. I'll accept a certain amount of tinkering to keep my computers and devices running just the way I like them, but for someone like my folks, that would be way too much. They're both creative people in their own right, but don't see computers and gadgets in that way-- for them, the gadgets are just tools that need to do what they're supposed to do. That's different from my experience, but certainly not incorrect. So why not be excited about the iPad for those reasons? It's seemingly going to be a user-friendly web machine for people like that, and provide an intuitive, predictable interface. Even installing new features is tremendously simplified. I'm thinking... this is probably a really GOOD thing. It's like an evolutionary split in computing, where my side of things (tinkering, getting into the guts of the machine, designing things, etc) goes one way; and the slick interface, basic-use web machines go the other.

I don't understand this world in which you live in which the fact that the ipad is a "closed" device means that the world is going to suddenly become a closed wall with no options for people who want to tinker. It seems to me that tons of innovation is happening on the app store, and tons of innovation is happening outside of it aswell. . The spectrum of “open vs. closed” devices is incredible diverse and nothing is perfectly “open” or “closed.” We can have the best of both worlds: many open systems with some partial “walled gardens” here and there (or hybrid systems combining both). The marvel comics app may be a stinker compared to reading a real comic because of its restrictions, in which case no-one will buy it, but maybe people will love reading original 60's comics in fully restored fashion, i dunno i don't read comics. Some times open systems give rise to great products, some times great products are closed systems, and the market has room for both of those flavours. its hard to see linus torvalds ever producing the ipad just as its hard to see steve jobs ever creating wikipedia, but use either an ipad or wikipedia for a few minutes and you have to admit they are both spectacular achievments. If the ipad becomes too restrictive then competing open products will start to overtake it, if it keeps its huge lead in terms of being more innovative open and exciting in reality, then they won't, neither is "better" and neither is going to harm tinkering or innovation.

nice perspective.but i think ipad will change the world of computing, just like iphone changed the world.we should just wait for it to happen then. :-)

iPod, iPhone and now iPad are pretty devices acting as a conduit to the various stores. Apple does not care about freedom, choice or standards. Their success is defined by the number of apps they sell and by the number of clueless people that buy their overpriced toys.

Is it too late to nuke Cupertino from orbit?

Just sayin.

More seriously, I'm glad to see some balance at the editorial level. I can understand apple fangirl, but... I kind of wish I couldn't.

Let me try and get this right one more time, I think I'm really struggling with some cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, in this community we extol and to an extent participate in maker culture, the maker ethos, the new urban independence if you will. On the other hand, apple releases another new themepark device, where the community only has the life its allowed by apple, where there is no right to create or develop, and so many people just go... "oooh shiny".

Ps. Apple / Disney merger anyone? Think of the DRM and Copyright lobbying.

I couldn't agree more with gobo! It's difficult for some people to get the exact idea of what reason the iPad is here for. If you want a device to put some screwdrivers on it and change its "lights" inside it or write some thousand lines of complicated code then buy a pc or a laptop and do whatever you want. But if you want something additional just to check you emails or some internet sites, play a simple game, check you facebook or your twitter account and do some basic work with apps like pages,numbers and others of the same kind then why not buying an iPad or some other familiar device. And why should i and some other billion people want to screw our devices, change all the hardware of which they are consinsted or write a whole bunch of code and all these just for our "pleasure"? I get excited with a whole other things! Everything that is written here in this article is good for the computer geeks to whom the iPad is not addressed to. All the other people who just want a simple device to "play" with and just that, will find iPad or any other familiar device helpful, joyous and stress free.

Cory, I fully understand where you're coming from and agree that it is a pity quite how locked down some of the content appears to be. I'm particularly suprised that an e-book bought for the iPad can't be transferred to your iPhone or Mac - can't see that one standing for long.

But I think you over-state the dumbing-down and journalism aspect substantially. For a non-trained geek I am pretty techie. I became sufficiently annoyed with the impression Windows gave that I was really only renting time on someone else' computer that I made the switch to Linux. Absolutely loved it, learned loads about it but spent so much time fixing it and trying to get products like MP3 players working that my productivity went through the floor. Yes I felt like everything on it belonged to me but I was spending time attempting to become a Unix expert to enable me to get my real work done. As soon as I moved to Mac's my productivity shot through the roof because there's only one source for all the OS & hardware updates and all I have to do is click and wait.

With regards to journalism I struggle to really see where the bad is. Rather than using chemicals and electricity to pulp & print on paper and diesel to distribute it I can buy, retain and discard newspapers, magazines and yes even books (with the above caveat) direct from the cloud. I find that pretty exciting.

Philosophically I fully agree with the open-source ethos but I find even as a enthusiastic amateur it's just too much of a time sink. Poisoning the well of your argument with incredibly evocative descriptions of a slack-jawed consume may well be effective rhetoric but I'm not convinced that it helps present a coherent and well rounded argument. The iPad could be a great way to access content and minimize the effect on the environment, and yes help to make that content profitable. But I fear you will get your wish, at least in the short term. The UK prices have not been released as yet but if they're $=£ as usual then the device will be hysterically over-priced for the niche it fills, as is the Kindle and Sony ebook readers (the latter at ANY price). The only way I could conceive of purchasing one is if it were heavily subsidised as part of a subscription deal with a newspaper... hint hint ...

"We can argue all day about the merits of Apple's closed App Store and its strange inter-workings, but the fact remains, that without it there are a lot of small shop developers who are now making a living from something that they developed to work inside that "walled garden" you despise so much. Could they have done that releasing their work as free and open source? Can they feed their families with good intentions and principles?"

Couldn't these "small shop developers" be booted out of the App Store tomorrow with no explanation or reason from Apple?

Is this fair?

"Gadgets come and gadgets go. The iPad you buy today will be e-waste in a year or two (less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you)."

I must also join in the chorus of "no criticism without experience" on this one. If you want to believe that the iPod battery will die in less than a year, I can't stop you. But to list your *opinion* as a reason not to purchase a product is disingenuous at best.

My 5th-gen iPod battery is still kicking, four(?) years after I got it. (I've handed it off to my daughter since I upgraded to an iPod Touch.) My co-worker has a first-gen iPod that he still uses daily. Granted, the battery is totally hosed, as you'd expect from hardware of that vintage, but it still runs just fine when plugged into a machine for power. It's only "e-waste" when you can't use it anymore.

Also, third party iPod battery upgrades were made available shortly after the iPod was released. Anyone with half a brain and five minutes to spare can open an iPod and replace the battery themselves. There is no reason to think the same will not happen with the iPad. There's no reason for a battery to be "changed for you"... any more than there's no reason for the oil in your car to be "changed for you".

Huh? Did you ever use a PC out of the box without buying software?

Ohh! Me! Me!

I've been running nothing but Linux on my machines since 1994, 100%, no dual boot, no virtualization, etc. (Well, OK, there was a brief period of time I ran FreeBSD, but that was before Firefox and Openoffice, so you had to run Linux apps in binary emulation mode, and that was a pain that didn't work well).

So, yes, I've been running PCs for 16 years now without buying a single piece of software. And it hasn't really created any hardships for me, despite the face that I do a lot with my computer (earlier this year, for example, I released an "album" of music (Creative Commons), where everything on it was done with open source software, entirely, from sound source to mixing to cutting to distributing--everything from the soft-synths to the CMS on the website).

At first it was a real pain--anyone remember getting X windows up in running in the early 90's?--but by now it would be hard to think of a thing I would want to do that I couldn't do. [Disclosure: I'm not a gamer, and I'm not an "early adopter."]

I got fed up the proprietary software ecology with Windows 3.1, so I voted with my feet and fingers.

Works for me! Any inconveniences I've experienced are far outweighed by the lack of cognitive dissonance that would be caused by going the other way. Instead of complaining about the bad things about proprietary software and systems (but using them anyway), I just ignore them.

"You can't create *anything* on it. You can't really work as a graphic artist on it, or a 3D artist, or write code, or design something beautiful. All you can do is consume what Apple thinks you ought to see."

Wasn't a large part of the iPad's announcement taken up with a demonstration of the iPad-native version of Brushes, a drawing/illustration application whose iPhone version has been used to create New Yorker cover illustrations?

HTML5 is not about video (although that is a feature). Or Apple. Or competing with Flash (which was a dead end long before the iPad) It's not clear what people say about HTML5 being "in its infancy" other than they don't know the technology and don't want to learn it. It certainly provides a better escape from the App Store than Flash.

The tinkerers' goal is to hack the tools to understand and improve them -- and the themselves and the world. I deeply respect tinkerers, but for many entrepreneurial knowledge organizers and producers, the proprietary nature of tools is irrelevant.

Personally, I rarely hack tools -- eyeglasses, pens, notepads, screwdrivers, shovels, backpacks, cast iron pans, cars, books, spreadsheets or programming languages, computer hardware. My energy is focused on using tools, not altering them.

I am so sure someone, somewhere is going to figure out how to install Linux on it.

One of the most exciting things about the iPad, for me, is that like most Apple stuff, it's chock full of surprising, smart ideas for everyone else to riff off of. It's inevitably going to be copied by everyone, and yeah, I'm fascinated to see what everyone does with the idea. Let's see an "open, hackable" pad computer with multi-touch. Let's see an Android pad with a USB port. I can't wait to see what people create now that they've got the iPad to copy.

Exactly what I said, but you managed it without the withering sarcasm, for which I must salute you.

I just have to laugh at the seriousness at which Cory approaches this Important Question of Our Time

The question he's arguing isn't whether or not to buy some random piece of consumer junk. The question is about what kind of society we'd like to have, and in particular our relationship to technology, which is becoming fantastically important in our lives.

Over the last 15 years, the rise of the personal computer and the web shifted a lot of power away from the rich and important. 100 years from now this will either be seen as the beginning of a major societal change or a minor blip. The rich and important are certainly working for the latter. How about you?

Can't create anything? That's as idiotic a statement as I've ever seen. You might as well say you can't create anything on a computer. It's got a word processor for god's sake - not to mention Sketchbook Pro etc.etc.etc.etc....

Summer Seale - You want Apple's products, but don't want to accept they're a profit making corporation. Grow up.

Apple stands as a mass contradiction to all who declared a wall garden could not work for consumers - they want ease, not some vague notion of freedom.

I'm sick of hearing this "You can change your iPod battery! Nyeah!" argument. You know what? You really can't. I trashed a perfectly good 5th Gen iPod Video I bought because I snapped a pin on the logic board battery connector when I was doing the upgrade.

First I bough a $5 battery that didn't work or last from a non-name eBay seller. Then bought a $19.95 battery that didn't work either and returned it for a full refund. Then I scored some parts from another dead iPod, and that's when the pin snapped?

Am I perfect? No. But I am a tech and have fixed things since I was a kid. Not great at soldering, but can get the job done. And in this case, Apple did not design the $%@!# thing to be user replaceable. Every other electronics device in the world has user changeable batteries, why not Apple?

And guess what? I replaced said iPod with an "iPod Classic" but you know what you can't do on this? Easily change the battery because Apple has made sure these "Classic" iPods really can't be opened without really denting and damaging the case.

Now if you want me to explain how for the average user changing the battery in an iPod shuffle will 100% never happen (tiny parts, solder to the board) then there you go.

But please, don't ever defend Apple for the bassackwards way they deal with batteries in their products. It's complete built in obsolesce and as much as I like Apple products they really are as bad as Microsoft in this case.

Cory, I think it's worth noting that you keep referencing Marvel Comics. You must realize that kids don't read them anymore? (And I say this as an avid collector in my adolescence)

And if they don't read them, then they surely don't share them , so they have no idea what you are talking about.

What do they do together? Play video games on the interwebs. That's replaced reading comics on the porch and sharing them with friends.

This is NOT simply a device, it's a whole new medium, somewhere between traditional print and a rich media website. It will spark the creation of a new set of creative workers.

And yes, maybe they will make 'comics', but probably not as we remembered them.

*My* mom was in computing before the release of the Apple I.

The only people I know who are interested in it are the type of gadget-freak geeks with disposable income who like shiny things more than actual functionality. I'll stick with my more capable $200 netbook, thanks.

No, but its no more or less fair than a couple of parties inside of an OS project telling the rest of the community the direction the project is going to take. (aka "This is not a democracy." - Shutteworth)

As a human I tend try and classify things as good or bad. I would assume that's what Cory is doing as well. It makes dealing with issues simpler. However, I think we need to remember that most of the alternative mobile devices and mobile device OSs came about out of direct competition to the iPhone. Hopefully now there will be competitors to the iPad as well.

Ok, it drives me bonker how irrational the hating on this device is - as if it is some unprecedented attack on your personal freedom. As if a closed platform created for the sake of user experience is an unheard of concept - Hello? Game Consoles? Does ANYONE complain that Nintendo is crushing their free spirit by requiring approval of all games for the Wii? Oh and guess what, the iPad is just a portable Wii for webbrowsing. It is a device that guarantees a good UX for the most common things people do: light web browsing, pictures, and utility computing.

And honestly, that's a good thing. Suggesting that the "Alternative" is a Lenovo Thinkpad running Ubuntu is so beyond ridiculous it doesn't even merit discussion.

The reason the iPad is so appealing to non-dorks is the same reason that the console gaming has crushed PC gaming as the dominant medium.

