The geek brigade have pretty roundly condemned the iPad (that picture from here). I can’t help but think that they might be missing the point – like this guy suggests – the iPad isn’t an awesomely powerful tool for geekiness. It’s an e-reader with a built in media player.
Today a Kindle 2 is $289 on Amazon.com. A Kindle DX with a 9.7″ screen is $489. For $10 more for an iPad I get:
-8x the storage
-a color screen
-a touch screen
-a touch OS
-a better web browser
-a better media player (iTunes)
-works on my home/work/plane wifi network
-the ability to download apps that do other things like play Scrabble and do Crosswords
Sure, it could have been so much better. Apple could have packed in the features. But then the price just couldn’t have compared with that of the Kindle. Being a recent convert to the Apple Fanboy Club I am going to put my faith in Steve Jobs to deliver a workable product rather than all the Internet critics who apparently know (and expect) better…