Oh dear…. Over on this blog there’s a post called “10 Reasons NOT to buy an iPad 2“. Let’s deconstruct them:
1) It’s not a phone
That’s very true. It’s also not a lawnmower, or a coffee machine, a bath or a bicycle. There is logic lacking here, and that sentence doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
2) You already have a camera
How do you know that? And even if I do, why would the fact that there are now cameras in the iPad 2 make any difference as to why anyone should or shouldn’t buy one? I mean I already have a radio, an RSS reader, a Kindle, an email program and all the rest. The advantage to the iPad is it does it all in a very useful convergent device…
3) The keyboard is crap
Well, that’s rather subjective – if you don’t touch type (and I don’t) then the keyboard is as useful as a physical one. The advantage it has over a physical one is that I don’t have to carry it around separate to the actual machine. If you want crap keyboards, take a look at the average mobile phone. When mLearning takes off, it isn’t going to be on mobile phones, it’s going to be on tablets. The iPad has 7% of the PC market – if it’s so crap, why oh why (and please don’t suggest that it’s because 7% of the PC market (and rising) are simply lured by well-engineered, incredibly useful gadgets with amazing battery lives…
4) The screen gets yucky mucky
Yes… that is SO awful. That’s why I never take my bicycle out any more, in case it gets dirty. Oh no, wait a minute… you can clean these things. No way!
5) It’s too small to share and too big to be discrete
Hmm…. I’m getting it now.. this is sort of loaded in many ways. Too small to share what, exactly? I regularly share photos, movies, music on the iPad when I’m travelling with people. And then I get confused by ‘discrete’ – do you mean you can’t work on top secret documents without other people looking at them? Or do you mean that it’s big – like a netbook – so people know when you’re using it???
6) If you cart it around in your briefcase, you may as well have a laptop – it solves reasons 3, 4 and 5
Not really…. A laptop isn’t going to give you 12+ hours of battery life. A laptop may give you back ache… along with the power cable and all the rest, but no – it definitely won’t last all day and a bit more. And of course a laptop won’t be ‘always on’ when you need it (average boot time of Windows is a few minutes longer than that of the iPad – even the solid state Macbook Air takes a good ten seconds to boot). It only really ‘solves’ reasons 3, 4 and 5 if you think reasons 3, 4 and 5 are actually valid…. Which quite patently they aren’t 
7) If you carry it around obviously in your hand, you look like a dork
So true – whereas carrying a large Dell Inspiron laptop plus brick of a power adaptor and constantly having to ask for a power socket makes you look uber cool… Actually, how many people carry things ‘obviously’? Do those words even collocate in normal English?
8 ) It’s only as useful/fun/interesting as the apps you download
Again, that’s very true. My Dell Inspiron with no OS and no software is utterly fascinating as I sit and look at it. Whereas the stupid iPad needs both an operating system and software to make it useful, fun and interesting. Those PC designers are smart cookies…
9) It makes you smirk
I’d say that really isn’t much of a reason. I just tried it out, to be honest. I read today’s Guardian on the iPad and I swear I didn’t smirk once. Not sure of the relevance of this one, either.
10) It’s already obsolete
So is the Macbook Air you lust after. So is any technology currently on the market. If you want, you can wait until all technology companies stop innovating and producing new things and simply buy the last thing they made. Again, there’s no logic.
Strikes me, often, that the ‘reasons not to buy an iPad’ posts many people write are written on the basis of “I don’t have the disposable income to allow myself the luxury of an iPad, so I’ll diss it for a while and it’ll make me feel better…”
The fact is that Apple have revived the dead tablet computing market and that is having – and will continue to have – a profound effect on many things, not least of which is mobile learning. Worth remembering in a couple of years’ time… Let’s not forget, the reason people now get to buy cheap plastic Android tablets is due to the revival the iPad kicked off…
Thank you Gavin! I do get tired of the ‘let’s diss the latest apple thingummy’ approach to the iPad.
I’m also vaguely aware that you too were once against the iPad – preferring the Kindle I think – and then you got one. Nice to see you can change your views!