You buy an XBOX, you buy a game, and it is GUARANTEED to run perfectly. No video drivers, nothing. And the system does the most common things you want to do: play games, watch movies, and even browse the internet.

The iPad is no different. If you want a computer, buy a computer. But it's not a computer - it's a portable terminal for doing the stuff MOST people do on a daily basis with a guaranteed performance that won't degrade.

And as a developer, this makes PERFECT sense to me, it shocks me that people who are supposedly technically aware can't see this.

I totally agree Cory, thanks for writing this, I'm afraid too many people get wowed by the Apple PR machine.

Are tech people really afraid to become serious journalists? What gives? I wonder...

You also made me think, are printed papers / magazines more likely to praise the iPad then online reviews ?

Sites like gizmodo/engadget seems to have a paid contract to rent about this or be utterly clueless and just want to cash in on the press bandwagon, I don't know...
In any case, the battle for a good public discussion/education needs more time / space badly!

cheers from MTL!

Why can't people have both ease and freedom?

Google is a fine example of a company that pursues both and does well by it. For many years, so was Palm.

Again, nobody is forcing anybody to buy the through the iStore.

Well, that's the point of Cory's article, isn't it? He's refusing to buy through the iStore, and blogs about why he's doing so.

Well, "in its infancy" means that the specification hasn't been fully defined, and that it's not fully supported by current A grade browsers.

HTML5 is a modular specification - and various parts of the specification are likely to be incorporated into browsers independently.

Yes, it does provide a better escape from the App Store than Flash - but that's because Flash doesn't function on the device ;)

I'm not sure if Flash is totally dead yet.

Nice article, Cory, but I can't help thinking that it sounds a bit old fashioned. As devices become more specialized for mobile use, the ability of users to get into the machine to tinker is going to drop. That's at some level just as a physical reality. The "system on a chip" means most of the interesting bits of logic (sound card, video) are all bound in at a size well below anything you can take a wrench or screwdriver or even soldering gun to.

That said, there's definitely always been a secondary market for screen replacements, battery replacements, and other little things that can go wrong with these devices (iPod, iPhone, Zune, MacBooks, etc...). Ultimately, you can do whatever you want to the hardware but can't cry to the manufacturer if you royally screw it up. If it came with glue, you may just have to really tinker (i.e., drill!) to get the case closed again!

As far as software, I do agree that Apple is heading down a path that favors old-skool content producers and shitty DRM. However, instead of viewing it so cynically, I think the ultimate, long-range view of these things is positive. Cheaper hardware that is bound into highly compelling packages that are getting easier for everyone to use on a daily basis _without_ having to be a "tinkerer"/engineer/geek/etc. These are good things in the long run for society/culture even if the first version to hit the market ends up being awkward and limited in other ways.

If it is really right that the masses want freedom to share, the marketplace of ideas will win out in the long run. When some company makes something better that is open access my guess is that the freedom will lead to innovation that the other company can't beat. It'll just take a little bit for the open world to catch up to some of the technology that Apple has invested in developing in-house (gesture recognition, etc...).

As far as sharing, personally I don't find it such a big deal. I hate when people borrow my books/cd's and don't return them. I also more or less hate having books at all since it's just clutter in my house/life. And I am a avid reader/academic. A ecologically friendly future where I can experience all/most of the goodness of a color printed book or research article digitally and never loose it to forgetful friends/colleagues is fine with me. Perhaps just personal preference.

"Infantalizing hardware"!

Thanks for putting into words everything that is so troubling with the appeal of Apple products.

I think you uncovered a deeper possibility in the same section: the ethos of the 70s and 80s that made the personal computer industry of today is well and truly dead! The iPad is the last nail in a big coffin.

...So, after the state funeral, what comes next?

There are JavaScript libraries available such as PhoneGap that let you access geolocation, accelerometer and more on the iPhone.

You can do a lot more with HTML/Javascript than most people think. And with the advent of HTML5 it's going to get a lot more interesting. It has the potential to change the definition of "app"

This reads like something I might have written about 15 years ago, as a college kid practically living in my computer. I'm not that kid anymore. I'm thirty something, married, with kids.

The list of things I have the time and desire to crack open, alter, fix, and futz around with has gotten smaller and smaller. And they tend to be things that are really central to my life. Now maybe I've lost touch with my 'inner geek' or whatever, but my computers, and especially the sort of quasi-computer-like things I own (or will own in the case of the iPad) don't play that central role in my life anymore.

I'm about as concerned about the things you've brought up about the iPad as I am about whether I can hack my alarm clock.

Re: Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu window UI controls;

To be fair he wasn't cutting anyone off from their livelihood.

I can sympathise with his position. Sometimes there's too much noise in a community to be able to move in a new direction - I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Apple & Competition;

Well, maybe Apple should be forced to allow alternative competing 'App Stores' for their platforms?

Perhaps the DoJ should eventually become involved?

http://www.littlegreenriver.com/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-but-i-dont-really-care-whether-or-not-you-do/

The reasons Cory lists are all reasonable reasons to not buy an iPad. Like Cory, I don’t need a computer-like appliance. That’s also why I don’t own an iPhone or a Wii or a Kindle. (Also, I’m poor.)

But just because *I* don’t need it doesn’t mean that I think it’s ethically dubious for someone else to. Yes, you’re opting into Apple’s walled garden. Yes, you’ll never be able to hack the device or install your own stuff on it or replace the battery yourself. But if you’re fine with all that, if your needs match what the iPad appliance offers, go ahead and purchase one. Especially if you already own a “real computer” (which is pretty likely, and something a lot of criticisms along these lines seem to miss). No one argues that purchasing a car with closed-source software embedded in it or a stylish, no-screws toaster is akin to investing in blood diamonds.

So why all the hate on the iPad? My guess is misplaced expectations. Critics expect a “real computer” and howl that it isn’t one. That’s frankly like whining about how the Eee PC sucks for running Photoshop. Those who want it and will buy it have different expectations.

All valid points, but consider this:

Since the iPhone's release, everyone I know is trying to get their little slice of the app pie. Everyone, from the suits at work, to your personal trainer has some idea for the next-killer app. More importantly, many of my friends who in the past have had absolutely zero interest in programming are stocking up on C and Cocoa books.

So while Apple's restrictive business model isn't ideal for computing in general, it's definitely had its positive side-effects.

More and more everyday people are now aware of the fact that they CAN make stuff.

On a more hypocritical note, I totally lent my copy of Little Brother to my kid sister ;)

frogfrost (#92) has hit the nail on the head. The world has been filled with proprietary systems for a long time. Cory, take a big deep breath, vote with your wallet and move on. There are a jillion things in this world which are worse than Apple and their iPad.
I'm talking to you, Monsanto!

I agree with nine tenths of Cory's arguments here, except that I think that the app store has been on balance a massive win for experimentalist amateurs.

Yes, it's bad that one company becomes the gatekeeper to which apps are allowed or not. It does limit innovation in certain dimensions.

The upside is that you can make a living as a sole developer building small apps which sell to a niche market. That hasn't really been true since the end of the shareware era. And we're getting a whole lot of really interesting apps from the app store, which would never have had any press or sales on the open internet.

One of the issues with the openness of the computer market in general is that with three major operating systems, and countless trillions of different computer configurations, a sole developer cannot hope to support a commercial software project. Anything you code is bound to fail to work on 5% of the machines you deliver it to. A closed platform doesn't have that problem.

Anyway, I acknowledge all the problems with the app store, but let's count the beneficial aspects as well as the problematic ones. I think the benefits win out in this case.

I understand about not being able to hack the hardware, but really. How many people hack even their open computers? At some point, there is a reasonable tradeoff between complexity and ease-of-use, and for the overwhelming majority of people, their wants fall squarely on the ease-of-use side. While I fully support and encourage your decision not to buy an iPad, the whole "and I don't think you should either" strikes me as overreaching. Maybe I *want* a simple tool that lets me focus on the job I want to do instead of the tool itself. That's not the hacker/maker ethos, and it doesn't apply to other areas in my life, but I didn't realize being a maker and reading Boing Boing meant I'd joined a cult, where every single thing I do has to support openness and hackability even at the expense of utility.

Here's the other thing: the iPad is arriving about 10 years after tablet computers were first viable. In all that time noone has developed and produced a hackable hardware/software ecosystem like the iPhone/iPad. Why not? And if why not already, then why not now? You personally must be uniquely suited to create such a thing: living at the intersection of design, electronics hacking, open source and publishing. So please, create something better than the iPad that's fully open. Even just a whitepaper describing in detail the soft and hard of such a device. Or hell, just focus on the comics - sign up for the dev program, download the software, and create an app that allows sharing of comics and graphic novels. Or just create a store that allows for it - the e-reader on the iPad will handle non-DRM ePubs. Don't just complain - fix it!

I think you might find that it's a tad harder than it looks, and you would have the advantage of not needing to focus on the monetary bottom line.

And while the hardware isn't hackable, the software certainly is. I haven't bought and iPad, but I have joined the iPhone dev program (cost $100/year, or a little more than my subscriptions to Make and Craft), downloaded the Dev tools along with the open-source PhoneGap template, and have started working with my kids how to make their own native iPhone apps.

Try telling my kids they're not Makers, and get ready for a fight. This seems one of those glass-half-empty things.

Cory, do you think your precious Nexus One (which is an excellent phone, BTW) would exist if not for the iPhone spurring innovation? Don't hate on Apple. They may not be your thing, but if their products' flaws are important, someone will come along and make a product that has all the XXXX's good qualities but none of its bad ones.

Linux runs on ARM.
That said, it would need some porting, due to the modifications made from standard ARM.

I think that's probably one of the reasons they did that. If not, they're glad.

I'll stick with books for now (enough to read for many lifetimes) and type my old laptop into the dust. Buy a earthbox or water purifier or swiss knife if you want to satisfy your spending itch.

I appreciate what you're saying about how devices like the iPad discourage modification, and how Apple is grabbing power away from the people. I'm with you on the DRM issue, but I see it differently on the "maker" side of things. People who are not "makers" need devices too - and they don't need to be able to crack them open. The percentage of even self-professed "makers" who could successfully modify (in a meaningful way) the microelectronics in something like an iPad is small, and diminishes as microelectronics gets smaller and smaller. The tools needed to perform modifications get more and more specialized and expensive. The days of going down to Radio Shack and buying a soldering iron, a breadboard, and a few components and banging together something cool are not over - but if you want to modify something, you're going to have to buy something bigger than an iPad. That's not a malevolent force at work in the world, that's progress.

Even while I agree that it's getting harder to modify hardware, I still believe that some people will do it. I recall my dad ranting about computer controlled ignition, electronic pollution sensors, and fuel injection - they were all going to be the death of the shade-tree mechanic. Here we are some 20 or 30 years later, and he has learned how to repair these systems in his garage. He did it the same way he originally learned engines - by reading, and talking to friends and professionals. iPad = new learning necessary.

Finally, as much as I love that William Gibson quote, I think it belies a certain snobbery. I think you would agree that we are not all the same, and that's a good thing. It's a good thing that some of us are consumers of media - otherwise, the people who make media wouldn't have anyone to sell to. Media consumers drive the innovation of better ways to consume media - giving the "makers" a reason to create cool new gadgets in the first place.

I am tangentially reminded of recent research about the variety of ways in which people learn - some learn better while their bodies are moving, some learn better when seated at a lecture. But our entire education system has been created by people who, generally speaking, learn best in traditional settings. They designed the whole system in their image without even knowing it. Hence, kids who can't sit still are "problem kids" rather than "dancers" or "athletes". For a time, the tech scene was ruled by "makers", and it was created in their image. Many of the objects were not beautiful, nor easy to use. I need look no further than my own home theater receiver to find such a device - impossibly complicated control scheme, ugly as sin, but big enough for a clever individual with a soldering gun to make a few repairs. Thankfully, there are now companies where products are designed by artists and usability experts. I wouldn't want the whole world to be made in their image either - and it won't be. So, keep an open mind. There's no reason you can't enjoy the benefits of some smaller, more ergonomic devices while continuing to tinker with other devices.

Cory I agree with every point you make and as an Apple user for 18 years now I am actively looking to replace my monoculture of computers with a more diverse mixture - starting with my work computer who now also runs a linux flavor BUT:

If it wouldn´t be for the multitouch and the capability that it can be used as a universal midi/osc controller I could care less about the device myself - but that is the killer app - as the price is well in synch with traditional midi controllers which are much much more limited. I don´t know how many electronic musicians or visual artists or such you know but everybody I know has ones in their live dreamed up their own personal perfect midi controller just to find out its really expensive and time consuming to build and then just threw out 1000 bucks or more and bought "the next best" option (and a selfbuild one comes close to that price so you aint even saving). Now the iPad allows you to basically create your own midi controller and it has feedback as well so for that application alone the iPad will be bought in droves (and thats creation not consumption I am talking about here).

And then there are my grandparents. I could never ever convince them to buy a "proper" computer. I tried everything - they were horrified to use a mouse or even a trackpad or anything like that - now they have come to me and ask me if the iPad is a good buy because they can totally see how interacting with the screen with their fingers is really easy. What do I tell them? No you shouldn´t buy the device because you can´t open it up? Or am I actually happy that they have a computer and access to the internet and stop watching soap operas?!

Of course it would be nice if there would be an open source alternative that is as powerful and has an interface thats as easy to use - but there is none and there will be none for the foreseeable future. Its a hard pill to swallow (and i didn´t swallow the iphone pill because thats something that can be avoided easily ) but the device has its merit even with the stupid new apple that is driven by shareholder fuckshit values. I really wish they could look at their past and see that this is their path to doom sooner or later until then and until there are alternatives I might need to buy two of them - one for performing on one for my grannies. :/ but I am sure to wait a bit longer because the last thing anybody wants to do is buy a 1.0 product from apple. And of course I will be first in line if there is an unlock available - hack it to the bones.

As if to say that just because something isn't complicated, it's no good? Apple revolutionized computing by making it *simpler*.

I'm not much of an Apple fan (the iPad will be my first Apple product, actually)... but, well, you can make stuff with it. I'm planning to do a lot of writing on it, a lot of sketching. You'll be able to write blogs, mess with photos, play games, etc. That's fine. It's a toy-slash-tv-slash-notepad.

Without a means of consumption what's the point of content creation? It isn't a "computer" in the sense we're used to. You can absolutely use a "real" computer to make a video or a program or whatever, and then transfer it to the iPad for consumption. I'll be recording TV shows on my PC and transferring them over. Reading a lot of Project Gutenberg stuff. Watching Youtube.

I've opened up and repaired and upgraded my own laptop, built my own PC -- and even fixed a friend's Macbook, much as a bitch it was to get open. Frankly if my iPad's warranty expires or it becomes obsolete, I will probably force it open and take a look inside. But I'm not an engineer -- Aside from perhaps replacing storage or batteries, I don't have the knowledge or tools to mess with the circuit boards of such a compact machine. I don't like the idea of paying to have someone fix it if it gets broken in a way I could normally fix myself, but...

I think I'm OK with trading the ability to mess with electronics beyond my understanding in order to have a tiny little Star Trekish thingy I can read PDFs and scribble notes in.

I'm with Modern Jess, above. It's a tool. I draw and paint and do other creative "maker" things...and I will be buying an iPad. I have a powerful desktop computer with which I can use Photoshop to clean up my work and post it online, but I want the iPad for casual web browsing, reading ebooks, emails, maybe playing the occasional game. The less time I have to worry about tweaking the thing, the more time I have to work on a painting or sketch. I am astounded at the panic reaction this device is causing. Look: think of it as a Kindle that plays DVDs. Or a DVD player that happens to have a web browser. Or a gaming device with a word processor built in. But for pete's sake, it's not going to eat your children.

Moms just use the "don't know how to use tech" excuse to get their kids to hang out with them. They're lonely. They know that if they surf enough web or download enough free screensavers, they'll get a virus, and their daughter or son with have to come over for dinner and computer fixing.

I am confused though. On one hand we have Xeni showing off all the cool iPad apps, and then we have Cory's anti-iPad sentiment. Like an angel and devil on our shoulders. Xeni looks more like an angel, but I typically listen to the devil, so I might have to go with Cory on this one. I've always liked that I can change the memory, batteries, hard drives and screens on the laptops I've bought.

To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, arguing that the iPad does not meet your personal needs is like saying that calculus does not contain carbohydrates, amino acids, or other nutrients. Everything fails by irrelevant standards. Complaining loudly about why the iPad doesn't meet your needs assumes that your needs are identical to everyone else's. Your needs *aren't* identical to everyone else's, and to suggest otherwise is simply arrogant and foolish.

The iPad is not an affront to your personal existence. It's just a lump of metal and glass. Some people will find it useful, and some people won't. Telling the people who find it useful that you don't and they shouldn't accomplishes only one thing: alienation.

If that was your goal, congratulations.

I'm not going to stand in line for one, but there's no doubt that I'll own one in the near future. While not having access to the nuts and bolts will be a deterrent to some, the fact that it's a purpose built appliance that you can just use will be appealing to a great many others.

I think a device that has access to internet content as well as local apps, regardless of the limitations of the App store, in this form factor has a great number of positive uses, and for the users whose needs it doesn't fit, like any other device they'll leave it on the shelf. There will no doubt be a lot of developers creating fantastic and useful applications, and they'll be able to sell them to a great number of users they would never have had access to directly. Those users will be able to purchase these applications at a lower cost than most commercial software on most other platforms and know that when they install it, it will just work.

I primarily want to use technology, not tinker with it. If I want to tinker with software, I've got different equipment that I can do that on. The iPhone is my preferred phone because it stays out of my way and enables me to communicate as well as do useful work related things and play some games when I feel so inclined. I expect the iPad will be much the same, it will enable me to do some things very well and will stay out of my way while doing that.

I won't read books on it, I prefer paperbacks. I may or may not read comics on it. I'll definitely surf internet content on it, as it's much better suited for that when sitting on a couch than my laptop is. If there's a stylus for it at some point, I may take notes in meetings so I'm not burning through so many spiro bound notebooks, but I'll likely still carry one of those as paper and pen still has a tactile quality I'm not ready to give up. Watching movies on long flights? Absolutely. For roughly the same money as the portable DVD player my kids are using we can get a much more versatile device that will play movies better than the dedicated device does.

All in all, it's certainly not for everyone, and I respect that it's not for you for the reasons you've stated. I do think it's going to be a tremendous success, and it will likely bring to market any number of decent competitive products, some of which will be right for you.

Sounds like you want a Palm Pre - webOS lets you do all that you describe simply and elegantly. And Palm also embrace the 'homebrew' community, applauding their efforts at improving the experience of the device. Sadly, Apple have good marketing, Palm don't.

Software-understanding-fail.
I've not purchased software in years, and have a much fuller and more efficient computing experience.
You don't need to buy software sight-unseen to use a computer. You don't need to pay for things that don't exist.
You don't need to give up freedom to use something you payed for to 'use' it.

The only proprietary software I use is Flash and rar.

I think I'll wait for an ipad knock-off that just runs on open software.
Perhaps it will be called the Lilipad, or Sampad or whatever.
At anyrate it'll be cheaper, do what I want it to which is mostly just read some PDF files and play the odd movie.

For what it's worth: I'm less bent out of shape about closed hardware than I used to be, since now it's possible to attach almost anything at "fast enough" speeds via USB. As long as a high-speed open-architecture connection to the outside is available (IF it's available, which I'm not sure of in the iPad's case) and the core of the system isn't going to need direct upgrading such as memory, I can live with a "black box". And there *are* times when a well sealed box has advantages -- Thinkpads are now designed so coffee spills can flow through without damaging anything, but there's something to be said for a design where they can't get inside in the first place, and it's admittedly hard to achieve both good seals and clueful-user-servicability.

And I don't care all that much about which processor is used, as long as it's powerful enough and tools for developing for it are widely available. I happen to be inordinately fond of the Power and Cell families -- IBM's design for the latter really is a 1980's supercomputer on a chip! -- and the only time I look at instruction sets these days is when I need to either write a compiler, tweak device drivers, or do extreme microoptimization. For anything else, optimizing compilers tend to be Quite Good Enough.

Closing the software architecture bothers me considerably more. I understand the rationalle, but as Cory says I'm not sure that setting that sharp a boundary around the system isn't going to push it off to the margins once more direct competetors are marketed directly against it.

I think that this comes off a bit arrogant, and here's why: Cory, you've got kind of a " I have to save the world from itself!" sort of attitude all of a sudden that doesn't seem to jibe with the "we've got to set the world free" attitude that we should all support.

You don't think that I should buy an iPad? I don't think that _you_ should buy a car that was made after about 1975. I can strip a small block Chevy engine down to it's bare pieces in the middle of nowhere with only the small complement of tools that I carry in the car and have it back together and on the road without so much as asking for a second pair of hands. I also compile my own Linux kernels and make my food from scratch and build my own furniture.

I also want an iPad. And if it's awesome, I'll tell everyone about it that I feel might benefit from knowing. I will because I buy things that are genuinely _useful_ to me. And everyone can worry about me as if I were a drug-tempted teenager and say, "Well I just worry that he got caught up in the Apple marketing machine and doesn't know what he's buying..." but those people are he ones that are so greatly underestimating the common sense capabilities of the average American (e.g. the mothers that you're so worried about), in an insulting kind of tone, I might add. My buying an iPad isn't closing up the world's paper comic book supply, and my buying an iPad won't make my kid any less of a tinkerer than your kid.

The fact that you're not looking beyond the actual act of purchasing the device to see who's actually doing the buying is hugely close-minded and as I said before, the assumption that I need saving is plainly: arrogant.

Rock. The. Fuck. On.

That was so well said.

My pops was an OG hacker analog AMPEX dude and he taught me well, so I want you to know that I agree fully with your hacker mentality, but I still think that serviceability is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to design. Yes, you will ultimately be able to service an iPad at home. iFixit will probably have this covered in the next week or so. But with regard to easily serviceable parts, the natural tension between elegant industrial design vs. general serviceability doesn't always allow for both cake-having and cake-eating. You must admit that your ThinkPad does not have the sexy of the iPad, right? I can't imagine your ThinkPad is headed for inclusion in the NY Museum of Modern art. The Chemex coffee maker I use daily, regarded as one of the best ways to brew a mind-blowing cup, has a home there. It embodies simple and elegant design, but it's a REAL bitch to clean. Dude, sometimes it just ain't easy.

I lost trust in Cory when he admitted to using Second Life.

I repeat:
Software-understanding-fail.
I've not purchased software in years, and have a much fuller and more efficient computing experience.
You don't need to buy software sight-unseen to use a computer. You don't need to pay for things that don't exist.
You don't need to give up freedom to use something you payed for to 'use' it.

The only proprietary software I use is Flash and rar.

Also for the cost of the basic iPad, I can get like 300 good beers, or maybe 600 cheap-o beers. Beer is really fun.

What percentage of people mod their electronics, wrench their cars or write their own software? What percentage can even install RAM or a new drive in their computers? Without contradicting Cory's sentiments, I guess you could say the iPad will be a perfect fit for 90% of the U.S. population. And those elite among us can skip the iPad.

Equating the iPad to the CD-ROM just doesn't hold water to me. In fact, Cory's logic seems to indicate the iPad will be a huge failure. If you want to monetize your insight, Cory, please send me a message and we can make wager as to whether the iPad will be a success or failure.

I had a Palm Zire before... and it suffered from some of the same problems the iPad has:

- Closed platform
- Can't change the battery
- Can't store files directly
- No multitasking

and still it served its purpose perfectly... just like I expect the iPad to do so (I have a lot of e-books and e-comics in PDF and CBR/Z format waiting for it). My microwave oven doesn't run linux but still reheats my food OK... I don't expect my appliances to represent me politically.

Neither is Apple. They're just saying, "play by our rules. This isn't a democracy." If you or I had developed the iPhone and wanted it to be a success, we would do the same things.

On a side note, it would be awesome if I could dual boot Ubuntu NR on my iPad.

"Well, that's the point of Cory's article, isn't it? He's refusing to buy through the iStore, and blogs about why he's doing so."

He's probably not buying anything from *lots* of places today. Where are all the posts regarding all the other things he won't be buying? Why single out the iPad? Why all the hate for a product that wasn't targeted at him in the first place?

I had a Palm Zire before... and it suffered from some of the same problems the iPad has:

- Closed platform
- Can't change the battery
- Can't store files directly
- No multitasking

and still it served its purpose perfectly... just like I expect the iPad to do so (I have a lot of e-books and e-comics in PDF and CBR/Z format waiting for it). My microwave oven doesn't run linux but still reheats my food OK... I don't expect my appliances to represent me politically.

There's another problem with HTML5, a very important one: it runs interpreted code. Yes, Javascript has gotten much, much faster lately, but it doesn't begin to compare to compiled and optimized Objective C. That alone means webapps will always be crippled. As a casual web developer, I'm very excited about the possibilities of HTML5, but come on, people.

Anyway.

Cory, I'll be buying one, despite my hatred of DRM, for one very simple reason: no matter how much Apple would like you to see only the UI and never get to work with the innards, that won't stop people. There exists a huge and thriving community centered around rooting (jailbreaking) such devices and providing high-quality free and paid applications which don't go through Apple's filters. Sure, the hardware is still too hard to modify, but I'll let them have that - it's justified by the sheer physical beauty of the iPad. And you might have moral objections to buying a device so locked, but if you believe you own it once you buy it, what does it matter what the company thinks you should be doing with it?

The comic reader is a bad move on Marvel's part, of course, but I'll continue buying comics in dead-tree form, reading them once there, and then scanning or downloading digital versions for consumption on electronic devices. I'm sure there will be superior versions available through the App Store or Cydia (the store for jailbroken iPhones). And if there aren't, I can make one myself.

Here's the core of it: once you hold the physical device in your hands, you do own it, whatever Apple thinks. It might take a tiny amount of work to get access to the core software, but was it not ever so? Most people won't want to, but they could if they did. If you want to get your own (native) code running, you can do that in ten minutes.

It's so much more though.

Unless you take everything at plain face-value, there's a lot more riding on the way that devices like this work.