I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying. Interestingly, much as I would like an iPad2, it’s advent made me realise why I like my iPad1 so much – and in fact have started using my iPad much more. This is mostly because I can’t justify to self the additional cash outlay for the new iPad, and I realised that I hadn’t really exploited the potential of the one I’ve got. So, new me, new approach.
And anyway, ever since I bought the iPhone 3G, groan when two months later the 3Gs came out, then laugh when my contract ran out in time for iPhone4, I’ve learnt that waiting is better with Apple. iPad2 is not the step-change iPad3 is likely to be. THAT’LL be the one to spend money on!
TTFN
Not written on my iPad. Sigh.
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Carl,
Yes indeed – I do change my mind sometimes, like most human beings. I didn’t think I would benefit from an iPad, but when I was lent one for a few days and went off travelling, I could see how it could enhance my work life (especially whilst on the move) and my enjoyment of travel. And that’s why I got one.
I’ll wait for iPad 3 or 4, I reckon. But as a convergence device with an amazing array of software, as a travel companion for work, as an entertainment device and so much more, there’s nothing that can currently touch it.
Gavin
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Touché! Well said. Crap keyboards…is there any unit that has a mindblowingly marvellous one built in? How many devices now don’t have cameras? And so what about the apps – do we really need more man-hours lost to Angry Birds?
Sounds like the original post should’ve been called: “Ten Sour Grapes that Help Me Get Over The Fact That I Wasn’t Given a iPad 2 to Review.”
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Great response, Gavin. I must admit, your responses are valid. I’m still not convinced yet, I must admit. I think it’s because I can see it being (for me at least) ‘a device in search of a reason for using it’.
I have a question for you: Would you leave your laptop behind when travelling and just use the iPad? If ‘yes’ is the answer, then I’ll consider buying it. Otherwise, I can’t really see me carrying three (mobile, laptop, tablet) devices with me to a conference, etc.
I love the look of it and I’d love to have one, but don’t think I can justify spending that much money on a device that I think I wouldn’t use that much.
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Carl Robinson Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Graham – if I may, my answer to this has latterly been yes. I am currently at work and therefore at my PC, but I have started going to meetings with my iPad (I am trying to go paperless) using an app called Noteshelf (with a stylus for better accuracy than my fat fingers!), and now only take my iPad when I am travelling. I have also used the native notes application and the ‘crap’ keyboard – I DO touchtype and with only a slight adjustment and the odd type (see ‘fat fingers’ above) find it reasonably easy on the iPad.
The only downside is that my company doesn’t actively support iPad etc on the network, so I have to access my work email via a web portal (which is less convenient than using Outlook or Mail directly). But that’s not the iPad’s fault, that’s our IT policy’s fault!
So yes, more and more I would prefer to carry only that device – possibly a separate audio device (pocket-sized – in this case my iPhone) for complete convenience.
Does that help?
Carl
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Eloise Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
And I’ll weigh in on the yes side, and the touch-typist using the “crap keyboard” side too. (Promise I’m not Carl in an alt!)
I don’t always travel a lot, and there are jobs I don’t do on the iPad – none of my serious coding work and no serious graphics work, plus any work in SL – but that’s OK, I don’t routinely do them while travelling anyway.
But I travel to do odd lectures, take the iPad and read Zite or similar while travelling (but not while driving), check email at the other end, take notes in meetings or if students ask questions I can’t immediately answer for some reason. All perfectly happily. With spell-guessing turned on, 95% of typos self-correct and it’s much better than the MS Word guesser. I would still proof-read a letter to the bank manager or a job application, but I’d prepare them both quite happily on the iPad (have done the job application in fact).
And while it may not make any difference for you, I use the iPad around the house all the time. Perhaps I’m just lazy, but I reach for essentially always on device that’s light and comfortable when I want to check RSS feeds, look up that niggling question etc. With Instapaper (my tool of choice) if there’s something I can’t see (flash video say) it’s easy enough to save and look at later on the desktop. But, equally, Instapaper lets me look at a page I’m meant to read but can’t face right now and… read it sat in a more comfortable chair, cuppa in hand, on the iPad.
I now get 75% of my casual news consumption, read 95% of my RSS feeds and more on the iPad. Probably 75% of my googling is on the iPad, and that’s close to 100% of casual questions, the stuff on the desktop is mostly stuff that crops up with work.