What occurs now (e.g. what Apple manage to get away with, to a certain extent) will have at least some affect re. what occurs in the future.

Anyone want to rewrite an old xeni filter to be a cory filter? :)

I never visit this site. But after reading this piece (thanks to a link posted on Facebook), I might start. I thought this was really well written and that the author makes some very interesting points.

I think you misunderstood my comment.

Or is it a bad moral choice, as in wrong-no-matter-what? ... you start talking about the kind of world your daughter grows up in and I start to wonder if what you're really saying is that buying an iPad is an evil act, one that not only shuts me out of the "creative universe" and the "fair world" but helps deny them to our children and our children's children.

I'm not Cory, but as far as moral choice is concerned, there are a couple of aspects. Firstly, as the saying goes, you're voting with your wallet. If you pay Apple for this (rather than someone else for something open), your dollars support Apple in particular and these kinds of business models in general.

Secondly, most technology has a "network effect"; it's more useful the more people have it. Sometimes directly, as with a phone, almost always indirectly — you'll be learning about iStore apps, so when someone has a problem to solve, that's what you'll suggest because that's what you'll know. If you'd learned instead about apps from someone else, you'd recommend those. If someone needs help with their device, it's easier if others around them have the same. You'll be implicitly encouraging your friends to follow you in shutting themselves out of the "creative universe" and the "fair world" (as you put it). You'll be encouraging developers to develop for it, your local stores to carry it, after-market manufacturers to target it,

You'll be making it ever-so-slightly more normal for people to be shut out of the "creative universe" and the "fair world", ever-so-slightly less normal for people to participate in both.

So yes, there is a moral dimension. Not perhaps a big one, but it's there.

(BTW, a third aspect that you don't mention is a pragmatic but non-technical one: what incentives does the system set up for the various parties to treat you right or wrong? Does the iStore work for you, for the developers, or for Apple? If it works for Apple, how will that affect you and/or the developers? Does the iStore sell apps to users, or does it sell eyeballs to advertisers?)

I wouldn't buy one for my mom, although I know she'd like a mac book pro. Uh... big price difference.

My mother, for the record, is a forward thinking intellectual.

I wouldn't buy one for myself because I'm frustrated enough with the iPhone.

Then again I wouldn't buy a tablet anyway because I don't see the point of it. I have the phone, I have several laptops, I... just don't want one more thing to stick in my freaking luggage.

The difference is, Apple _IS_ potentially cutting off someone's livelihood when they state "play by our rules. This isn't a democracy".

We need the law to catch up, and be put in place to moderate the actions of corporations operating online.

At the moment corporations are calling the shots.

Think of all the IP lobbying going on at the moment. I find it terrifying that 'three strikes out' digital IP laws are currently being pushed through simultaneously in so many countries. If that isn't an example of the orchestrated might of corporate lobbyists, I have no idea what is!?

At the moment, laws are being put into place to moderate our behaviour - and protect the rights of corporations. It should be the other way round.

Capitalism only works well, when it's reigned in. Without moderation - we end up with giant clusterfcks like the current economic recession / depression.

As the for dualboot - I'd love that .. the more I use linux, the more enthused I become. I don't think I'd be protesting about any of these issues without exposure to FOSS.

Hmmmm, I guess I am in the hater camp. The paternalistic "users are dumb" vibe from Apple in the last 10+ years just drives me away.

I had an Apple II e or f as a kid but I'm no programmer.

I'm not a true hacker, or maker, but I am a fixer. I am an entrepeneur and thus the de-facto sysadmin for my small company.

I like to get a lot of years out of my hardware. My oldest laptop is vintage 2003 and still runs fine thank you.

My brother twisted my arm, and for Chanukah this year insisted I get an iPhone finally. The one compelling thing I wanted it for was to be able to check my e-mail on the go. So on that afternoon when I am at remote meetings, or taking the afternoon off and going for a bike ride, I can make sure there is nothing urgent (of course I could also do this with a blackberry.)

Bottom line, the iPhone is just a toy. I have tried over 100 different apps and find most of them just plain annoying. Thumb crack for the Apple fanboys who can't sit still long enough to take in a nice spring day or a pretty sunset.

I have a spiffy up to date iPhone, and 28GB of it's voluminous hard drive is empty. I have 500 or so songs on it. I check the weather with it. I occasionally use the web browser to find an address. Some times I use it's crappy navigation. But mostly it is this annoying little pest in my pocket that makes me fidget. On a sunny spring day I take it out of my pocket, lose track of myself, and fiddle with some idiotic distraction I don't even enjoy.

My iPhone allows me to be that "a week-old boiled potato" even when I am outdoors on a gorgeous spring day.

The iPad will only be the same but more so. Locked into Apple's paternalistic "we know what's good for you" architecture, with dozens of new ways of nervously wasting time.

I read a lot. I read mostly periodicals, both hard copy and on the web. General interest and scientific. A year or two ago I let my Sunday NY Times subscription lapse (which I have done on and off for many years even pre-web.) And I have taken to reading the NY Times on-line, either with a laptop, or my iPhone. It makes me nervous. Reading it on a screen is isolating. Not at all the same as a print copy, on the porch, with a cup of good coffee, handing good articles and sections back and forth with my significant other. Technology, once again, helping us lose the human connection. Another step towards the "week-old boiled potato."

Steve Jobs is very good at boiling these potatos. I for one increasingly want less of that.

Computers, iPhones, iPads are tools for me. When I do not need a tool, I don't want them agitating my psyche and distancing me from the world.

Turn off the iPhone, throw the iPad away, it's sunny out; take a walk with someone you like, bake a cake, build a tree house, go on a date, have cocktails with friends.

Or you can give Steve another $700 so he can help you nervously fiddle in the dark.

I know I'll end up as Comment # 11x or 12x, and no one will likely read this, but thank you Cory!

I was practically sick to my stomach after seeing Wired's lovefest, 10-page long advertisement of the IPad, masquerading as an objective feature.

The truth is, no one even knows if the IPad will deliver on the positives it purportedly brings to the table. Or if ATT's 3G network which can't handle even IPhones with consistency, will be able to absorb a flood of IPads always on, always connected.

And then as you point out, is the dissolving of innovation and unfiltered independent development, libel to suffocate fresh ideas.

The amount of objective, reasonable coverage of the IPad is so sadly missing practically everywhere, I'd say it's one huge conspiracy, except, it's obvious, that the mainstream media has bought into the promise that the IPad will somehow save them. If anything, it's possible it may hasten their demise, as people will be even less likely to have a need for printed magazine or newspaper sized content, and especially a desire to pay for any of it.

I won't be buying one. For several reasons but primarily because it's overpriced and 1st gen. In six months when Apple's releasing the 2nd gen and one year when the 3rd gen is announced for the same or less than this, well...early adopters always pay the price.

But the other big reason is because I'm waiting for the Notion Ink Adam to be available. It appears to be a so much better device for half the price. (http://www.notionink.in/index.php)

"Well, that's the point of Cory's article, isn't it? He's refusing to buy through the iStore, and blogs about why he's doing so."

He's probably not buying anything from *lots* of places today. Where are all the posts regarding all the other things he won't be buying? Why single out the iPad?

Perhaps because he considered it, then rejected it for serious but not immediately obvious reasons? Perhaps he's gone to the trouble of investigating it in detail, and it's only polite to blog about it, so that others can benefit from the work he's already done? Perhaps he feels that it's an attractive nuisance, luring people who really ought to know better? Perhaps he'd like to help shape the world for his daughter, so that it's the best possible world?

There are many possible reasons, but I don't see "hate" anywhere in there.

Brilliantly put, mr_josh!

We can't say there is no precedent for the iPad. Thomas Edison and his many attempts to control media hardware, distribution and content come to mind.

Steve Jobs is not only the spiritual heir to Edison but P.T. Barnum as well.

Just as smart phones and app stores are really meant for stupid people, the iPad will prove without a doubt there is a sucker born every minute.

Cory, I would be curious to hear your thoughts in the video game console market. To me, the iPad is less restrictive than any game console. I'm not saying that we should settle on the iPad because of this, but I would like to read your thoughts on how the other side lives. This may be another article in itself, but I can wait. :)

Now *this* is why I read BoingBoing.
Thanks, Cory!

I'll probably do the same with the ipad as I did with the ipod touch, wait until someone jailbreaks it. Apple's "you can only use what we let you" policy is the biggest problem I have, but once that's gone, the ipod touch is a *really* cool device. Hopefully there aren't problems jailbreaking with apple's processor...

haha, I really lover you comment.

this article makes few strong points but it's far too negative.

Didn't people spout all the same whine about the iPhone, iMac, and iPod?

More the point, I can think of one absolutely killer app for the iPad:

Electronic musicians, producers, dj's etc.

This thing is an endlessly configurable portable control surface with enough computing power to double as a low end laptop with a ton of apps for all of the above immediately available.

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-world-in-synthesis.html

Now anyone can have a $2000 Jazz Lemur for a fraction of the price.

Why waste your money on anything else?

Cory, the chief value of the iPad is the size of the market is creates. First, it's compatible with the iTouch, so that it starts off with a bunch of applications. Yes, they're written for a much smaller screen, but those app vendors have a step up. Second, they're going to sell a lot of them, because it's Apple, and because it's a big touchscreen device with multitouch. Yes, it will have competition, e.g. from the Notion Ink. But they'll all be a little different, or run a different OS, or have a different graphics toolkit.

A lot of the value that Apple brings is simply creating a big market. Apple has the cool to do that. Linux has more cool -- lots more cool -- but it's spread out among a bunch of vendors who don't see the value in creating a standard. They all think that THEY are going to create a big market and they will be the people to control it. Kinda like the progressives think that after creating a powerful government, they will be the people to control it.

At some point, not to far away in our science fiction future, technology products like the iPad will likely be extruded like a single piece of plastic. For all intents and purposes, it will be a single, solid item. There may be literally be no way to tinker with it. Toss it in the recycling slot and extrude another.

Does that mean it's not yours?

This brief, hobbyist phase we're in right now means you can mess about under the hood, but I shouldn't expect it to last much longer. Perhaps we'll have more control over what forms we extrude or paint our gadgets, but I have no anticipation of being able to take apart and mess about with nano tech, replicated, unibody goods.

Makers may become the new Amish.

Lukas, there is no such thing as a free market. That's a foolish idea promulgated by foolish people. There are only markets controlled by customers and markets controlled by government. For some reason the same foolish people who think there are free markets (and don't like them) think that markets should be controlled by government, not customers.

wow, i'm sorry but you come across as being really jaded. We get it, you like to tinker and get your hands dirty, but i find your comments over the top. You'll find that you are in the minority of people who needs to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. If you are the geeky kind, that has control issues, and needs to be able to alter every facet of the device they own then I can really see how the ipad isn't for you. I really don't see this as a the threat to the fair world (really come on), so you can take you lighter away from the ethergy of steve jobs.

Apple pays millions and millions of dollars to get its message out - why are you so hurt when someone disagrees with it?

It's a bit worrying, imo.

Cory, I suspect that we'll see browser APIs to access the sensors in Safari and mobile Safari around the same time that we see those sensors get included in one of the MacBook lines, whenever that might be (possibly sooner, if mobile browsers for other platforms move first).

While for the moment you're correct that native apps still have that edge, I don't expect that to remain the status quo.

This is truly an exciting time to be a web developer.

The list of things I have the time and desire to crack open, alter, fix, and futz around with has gotten smaller and smaller. ... I'm about as concerned about the things you've brought up about the iPad as I am about whether I can hack my alarm clock.

Remember, it's not just about whether you can crack things open yourself — it's also about whether you can pay someone else to do so. When you need your car fixed, you probably don't do that yourself, but there's a free market for doing that and competition (usually) leads to reasonably good service for a decent price. You wouldn't want to be in a situation where only the manufacturer's service arm can repair your car.

Unfortunately, the Freerunner wasn't designed for hackers. It was designed for lusers. First, they went through a very painful hardware iteration, where they sold hardware that 1) didn't work, and 2) wasn't usable and 3) only slightly resembled the hardware they eventually shipped. Second, they went through three iterations of their software design, jumping from the pot, to the pan, to the fire. Hackers don't do that. Hackers pick a good design in the first place.

My ex-wife (we get along smashingly) is a doctor and from what I can observe, the medical community is going going batshit crazy for the ipad. I can promise you this, the ipad is going to find it's way into just about every kind of business. Doctors will use 3rd party devices with the ipad for diagnostics and will carry those bitches around like like a holy man carries the bible. To assume anything less is folly.

I hate how it's locked up and plan to jailbreak it immediately but this device is going to change things.

I'm stating that markets _shouldn't_ be totally free.

I'm saying that when corporations are allowed 'free' reign, things go wrong.

Governments are hopefully set up to look after the interests of the public at large. Laws are hopefully put in place to help ensure that society functions in a way that is agreeable to the public at large.

I am sincerely filled with admiration for the Makers Manifesto and tinkerers. However, as a practical matter I think most of the wired world consists of people like me, somewhere in that vast swath between geeks and mothers, between people who really want to open up gadgets and mess around and people who are entirely timid and clueless. I don't know if I want an iPad. It depends how pleasurable it really is to use. But just as I don't choose who to love or befriend ideologically, it's sort of the same way with things: the heart wants what the heart wants.

Look at the Notion Ink. It has a Pixel Qi screen, so it will be killer. Has a multitouch screen. Has a camera (on a swivel so it can point in front, up (so you can use it like a brownie camera), or at you. Should be out in a month or two.

The problem is that when you regulate corporations, you make it profitable to corrupt politicians instead of pleasing customers. Poor Lessig thinks he can have uncorrupted politicians AND regulated corporations. Larry has been observed trying to push 1000' long strings across the Stanford campus, with an equal lack of success.

The only way to please customers is ... to please customers. That's why *I* want my markets controlled by customers.

I hate to say it, but Cory's maker/DRM obsession is making his articles increasingly uninteresting. This one seems to have been written by some kind of weak AI based on a Markov model of his earlier writings; 100% predictable from the first sentence.

I think it's safe to say that Cory has never owned a video game console, given that they have the same issues the iPad does (in fact, they basically invented them.) That's fine, for him, but he's been in a small minority, those issues didn't cause consoles to fail, and some great games came out of the industry. I think the same is true of the iPhone/iPad.

Also, the idea that the iPad is somehow all about "old media" is absurd. It's just an angle that the press itself has been hyping. The clear precedent here is the iPhone (remember? That existing thing that's a lot like the iPad?) which has been a godsend to indie software developers. Take a look at the great iPhone games reviewed on Offworld and tell me with a straight face that the iPhone ecosystem is killing "makers".

Cory, with all due respect: meh!

I'm a sysadmin. I support a department's worth of desktops, a couple of servers, and a bunch of other tech. I've been using Linux in various distributions for well over a decade, and various other *nixes.

But at the end of the day, when I'm really too tired to deal with something flaky, I come home to a Mac. With a Mac, I'm pretty certain I can accomplish whatever task I need to do without some "issue" coming up. And today's OS X has all the command line stuff you'll ever need.

On top of that, I don't find Apple hardware to be closed. Oh yeah, if you're not technical. Otherwise, a box is a box. I've upgraded my supposedly "closed" Mac Mini, I've replaced the battery on my "unopenable by mere mortals" iPod, etc. And it's always been thus with Apple hardware. From using Mac crackers for the old 512Ks, to spatulas to open the Mac Mini. If you want in, you can get in. And usually without permanent damage. And you can jailbreak an iPhone.

I agree with you, Cory, about ThinkPads. Great hardware. But really no better than MacBook Pros (though maybe cheaper). You know, you can run Ubuntu on a MacBook Pro too. You can run Ubuntu pretty much on any general purpose computer Apple makes. How long before you can run a Linux distribution on an iPad? I give it 90 days.

As for the Apple operating system/s, well, you get what you pay for. But compare a full version of Windows is somewhere around $300, a full version of OS X is somewhere around $169 now with the box set (including all the iApps and productivity - true, a weird arrangement), Linux, free (depending).

With Windows, you're mostly screwed no matter how much you pay. OS X seems like a relatively fair deal. Linux... can be a little iffy. And then there's the BSDs...

I grew up in a world where when you bought something you could whatever the hell you wanted with it. Well, except for the telephone. Which you couldn't buy, could you? Things change.

I've owned an iPhone for 3 years: I bought my first one about 6 months after the initial release, and I've upgraded twice since then. I finally sold my last iPhone last month to get an Android phone.

I see where Cory is coming from. The iPhone's UI is the model of simplicity. It's smooth, shiny, and very useful.

But going from the iPhone to Android is like going from a toy to a tool. Not only can I write apps on a PC (the Apple SDK only works on the Mac), but I can do things that the iPhone won't let you do (without jailbreaking.) The Apple-banned PDANet works great on my iPhone, as does Google Voice and my podcast catcher - all things that Apple banned.

I can even (gasp!) install custom firmware or downgrade my firmware - without hacking the device.

Cory's hit the nail on the head. Where Apple says "DON'T OPEN THIS BOX", Android and *nix and Windows say "Come in, have a good time!"

As much as I envy the iPad's shiny, glossy exterior, I plan to wait for the HP Slate. I don't need to wait and hope for "an app for that"... because there already IS one.

Cory,

I agree with all of your criticisms of the iPad and disagree with all of your conclusions.

You seem to be writing that "if the iPad has these deficiencies, then by definition, no one should buy it". Wouldn't a more reasoned approach be that "if the iPad has these deficiencies, then each person should look and see if it is still worth it to them".

I don't share my comic books. I don't trade them or loan them out. I read them a couple of times, and then I generally toss them. So it doesn't matter to me that I can trade them or loan them or access them five years later if I buy them for the iPad. In this case, I lose nothing by getting them for the iPad and I gain convenience.

Would I like a free an open app universe for the iPad? Of course I would. Do I still find enough apps on the App Store to make the iPad worth it to me? Definitely.

Would I prefer it if I could open up the iPad and tinker with the insides. OK, you lost me here. I really don't want to do that. I custom built my computers for a while, but I have long since decided that the minor advantages are just not worth the hassle. And, as a guy who started working with Linux on version 0.13, let me say that I have moved on from kernel hacking as well.

Its an entertainment device. It seems to me that the question for people should be "Is the amount of entertainment you get worth the money you pay?" If it is, then you should get one. You have turned the question into "Are you willing to give up your freedom for a bit of short term pleasure?" I buy that argument when voting, not so much when buying a toy.

By the way, I just went to Disney World for the day to take pictures. I spent the whole day re-listening to "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom".

Regards, Michael

In an ideal world I'd love a market controlled by customers - but corporations have been allowed to grow to such an enormous size, customers don't actually have much influence.

I strongly believe we need laws which limit the actions of corporations.

Maybe laws which make lobbying more difficult would be a start?

Actually it occurs to me that this is just the old Mac-vs-Linux debate in another guise. And I have the same answer to it:

When I want to do X — where X is 'watch a movie' or 'print a photo' or 'write a story' or 'generate a Mandelbrot outline to laser-cut' — I want the computer to let me do X as easily and transparently as possible. Anything that gets in the way saps my energy and creativity and ends up infuriating me.

That is why I have installed and uninstalled Linux several times in the past 12 years. Linux was great fun when X='tinker with and set up my computer'. But when I wanted to do other stuff I ended up derailed with searching web forums for info about WiFi drivers or learning how to relink the kernel. And y'know, there are times when that's fun. But not when what I really want to do is print a photo or host a little Rails site or whatever.

So yes, yay for tinkering and making! But I don't always tinker and make, and at those times I want my device to be smooth and seamless and reliable. So when I go downtown for groceries I take the Acura, not the old half-taken-apart Fiat Spider. When I want to play some music, I'll use a music app (by some awesome indie developer of course) on my iPad, not the halfway-put-together x0xbox kit that I solder a few more transistors onto once in a while. The kit is fun too, but not for the same things. Got it?

Great thread! Here's my take. There are two types open: intended and hacked. You can buy a car *kit* and build from scratch or tweak an existing car.

In 1998 I made something similar to iPad for VJs. I ordered a Sharp Mebius from Japan, with an extra body and a Wacom tablet. The intent was to remove the keyboard from the Mebius, replace it with a 4x5 Wacom tablet, and used the handwriting recognition from Paragraph (originally used in the Newton and -ironically- purchased by Microsoft). Yes, tis nice to hack hardware.

When the iPhone came out, I jailbroke it and wrote this: http://www.youtube.com/ikoino#p/u/13/2xC1lvNgGMk instead of hacking hardware, I focused on the software side. Making shifted up notch to a higher layer of abstraction.

Now with the iPad, I'm porting everything to sit on top of ontology. Here is a visualization : http://www.youtube.com/ikoino#p/u/6/a703TTbxghc which was inspired by playing around with patchable music instruments, like this: http://bit.ly/cNWJ71 So, Making has shifted up a notch, again. Now, it is patching events percolating through a namespace.

Yes, hypercard was great. And, as Jack Daniel mentioned in #102, people are cracking upon the SDK to create their own apps. And perhaps, they'll be able to patch sensors and renders together like the modular Moog, of days gone by.

So, I think the iPad is quite a Make-able. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot: make-able at about 1/5 the price of I spent on the original Mebius/Wacom tweak. Cheers.

Wow!! Until I read this article, I thought I was a car enthusiast. You see, I bought a cool car because:
(A) I need/want transportation which my car provides, and
(B) my car its well designed by professional engineers, its well made, its good looking - and frankly, its cool.
I LOVE to drive my car!
I love the way it functions as a transportation device! I love maintaining it, I love buying accessories for it.
All this time I *THOUGHT* I was a "car enthusiast".

Little did I know that I'm really a car-phobe, that I'm "Stupid" and I don't even have genitals!
All because I don't feel ANY desire to tear apart my car's transmission and try to re-design it.

Wow!! Who knew?

I agree very strongly with the review. It's really all about greed and overconfidence. Sony and Apple are notorious for trying to force their customers into buying Sony or Apple accessories for their products and when they have a seller's market, everything is proprietary. Then when people stop buying, suddenly support for 3rd party hardware and software starts showing up.

Let me compare media players. I have an old Samsung YP-C1 MP3 player; it's about the size of my thumb, holds a gig of MP3/OGG/WAV files, has a small LCD that tells me what I'm listening to, records MP3s and runs for 44 hours continuously on one AA battery, which I can replace with another AA battery in under 5 seconds and continue listening for as long as I have more batteries, available almost anywhere. When I want to change files, I plug it into the USB port and copy/delete just like on a regular thumb drive. I have complete control over everything. Of course, there are three problems: one gig doesn't hold my entire audio file collection, it doesn't have an Apple logo and it isn't cool. With my iPod, I can't copy or delete anything without iTunes (which is almost impossible to install on the 64-bit Windows XP I use) and the battery only last a few hours, even with a Minty Boost. If an iPad is similar, do I really want to spend $650 on something that doesn't have freeware and I have limited control over?

tee hee. my mom was the first person i know to pre-order an iPad. Cory, stop talkin' about my mama!

To all these people berating Cory for starting a debate about the deficiencies of the iPad - what are your real problems?

Are you so firmly entrenched in the idea that Apple is great, that you can't bear to hear otherwise?

Is it really that that painful to hear a voice of dissent?

I know this is not your intention, Cory, but some of the criticism I'm reading from technophiles about the iPad is that it's not designed for technophiles who like to create and/or tinker (I know this is a gross oversimplification of what you are suggesting). As a user who is reasonably technical enough to enjoy tinkering and creating, sometimes I just don't feel interested in tinkering or creating. Sometimes I just want to consume, or communicate, or share, or read. I see an iPad like device very useful as a supplement to how I use technology. But I know there are a LOT of people out there uninterested in creating or tinkering and if the iPad can appeal to that crowd -- despite its flaws -- I say more power to Apple.

But you keep comparing the ability to get into a ThinkPad with the inability to get into an iPad. Laptop != Tablet. I have upgraded hard drives in plenty of Apple laptops. There are third party suppliers who can sell you external, long life batteries that can also act as USB device chargers and power adapters...
A better comparison would be the expandability of the JooJoo Pad compared to the iPad.

I've got nothing against the criticisms of the iPad. Every product is built with compromises - even open source ones. The trouble I have, as others have said is the link between the observations and the conclusions drawn.

I'm sure this will be buried in the pages of comments now, but it's a shame because we do need the discussion.

wow, i'm sorry but you come across as being really naive. We get it, you like to consume and keep your hands clean, but i find your comments over the top. You'll find that you are in the majority of people who like to passively consume their media. If you are the regular kind, that has no desire to create, and doesn't need to question authority or improve or fix the device they own then I can really see how the ipad is for you. I really see this as a threat to the fair world (I really do), so you can take you lighter away from the effigy of Cory Doctrow

Please take with a pinch of salt :)

Actually the FreeRunner had a couple problems, one of which was that they couldn't really decide who their target market was. It was both hackers and lusers and people in the OpenMoko community were bitterly divided on that point.

The other problem(which is sort of an isotope of the first) is that there were a bunch of OS/kernel-level guys trying to do UI/UX and failing miserably. The one distro with a usable interface was Qtopia from Nokia(nee TrollTech). This was actually not too surprising because it meant that there was at least one or more UI designer/artists working on Qtopia and getting PAID to be a designer rather than getting paid to be a kernel/distro hacker and thinking "Oh, this UI/UX stuff doesn't involve anything as complex as trapping interrupts, it's just application-level graphics, I'll have it done in a weekend".

I love the OM team and the guys who work on Angstrom and OE, and they've done great work on getting Linux ported to just about everything that beeps. I have at least 4 or 5 embedded Linux devices around the house and they're all running some flavor of OE or Angstrom. But, like most bare-metal developers, including myself, their UI/UX sucks.

The thing that Apple realizes, and few others get, is that a great user experience comes from great UX designers. Who are paid to be designers and artists and think like human beings and NOT like kernel geeks and whom you don't ask to even write the UI CODE. You have applications-level programmers who do that.

Sorry Cory. Because a digital device doesn't subscribe to a "maker manifesto" doesn't lessen it's worth to me.

A closed system can also be a thing worthy of celebration and even beauty. It can be efficient, designed for consistency and less buggy.

What's wrong with a controlled experience? We've been going to movies for centuries now yes? Why are options always good things?

I think Propellerheads Reason/Record software is another fine example of a closed system that works wonderfully.

Apple have done a commendable job in creating devices that (dare I say it) are fun to use. They design experience. I think this is something that "makers" will never like. Your fun is derived from a different set of rules and expectations.

But I have no interest in taking something apart.
I don't care how a carburetor works.
I loathe opening a computer and witnessing the guts.

And if I want to share a comic (something I rarely did as a kid BTW). I'll buy a physical comic? It's not a big deal to me.

I live in the dark after all.

But, as much as it may pain you to know, their are lots of us in here.

Well said, Cory, well said.
Unfortunately, given Apple's virtual control of the media, 99% of potential buyers will only ever hear gushing praise for this over-priced proprietary gadget.

I do indeed. My I am typing this on an Ubuntu Thinkpad, tethered to a rooted NexusOne.

Hi Cory.

You bought a device that will be e-waste in a couple of years. From a seller that runs a walled-garden approach to software. Then you jailbroke the device. To run software that runs against the wishes of the carrier (which you signed an agreement not to do)

By your admission, shouldn't you have not bought the Nexus One? and never signed up with the carrier that wouldn't let you do what you wanted as far as tethering?

Meanwhile work on the arduinopad continues apace...

Wow. How out of touch can you get, Cory?

The iPad is an enormously disruptive device. See Daniel Dilger's Roughly Drafted article today: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/04/02/ipad-the-destroyer-19-things-it-will-kill/

Just as with the iPod and iPhone, nobody will control what happens next. Not Apple. Not even Corey. Good try tho'.

Lets get this out of the way. I have an iPod (first gen of the video version), a Macbook (2007), and I had a Nano (which I just lost on a plane trip in January... it has my phone number on the back, but no calls. I do not have an iPhone (AT&T..... I'm looking at you).

I know the reasons to hate on an iPad, and I think you bring up some great issues about sharing content (book swaps). But, as a geek girl since '81 (which is when I was born) - I also know the majority of the world does not understand my flavors of geekdom.

How many times have I wished for just the right comic for that person to be in my hands so I could show them how awesome it is? But I can't lug around every flavor of graphic novel all the time. The iPad is something I can hand over to a friend to have them read/watch/listen off of my iPad. It's just how I see highschool kids using their iPods and smart phones (hey listen to this track.. look at this picture).

I think the power of the iPad is going to be in passive computer use. I'm an online, Creative Writing, graduate student who has cross-country flights every six months while I finish up my degree. The iPad will be the perfect device to take on planes (since using my laptop in Economy class is fairly worthless when the person in front of me decides to recline). When I'm at the beach I can read my short story assignments or jot down an idea I have for my next article. (Of course, I'm opting for the 3G versions out later this month).

And, of course, some of the desire is my geek-factor. I grew up with Star Trek Next Generation being my first Trek. I've wanted a iPad ever since it was a PADD.

To all these people berating the iPad for not being tailored perfectly to your own specific needs - what are your real problems?

Are you so firmly entrenched in the idea that the iPad cannot be allowed to exist that you can't bear to hear about anyone who intends to buy one?=

Is it really that that painful to hear a voice of dissent?

We were seriously thinking about getting a matching pair of iPads. Then came AAPL's censorship. Light bulb: one source for all software, moderated by, not only function, but also, content.

Then came the battery issue: I might be willing to go to the shop for battery replacement, but at the cost of a memory swipe? I'm not sure.

Okay, so, but this morning came the killer. I reckon I can understand why it would be: drivers. (Maybe someone far more intelligent can tell me I'm dead wrong.) The danged thing can't send a simple file to a printer! (We're old-fashioned enough that we like to have a printed copy when, for example, we order stuff online. Printed postcards are nice, too.)

Kills it for us. Period.

AAPL said all along they didn't intend it as a stand-alone device. It's purely and totally an adjunct. We can do without.

Too many people flamed me for me to reply to each one in a small amount of time so, here goes a lump reply: =)

1) When I said you can't create anything, I was speaking with hyperbole. Sure, you can create some things, but you can't exactly fire up Maya on this or Photoshop with a tablet and start doing serious 3D art (as far as I know...I haven't read anything about drawing on it in a serious way yet...but if I'm wrong about that, then I'm wrong and I admit it!)

Without Maya though, a tablet isn't really great for work for me.

2) Dreamweaver, anyone? Some of us create stuff with Dreamweaver/Flash/etc... no clue if that will come in the future, but given Job's total hatred for Flash, I don't see that in the cards anytime soon I guess. Tho I can imagine that HTML5 upgrades will be good for web sites and that's a good thing, yes.

3) While lots of games will be played on the iPad, you'll still need a powerful desktop (or laptop) to create most of the content for it (as far as I know....). So it isn't a desktop or laptop killer at all.

And to the person who said that I don't want to pay for the products (or whatever), I didn't say that at all. I'm totally for Apple making money and I did say that I love Apple a lot. I just think that their attitude sucks right now about content choice and controlling every single thing there is.

Also, I have to agree with Cory on the Murdoch thing. I think Murdoch should charge for content, but I don't think that this will solve their problems as most people will just go to free sites. Remember the NYT trying this out a few years back? It didn't work. Remember CNN trying that out with their video feeds? That didn't work either. The iPad may make that partially successful, but I doubt it'll entirely replace what we have now for content delivery.

BTW, I recently switched from an iPhone to an Android and I have to agree with the poster who said it's like going from a toy to a tool. I love my Droid and what it can do. I love the iPhone for actually creating the smartphone market though, just as I love the iPod for creating the MP3 market for a wide audience (even though many were there before it, few were using it until the iPod).

So yes, I do respect and even love Apple, so please don't think I'm a hater. That wasn't very cool. But I don't like what Apple has been doing lately with it's store, and a lot of other things. That doesn't make me a hater, it makes me an honest critic.

BTW, for what it's worth, I do think the iPad as a model is around to stay and will be something integral in the future. I think though, like the iPhone, it's going to have some serious competition from Google and others in the coming years.

Oh and one more thing: obviously there are many Apple fans who are not entirely pleased with the contractual agreements of the App store. Tim Bray's posting on it *was* very important. We're not talking about tons of people who just hate Apple calling foul on the iPad and iPhone lately. There are many people who love Apple, and don't mind buying lots of things from Apple (and have done so in the past), calling foul on some things lately. It's not just purely Open Source people, or "net hippies" who think everything should be free (I sell digital art of sorts online myself...even though I do give some things for free). I think these are serious issues that are being raised lately. Just flaming and dismissing us as stupid or dumb isn't the way to talk about them, thank you.

I've been an Apple fan for a long time, I've bought lots of products from them, and I will keep doing that in the future. So maybe, when somebody like me is starting to get concerned about some of the directions of the company, the first thing that shouldn't be done is to say that I'm an idiot.

Thank you and all.

Full disclosure first. I follow you, Cory, because you once had a very literate defense of my occupation (I'm a field rep for publishers). And I do believe you have every right to express your take on the iPad hype. But there were a couple of things in your post that compelled me to comment here.
First, since you brought in your ancestry, I'll start there. My father was born in 1917. He left high school to join the CCC. He wanted to assist the family finances (his dad was a carpenter). He never graduated, but he read books voraciously for the rest of his life. During WW2, he spent his time in Europe as a jeep mechanic. And that's how he made his living, as an auto mechanic.
In other words, I come from a line of makers & tinkerers.
I remember my 10th Christmas for 2 reasons, one was the chance to see the surface of the moon on TV (Apollo 8) and second, because my dad (a single parent in the 60s) gave me a toy computer. There were little cards with multiple choice questions that you inserted and the answer was given in a light bulb array. Flashforward to high school,1975, my computer math class which involved cards and COBOL to solve a square root problem. Flashforward to college, using SAS and Fortran to do longitudinal analysis for my senior limnology project.
All this to say, I have been engaged with computers for a long time. Can I change a tire, change the oil, find the plugs on a car? Sure. But my dad intentionally didn't teach me much because he didn't want me to spend my life hunched over a car for a job.
I have a 6-year old. Do I want him to be a code monkey, or a Genius barista, or a Geek squad fixer, not really. But I do want him to embrace all the power and wonder and knowledge that the digital world offers. And I think the iPad is the most simple, elegant way for an individual to interact with that world produced yet.Am I teaching to conform to info silos and DRM. No, and I think that Lessig, Lanier and you are doing a fine job pushing the conversation forward on those topics. Will we read books on it? Likely not, because there is no measure for the joy I get watching him hunched over a paperback copy of Geronimo Stilton, then explaining to me what he has read.
It's interesting to read about the choices you have made about the iPad. I'm not buying your call for the rest of us not to buy one.

"The iPad you buy today will be e-waste in a year or two (less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you)."

Ok Cory, I'll take you up on that proposition. Contact me and we will finalize a $1000 bet at 1:1 odds. If by April 10th 2011 more than 50% of the week 1 iPad owners have needed a new battery I will pay you, otherwise you can pay me.

If you are just meme fluffing and traffic whoring, then you don't need to respond or can delete this comment.

I don't like artichokes. I think I'll write an angry post on my blog about how I don't like them, and because *I* don't like them, nobody else should buy them, either.

Does it bother you that you can't take apart your processor? How about the video chip? The screen? The battery? Maybe it does bother you, but has it meaningfully stifled your curiosity or creativity?

It's not entirely accidental that each of those components is, individually, significantly more reliable than it's even possible for you assembled computer to be. Partly that's because the assembled computer's failure rate is greater than the sum of its parts' failure rates. But it's also easier to design something reliable when it doesn't have to permit disassembly.

Apple just works at a higher level of abstraction. As a developer of web software, I'm absolutely thrilled with anything that a) makes the web even more accessible to more people, and b) pushes violently forward on the *standards-compliant* capabilities of the web.

So is there an accessory for mounting your iPad on your Segway yet?

Thank you Cory. After those very enthusiastic posts about the new iPad, that didn't even mention its restrictive nature I was beginning to loose faith in Boing Boing.

To bring Benjamin Franklin to the 21. Century:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary stylishness, deserve neither.

"When I said you can't create anything, I was speaking with hyperbole. Sure, you can create some things, but you can't exactly fire up Maya on this or Photoshop with a tablet and start doing serious 3D art (as far as I know...I haven't read anything about drawing on it in a serious way yet...but if I'm wrong about that, then I'm wrong and I admit it!"

So only computers that can run Maya or Photoshop have validity? What about all the people that don't care one whit about those applications?

Talk about myopic.

I'll stick with my Touchbook. It may not have fancy Apple UIs, but it's WAY cheaper and I've got tons of options for OS, application sources, and some hardware components.

Not to mention that I can buy a really nice Asus netbook for the same price - 10.5 hours battery life (probably more like 8-9 in real life) with a real keyboard, and all the software windows or linux can provide, without the iFascists looking over my shoulder ensuring that I dont' do anything they don't like.

Apples stubborn instance that their fascism is all about maximizing the user experience is a joke. If I can't take off the training wheels and get out of the driveway, it certainly wouldn't be maximizing my experience.

I mean, seriously - they talk about the lack of Flash as having been a security issue or the like... but it's transparent that they just don't want people to be free playing flash games instead of buying apps.

Why on earth would I want to buy a crippled netbook?

Cory, thank you for verbalizing my thoughts on Apple better than I ever could.

Also, the idea that the iPad is somehow all about "old media" is absurd. It's just an angle that the press itself has been hyping.

Right. While it does give old media a possible new revenue-generating content delivery platform - one not dependent on killing trees and trucking tons of proto-landfill across the country at ever-increasing postage rates - it gives that same platform to any mom-and-pop shop that wants to publish. In that sense it levels the playing field in much the way that blogs have on the web, while also making it possible to be self-supporting and whatever level one chooses to operate (and the "free" web is still always there as yet another option).

As has been pointed out several times, if you're a Maker of content, a large potential audience and a small-but-certain revenue guarantee is a huge win. I don't have a philosophical issue with paying for what comes to me via this device (whether it's an app or content) if I'm happy with what I get and the price is reasonable. I've probably put a dozen apps on my iPhone, and I know for a fact that the combined total I've shelled out is less than the price of some individual shareware programs I use on my Macs. I've gotten a lot of utility relatively cheaply, the developer got enough income to keep creating, and Apple got a cut for making the whole thing possible. Seems like a win all around.

Meanwhile, if I want to hack tools, I still have a desktop and a laptop at my command.

Little known fact: Steve Jobs is actually a Herald of Galactus. http://pubtech.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/silversteven.jpg

@Jess

I didn't say that the iPad was invalid. I just think that I've heard enough "is this the end of the laptop?" hype that I should point out that it isn't the end of the laptop, nor will it replace some work computers for people like me who make stuff on computers for providers of digital content.

Where did I say that it was invalid?

I would expect Quake to run on the iPad beautifully. http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

I agree with you. I think the future of computing doesn't lie in devices like this because of their restricted nature. However, it's a tell-tale sign that Apple is still alive at all despite it's almost three decades of closed-business on their hardware (which hurt them immensely in the 90's).
Apple's attention to detail, usability and design (which I would argue is as important in our devices as our ability to "own" them -i.e. take them apart) has taken computing to a new level where creative people (like me) feel like they have a device they can actually create with out of the box, and consume/interact with others creations as well. The ipad is a consumptive medium, but there is no doubt that it is interactive; and for the same reason that Linux hasn't achieved the GUI design levels of Apple, I'm not sure an open source company can streamline the experience that Apple has created in the iPad... but we will see.
Great article, gets me thinking.

Great piece and a very thought-provoking counter to the temptation I could feel creeping up on me after reading Xeni's posts.

And the fact that Xeni can post a glowing review and Cory can blast out such a condemnation fills me with admiration for Boing Boing. Balance in journalism without hiding under a rock... fantastic!

I can't wait until 15 years from now, when everyone is using their completely-closed APPLE STANDARD COMPUTER, using their APPLE STANDARD MUSIC PLAYER to listen to APPLE STANDARD MUSIC. Then when you are getting in your APPLE STANDARD 2025 CAR, driving to the APPLE STANDARD STORE to pick up a loaf of APPLE STANDARD BREAD PRODUCT and a jug of APPLE STANDARD MILK PRODUCT, you suddenly realize, "Holy Shit, Cory was right."

Cory, I think you're conflating two arguments here: Why the iPad won't work on the market (like AOL and CD-ROMS), and why *you* don't like it. You don't like the iPad because of its DRM and lack of hackability, and that's totally understandable. However, the market has pretty well demonstrated that *it* overwhelmingly doesn't care about those issues. The insane success of the iPhone (three *billion* apps downloaded/paid for!) demonstrated that.

This is absolutely silly. Can't create content? Have you ever picked up an iPhone? Please look at the gazillion apps in the App Store which allow you to make music, visual art, alter your photos and videos, write the next great American novel, and so on. I am regularly surprised and delighted by new apps and the novel things they allow me to do on something smaller than a deck of playing cards. If Apple is stifling the creativity of developers I have yet to see evidence of it. I'd rather have Apple-vetted apps that don't crash than a device full of buggy, conflicting software turning my iPhone or iPad into a brick.

As others have noted, I don't see you griping about not being able to take apart and customize an Xbox to play PS3 or Wii games on it, yet those devices are successful because they are closed systems and, most importantly, because they simply work.

Enjoy taking apart your Lenovo Ubuntu Thinkpad Netbook Whatchamajig and stuffing it with homebrew apps, but I suspect you'll soon be peering over the shoulder of someone using an iPad with more than a wee bit of envy. It's not for you -- fine. Don't buy one. But suggesting that others should adopt your extreme DIY aesthetic is like demanding that they convert to Mormonism.

I am quite amazed at how much attention and how many words are being spent on the iPad, even before its release. I suppose this is a testament both to the fact that there is a dearth of other market-shaking innovation at this time and Apple's track record with the iPod and iPhone.

It's just a product, kids, with things to like and things to dislike, some bits to love and others to hate. It does not posses the power to have such negative effects on the world as we know it.

I admire Cory's work and respect his opinion. And I *completely agree* with his take on how publishers, editors, copyright holders and such are pathetic in their whooping it up while creating products to run on the iPad using yesterday's ideas.

But I'm afraid that language such as "...submit to the whims of a single company that had declared itself gatekeeper for your phone and other personal technology." is a load of manure. It is unnecessarily inflammatory and distracting from the issues at hand.

Apart from the fact that nobody is being forced to buy the thing or develop for it, many will gladly do so. And not because they are too stupid or vain or lack the ethical backbone on display in this post, but because they will get value in return in the form of fun, joy, learning, convenience or even cash.

And for the rest of you naysayers, you will have Apple to thank for the speed with which the next generation of successful Maker's Manifesto tablet products will find their way into your hot little hands. They will have relied on Apple having opened the market and will have borrowed some interface ideas, form factor ideas and business model ideas from the iPad. I will be as upset and angry as the rest of you if Apple decides to sue any of these spawn for patent or copyright violations, but that's another matter.

It doesn't bother me that I can't get into the CPU as a component. It *does* bother me that ostensibly fungible components (eg. x86-compatible CPUs) nevertheless fit into proprietary sockets that are manufacturer-specific, such that I have to purchase motherboard/CPU *combinations*. Note that several of the other components you mention do not suffer from this problem.

I'm reasonably certain that eventually the 'handheld touchscreen' will become a fungible component akin to a universal remote, a monitor, or a keyboard, but that isn't actually what Apple is doing here.

Now, if only wall-warts were standardized like batteries...

I apologize in advance if this has already been said, but if you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you'd download the Apple iPhone SDK.

No, they wouldn't learn how to wield a soldering gun, but there's still tons of opportunity for growth and enrichment.

Maybe I'm being oblique, but this reminds me - in a good way - of something Nathanael West wrote almost 70 years ago, in his novella Miss Lonelyhearts:

“Men have always fought their misery with dreams. Although dreams were once powerful, they have been made puerile by the movies, radio and newspapers. Among many betrayals, this one is the worst.”

Media technology is an amazing kind of amplifier for the human, and it can take us in either direction: the sweating carcass on the sofa, the thinker and doer of things previously unimagined. And this is one of the most brilliant invectives against the former that I've read for a long time. Time to burn my iPhone...

Of course you're fully entitled to your opinion - I don't agree with it, but then I'm entitled to that as well. Like some other commenters it's the suggestion that not only you don't want an iPad, but no-one else should either that I find slightly offensive. I want one. And I don't want something I can take apart, or get into the OS, or mess around with. What on earth would I want a tool for? I want something that looks good, and works. All the reviews I've seen suggests it does both. So, I'll get one, and if it becomes anything like a part of my life like the iPhone has, it won't be money wasted.

"Having said that, if you want a tablet, get an Archos."

Yes, buy a crappy, poor man's tablet while watching everyone else enjoy their ipad. Great advice.

The points you make are certainly valid in a general sense of computing. I just think applying the ideas to the specific case of the iPhone OS platform is to miss the point.

This new class of consumer computer is not going to be *for* the tinkerer, the enthusiast, the geek/nerd. It's designed for a different category of people - for people that don't want to deal with software that comes in rpms or exes, for people that want to buy software the same way they buy music, for people that don't want to learn user interface arcana, and for people that don't have time for details. Heck, it's for people that don't know (or care) what a "file system" is!

Ever since the Apple II+, computers have been transitioning from needing specialized training, thick user manuals, and hours of frustration to learn, to something that has a folded up 8.5"x11" piece of paper with a few usage hints that might not be immediately obvious. Open the box, turn it on and just use it.

The group of people that the iPad is designed for is not a long tail - it's a huge demographic with spare cash to spend. And they are going to use this invention in ways no one guessed. This is the future of consumer computing. Like it or not - here it comes.

Brillo, thanks for writing what immediately came to mind.

"Mom" isn't too stupid and enfeebled to use a "real" computer. "Mom" has better things to do (like nurture new humans) than rooting her NexusOne.

Complicated, open computers will always be around, and be cherished and used by those with the luxury of time and mental bandwidth to do so. But please- let "Mom" catch a break, too.

I *love* how much you hate it.

Got it bang on Cory. I still have my Apple ][+ (a CLONE model even), and if I had the space to hook it up, it would probably still work (I know the other //'s I've collected over the years all still do!).
It's too bad those of us who share this opinion seem to be in the dwindling minority, as more and more people are content to have technology spoon-fed to them in bite-sized pieces, because cutting our own portion sizes means we need utensils, and that's just too scary, someone may get hurt!

What if I'm replying to you on my Jailbroken iPad tethered to my Jailbroken iPhone on a non AT&T netowrk running 3rd party software from a 3rd party appstore?

Controls are *always* subverted.

Actually, with HTML 5 you can create apps that run locally without a constant network connection.

It's funny- Cory blogs with glee about how the hard-copy newspaper industry is dying because of *dynamic!* *new*! *media!* paradigms, and then almost in the same breath cries bitterly about how the hard-copy comic book industry is dying because of these exact same *dynamic!* *new!* *media!* paradigms. But comic books are near and dear to Cory's heart, so it's a terrible tragedy, Oh The Humanity, etc etc. "Oh merciful heavens, won't someone think of the comic books being brutally destroyed by this evil new gadget?"

Please.

The fact is that very few people under the age of 30 read or collect comic books. I know dozens of my son's friends (all in the 15 to 18 year old range) and not a one of them has the slightest interest in comic books. Not one. The interest just isn't there for them. Go ahead, ask around at your local high school. Comic books? Please, they'd rather admit to being Power Ranger fans.

Anyway...to be blunt, I'm NOT an Apple fan in the least. I hate the generally closed nature of their products. I don't like their gate-keeping and overly-tight control of anything that touches their hardware. I just don't do Apple stuff, for a variety of reason, but those two are right at the top of the list.

With that said, the iPad may actually spark some revival in comic book interest because of the format. That's a Good Thing(r). However, not being able to trade or loan the content will undoubtedly suppress a lot of that interest. And that's a Bad Thing(r). The platform will probably let a lot of unknown artists create new, potentially interesting content, which in my opinion is a Good Thing(r). (Some of that content will no doubt be pure shit, but that's just the way life is, folks.)

So, surprise, surprise- we can't have it both ways. The likely result of that will be the creation of an iPad competitor that is unfettered and open (similar to Linux). That's inevitable, and can only be a Good Thing(r).

This article is an interesting perspective but there are plenty of people willing to trade the instant market place that the App Store brings for any limitations Apple might place on content. If you're not one of those people then just wait for the first jail break of the iPad and proceed. To say that there is no innovation and creative energy going into iPad development is well - at least short sighted. I try all new technologies (that appear at least reasonable or interesting) but at the end of the day I derive most of my utility from people using the stuff I've created (Apps) and the more users the more utility. Every platform has constraints and limitations. It's part of the game and to shun a potential new platform before it's even released and you've seen how it's going to fair makes no sense. (especially when there is such momentum behind it.) It's like building a stock portfolio - you have to take risks to get rewards and I compare the pile potential gadgets (I have that are now collecting dust) that didn't make to start-up stocks in my portfolio that augured in. Life requires taking some risk and being willing to make a mistake or two if you want to achieve your potential. See you guys in line tomorrow.

Underlying the idea of using the iPad as an ebook reader is an assumption that people can and want to read content online (or on screen) in the same way as they read paper books and magazines.As a ebook reader, I think the iPad will fail in this regard.

However, I think the iPad will still succeed, as people will find other ways to use it.

I can see it being a huge success as a games console that also allows you to surf the web and run apps.

The arrangement by which one develops for Apple devices would have been completely unacceptable to Gates, Woz and Jobs 30 years ago

I don't get this idea that Apple products are for consumption only, not for creation.

Does that mean that every author, every musician, every graphic designer, etc. should know how to solder a mainboard or compile or kernel, or else he or she is unable to _create_ anything?

"If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you're going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn't for you. "

Isn't the point of writing code to solve a problem in a way that "the audience" loves? I mean, why would you write code that solved a problem in a really nasty to use way? If you did, nobody would use it and the problem would still be essentially unsolved.

Also, hacking is really not the key to life. You can't hack the iPad. Big deal. You can still hack unix/linux/the web/pcs/all kinds of other stuff. The fact that you can't hack the iPad doesn't mean that progress is going to stop.

This from a site that has a banner ad that completely filled up my browser window when I opened the article.

I guess I see this as the standard Apple way. Besides your reference to the Apple II+, I think, since the Mac, it's been clear that Apple is the closed-source company compared to PC-based systems which are far more open. That's fine, but its not what general consumers want.

There is a small minority of non-potato people who love to hack the shit out of their stuff, but, frankly, I'd rather worry about building other things these days. I don't like having to spend four hours in my XF86Config figuring out why my video card won't output the resolution of my monitor.

Anyway, whatever words we want to throw back and forth, it's going to sell a ton. Most people are going to love it because most people don't want computers, they want to do THINGS, and those things can be done with this slate of glass and aluminium.

Besides, it will be jailbroken quick and you can do all sorts of shit with it.

I suspect that the biggest problem that Cory has with the iPad is that it's the epitome of everything he doesn't believe in, and he knows it's going to be successful regardless. So he views all this stuff as a personal attack on himself and his way of life, even to the point of insulting the rest of us.

The biggest thing that he misses (or ignores), is that for the vast, vast majority of us, the political argument, the philosophy of 'openness', all this other stuff, it means less than nothing. His entire philosophy is tied up in this, between his writing and work with the EFF etc. For most of us, it's about getting up in the morning, getting to work, trying to do what we do as best we can, and have a good time the rest of the time with our friends and loved ones.

Anything that adds to the quality of our lives is appreciated, anything that detracts from it is reviled. That doesn't mean we're lazy, it just means we have different priorities.

We are not ideologues. Cory is. That's OK, the world needs starry-eyed idealists. I just wouldn't take their advice about anything important.

Glue up tight—I never want to deal with what's inside. Ever.

That is not my job, I do not take pleasure in it, I want nothing to do with it, and it's up to designers of product to ensure a reliable and elegant enough device that I am able to use the device and that I am not responsible for maintaining it.

Technology moves forward, not backward.

I wrote a longer retort on my blog here: http://mysticalforest.livejournal.com/1739239.html

Meanwhile, I'm not quite clear on why there's any amount of hostility toward a specific product or license when there are oodles of other products and agreements out in the world.

There is a lot of choice. It's a big world.

Apple is not preventing anyone from selling anything. If anyone doesn't like Apple's terms they can sell according to someone else's on a competing device, or with no terms by selling directly from themselves to any one of billions of computers on the planet.

<sarcasm>Yes, I agree, totally, 100%, wholeheartedly. What we need are more devices that are so difficult to use that only those with Computer Science PHD’s can figure them out. I mean, those “timid, technophobic, scatterbrained mother”’s don’t deserve the honour of using a computer.

And besides, letting every-man-and-his-dog put their custom apps on the iPad would be no problem if every-man-and-his-dog couldn’t use the damn device! I mean, no more fun, simple games clogging up the ecosystem when users can only afford the time to figure out serious, work applications.</sarcasm>

Exactly right. sleepybrett The iPhone has been a boon to the hacker community, which put a large effort into jailbreaking. I don't see any reason to assume that the iPad will be any different.

The "Wal-Martization of the software channel" is my favorite new phrase.

The music industry was almost killed by WalMart, Best Buy, and Target. When they became the biggest retailers of software, the average number of titles stocked at any given retail store dropped by a factor of 10. They almost killed the independent artist's chance of ever being heard. They increased censorship. It had a terrible effect: the anti-long tail.

Ironically, the music industry was saved (in part) by iTunes, which made it easy for independents to sell their music. ("Saved" is a strange word, since the record companies have fared horribly. But artists still have a way to get their music out, which is fantastic).

But the App Store is much more WalMart than it is iTunes. Censorship? Check. Short tail? Check. Forced to give a crazy percentage to "the man?" Check.

hmmmm...

the iPad as the Antichrist Jr.! Feels a little bit like fanboy bait.

I get your point, but even as a non-fanboy I will be purchasing an iPad guilt free. I will be reading BoingBoing on it. I'll even come back and re-read this column (meta!)

I for one, think there is a huge opportunity for rolling our own iPad content.

Plenty of free apps will convert my non-DRM text files to the ePub format.

It's waiting for a free zine distribution revolution.

And, having a searchable reference library of content I already own untethered from the net? Pretty useful to me.

Who cares if Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, The Borg, or Satan made it in a way that ruffles our feathers? Because the open devices don't have the tools I need... I'll work with the closed system until something better comes along.

I also see the hardware as a fairly inexpensive way to experiment with recording and performing music. There are apps that give me 4 track recording, guitar tuning, sequencing, sampling and remixing capabilities at a fraction of the cost of a rack full of hardware gadgets.

Amidst the clutter of positive reviews, I appreciate that you are putting an alternative view out there and explaining why the iPad is making you a little cranky.

"We are not ideologues. Cory is. That's OK, the world needs starry-eyed idealists. I just wouldn't take their advice about anything important."

"We"?? who is 'we'?

And that last sentence is gold; what a bright future we must have waiting for us!

Yes, it's much, much better to shut-up and accept the way things are.

Thanks for the article, it was a great read.

I have one point to bring up about the journalism section, though. I agree that the industry is looking for a "daddy figure", but that's because its problem is ad revenue and not circulation. An iPad app could boost readership, but what they're really looking for is a new frontier in advertising. Maybe publishers are hoping to be able to fix declining ad sales with tablets, but judging by their initial clumsy reactions to the Internet, this seems unlikely. People want their content for free, or next to nothing, which is why advertising is so important in the industry. Maybe people will be willing to pay a premium for some content, but the very large majority of consumers will want their content for free. I understand that Apple keeps a portion of the profits for all of the apps, but will that really give consumers justification for paying over $200 a year for the Wall Street Journal?

I read Cory's post and I disagree with much of the sentiment. There's a reason the Make Magazine multi-tool is called The Warranty Voider. You'll be able to jailbreak the iPad, just like you can jailbreak the iPhone. Just don't expect Apple tech support to have your back. If you want to crack it open--hardware or software--you have to do it with the understanding that if you break it, Apple isn't going to put it back together for you for free. I don't think that's unreasonable on Apple's part. We'll provide this service, as long as you don't fuck with shit. Cory wants to have his cake and eat it too.

On the comic front:

So to buy a comic from Marvel you have to do this :-

Buy Ipad, buy service, buy app, buy comic

Which a tiny number of people can do.

As opposed to go to website, buy comic? Which is it possible for billions to do?

How does that make any sense?

I think the question of serviceability has more to do with the tool set and what people are used to than you think. An iPod is as serviceable as anything else assuming you have a spudger and some other little tools. Assuming you have to be able to use a screwdriver to open something overly limits things: I can't change my car's oil with just a screwdriver, yet I still consider my car fully user serviceable.

It comes down to an evolution in the tools and mind set. Just like an early computer hacker might have had a good set of wire wrapping tools then they evolved to using soldering and desoldering equipment, the hard core hackers of today have SMD rework stations and various plastic and fiberglass tools.

Rejecting something because it doesn't use discreet, screwdriver level serviceable parts would limit you to Z80 level hardware. Surface mount, press fit cases, etc. are the future and they're here to stay.

A true anti-Maker move would be to have the case epoxied shut and chips glued into place. I've run into that, i.e. with an iOpener back in the day. There are still ways around that! ;-)

Cory,

What do you think of the ipad when you consider the inevitability of someone jailbreaking it just as has happened with the iphone. Certainly there are those out there who will love the hardware (ultimately all hardware is disposable and will eventually be superseded and replaced by newer superior hardware) but not like the terms they've been dealt and will change the terms to something more agreeable to them.

I'm sure there will be ipad apps on Cydia appearing in the near future.

Apple is a cult, plain and simple. It has many loyal, unquestioning, indoctrinated followers. Those on the outside look at it and think it's weird, and maybe a little scary. I'm not an affiliator, so I just do my best to avoid anything Apple. There are so many interesting alternatives for the free thinker.

It's not infantilising my sixtysomething dad to say that stripping away the 'using computers' bit of using computers actually allows him to use a computer. It's liberating him from UI metaphors and models of interaction that are barriers to access. He loves his grandkids' Wii, because it's not like 'using a computer'; and the iPad is set to be much less of a consumption device than the Wii, and more of a potential interface to physical-world creativity that is not tied to the narrow domain of computing devices.

If this was made out of brass and covered with steampunk doodads you'd be loving it.

Ding ding ding to the comment from RussNelson #144
I won't be buying a 1st-gen iPad either, but I am REALLY happy to see it come to market and I hope it succeeds brilliantly. I've been trying tablets for a few years and never found one that felt good to use or worked well, but I am convinced this form factor is a great idea. If Apple can bring one out that feels good and works well, it will be a huge clue to other companies that this is a worthwhile space to be in.

Thank you for posting this ... it echoes my sentiments almost exactly. As one of those "nerds" or "tinkerers" I have spent my life taking things apart, modifying, programming ect.!

I find it troubling that Apple markets itself as superior "creative platform" while it locks the door and closes the blinds. I have a sneaking feeling that this is heralding a shift towards super-dumb-computing that essentially leaves all those confusing "options" out in favor of stuff that "just works".

Cory, I owe you one virtual beer. Thanks for such a well written, eloquent explanation of what Apple really is. I think they look at their customers in the same manner that PT Barnum did.

I love OSX, but I agree with Cory on this. Not that I think it will do any good. The fact is that Jobs is the dictator we love to love. Consumers do not actually mind giving up their freedom.

Look: you do not have to HOLD and PLAY AROUND with an Ipad to comment on the business model and tech specs provided by apple (although it actually would help if you had played with cocoa and written an iphone app before you comment on how open the platform is- it's not).

This is the companion piece to this article that you should read and think about: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/29/tim-oreilly-defines.html.

I keep trying to put it more simply than Cory did in this article- and I can't. Cory spelled out his concerns very clearly, and has been facing down strawmen and false dichotomies at an unprecedented level. I'm amazed that apple fans will complain about Microsofts' evil empire, and cheer at Apples'. The power of marketing knows no bounds.

"I believe -- really believe -- in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can't open it, you don't own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better."

Removing the main chip from your car will void your warranty on just about every car out there. Are you saying that you don't own your car? Even turning a bolt in the engine area or undercarriage by a non-authorized mechanic of a high-end car, will void the warranty.

You could tinker all you want with a Model-T, too. But do you really think there are user-servicable parts in a modern car? I would say the same thing for a device like an iPad, cellular phone, etc.

In the latest major rev of iPhoto, Apple "closed" the iPhoto library (made it a package instead of a regular directory) because the *largest* number of support requests were from people who had messed up their iPhoto by moving images around in the iPhoto library.

If everyone was responsible tinkerers, then maybe things would be more open. But over the years, I have come to learn that as much as we would like to believe it is for some nefarious reason that things are closed, it really boils down to product support. Because, well, the average user is going to break something if you give them the opportunity. And Cory, you are not an average user, so, of course, things like the iPad make you mad.

Check out ExoPC Slate, it is suppose to be released in June. It is a Windows 7 based tablet that you can read any format of Ebook, you can upload your own applications and music for about the same price as the 32 GB IPAD. It is what I will probably buy instead of the Ipad. If I want an Apple device I will think about buying an a IPOD Touch, seeing that you get the same functionality but at a more portable size and at half the price.

The garden has walls, and its groundskeepers are capricious. But you have to admit that it's a really nice garden.

the hypocrisy I hear from the html5 crowd is unbelievable. Flash sucks because it's owned by a big company, it's got processor/power and security issues. Now that I've passively dismissed everything flash and proprietary technology, excuse me while I go make something I could have built 6 years ago in flash for that celebration of all things open-source, the ipad.

Flash and its amazing community of artists and developers have paved the way for people to do interesting things on the web beyond tables and div tags. They've pushed the original concepts of what a web experience should look like right out the window, sometimes with bad results. But they still got people thinking in new and different ways about what a web experience can be, and that is a good thing.

Whether you like the flash platform or not (obviously, you don't), do not belittle the efforts and innovation of this community. They have worked too hard and delivered way too many amazing and inspiring ideas to deserve this. Flash revolutionized video on the web. It was the catalyst that took video from being something you could do on the web to something the web couldn't live without. Any market you see for interactive experiences made possible from the new capabilities of html5 was created by flash developers years ago. And it will be years before html5 can match the kind of things that flash can do now for the same development cost / time, at which time flash will have evolved into something that much more amazing.

Flash is here to stay, my friend. Why? because the creative people out there, the ones that actually know how to make something beautiful, are very invested in it.

It aint my kind of iPad if I can't move around the furniture and invite whoever whenever for what the hell ever. Rename it iHotel-room-with-curfew.

Oy, over 200 posts in 8 hours. I don't know why I'm bothering to add my two cents into this mess, but here it goes anyway:

Cory, you make a lot of poorly substantiated, borderline conspiracy-theory-esque points which make your opinion seem less valid, not more (We'll have to replace the iPad battery in less than a year or two? Reviewers are lying about liking the iPad because they think it will save their industry?). I would avoid this sort of thing in the future, simply for the sake of making your point stronger. That said, I'm going to otherwise ignore these things, because I think your overall point is worthwhile and worth responding to.

I agree with you on the principle and philosophy of supporting open systems. I love what the open source community has provided for me, and I love fostering the culture of taking apart and reassembling the world. I myself was a computer science major for a number of years (switched to acting later, weird I know), and I am all for giving individual engineers and designers as much power as possible. I love the way our modern technological landscape has allowed for that.

That said, if Linux was as simple and enjoyable to use as a Mac, I would use Linux, but it isn't, so I don't. I disagree with your idea that when making purchases, abstract philosophical loyalty trumps real and immediate benefits. I should narrow that point down some. Obviously you don't think philosophical loyalty always trumps pragmatic benefit, and I don't think it never does. Just recently I emailed Ubisoft to let them know that I will not purchase Assassin's Creed 2 until they change their DRM implementation, and I won't. I feel that the minimal benefit I get from a fun game (though I do want it) doesn't outweigh my concerns about the expansion of DRM.

However, I think the iPad is a device that will serve many people (myself included) very well. Can I open it up? No, but I rarely need to do that anyway. Is it proprietary? In some ways, very much so. There is no USB, just one (patented) Dock port, Apple's software controls all the loading and offloading on the device, etc etc. However, at the same time, I think it's clear that the App store has proven to be a huge boon for independent developers. While it is true that Apple screens every App coming in, it's also true that they approve almost all of them, and provide their developers with a bevy of advanced tools for a very low price. They always have. Where else will you see independent games created by single engineers sold along side titles from giants like EA? If I cracked open my old CS books, I could personally program an app and get it on the App store. I never will, and if I did it would be a terrible app, but the possibility is exciting none the less.

Overall, yes, the iPad is a closed device, but a very useful, thoughtfully designed one, that respects the experience of the customer to the utmost degree. Apple has always made the customer experience their primary selling point, and the iPad is no different. I believe in supporting open systems, but I also believe in buying products that deliver the goods. In this case, I think that functionality trumps the philosophical points. You disagree with me though, and that's fine. It is still a free country after all.

Slight correct, slappy. Flash and its amazing community of artists and developers have succeeded in producing annoying banner ads that I don't see anymore thanks to ClickToFlash.