My transition is so complete, I sold my laptop several months ago and have not missed it yet. Well, except for lugging the damn thing around!
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Well said, Gavin!
The point that many people seem to miss is that the iPad isn’t a laptop, and it won’t be a replacement for one. For normal work situations, I prefer my desktop computer with large monitor. Sometimes it’s more appropriate to use my iPhone. Sometimes only my laptop will do. Sometimes the iPad is the perfect device. Each tool fills a different niche, and I realize how fortunate I am to have all these tools.
For me, the iPad 2 is just enough smaller and lighter to make it worthwhile. (I didn’t use our original iPad that much — but that was more a matter of habit.) This one I love.
I used the iPad for my TESOL presentation 2 weeks ago, and it was like heaven not to have to carry around a laptop! I’m thinking about buying an external keyboard for it. I did take a laptop to the conference, but that was because for work I needed access to some specialized software that isn’t available for the iPad. So yes, I did carry all 3 devices to the conference (laptop, iPhone, and iPad). But the iPad is small enough so that this wasn’t a problem.
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Graham (and Lindsay on Twitter!),
I recently did a whole three-day conference with only the iPad. I used it to present and also to demo some iPad apps. When not speaking, I used it to tweet, check email, upload photos to Posterous (transferred wirelessly from my iPhone) and catch up with RSS feed and other news.
In the evenings I watched a TV show on it, carried on reading my Kindle books, listened to music and read the newspapers. In the mornings I woke up to Radio 4 qnd checked my email whilst listening. I even played a game or two.
On the return flight I did some reading for a new conference talk (PDF saves of web pages), marked up the documents and made some notes…
The battery lasted all day for me each day (recharged at night), my back thanked me every day and I didn’t have to keep looking round for a table and a power socket everywhere I went.
So yes, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes’ from me. There’s no comparison between slipping an iPad in a bag and carrying round a laptop and charger.
Gavin
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Gavin,
How do you get your presentations into the iPad? We created an email account dedicated to presentations (easy because our domain includes unlimited email accounts). I made a ppt file and emailed it to the presentation account as an attachment. [Of course, the presentation email account wasn't necessary; it just seemed like a good idea at the time!] Then when I opened the attachment, there was an option to open the file in Keynote, which I did.
This was not difficult; I was just wondering if there is another or better way to do it.
Thanks,
Claire
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
March 30th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Claire,
In iTunes, find ‘Applications’ on your iPad and scroll down to the window below the installed applications. There you’ll find entries for apps that allow drag and drop from iTunes. Highlight Keynote and then use the ‘Browse’ (or ‘Add’ – can’t remember right now) to find and add your presentation. Then Sync. Once done, load up Keynote on the iPad and use the ‘Open’ option to open the imported presentation…
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Claire Bradin Siskin Reply:
March 30th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Thanks, Gavin. I knew that there had to be another way!
Claire
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Hi Gavin
You’re absolutely right on the count of not having any disposable income, never mind enough to have an iPad – or a Mac Air – or an iPhone for that matter! Still have a Nokia and Netbook – oh woe is me!
I really just wrote this as a rebuttal to David Letterman’s equally daft reasons why one SHOULD buy an iPad2 – examples:
“It doesn’t have a touch screen it has a lick screen.”
“It’s thin enough to chop vegetables.”
“It has an app that makes every room smell like biscuits.”
and “Who doesn’t have $600 to throw around in this economy?”
I thought my reasons were sort of in the same mold. It wasn’t intended in any way to be a serious critique of the iPad.
Cheers
Candy
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
March 30th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Candy,
I think the problem with the post is that it looked serious, and some of the comments thought it was serious. The danger is, of course, that people then go on to believe all these points and quote them verbatim, thus ensuring that they do, in fact, become real…
I made the mistake of critiquing the iPad before I actually got to try one (I won’t be doing that again in a hurry..). When I did get my hands on it, I found it to be incredibly useful and productive, and I really do enjoy using it for a wide variety of things. Yes, they are expensive…
Netbooks? Well, I think they’re very good for travelling, but the screen size is a nightmare (and I’m thinking here of a generation of potentially blind young users who grow up using them in schools) and they’re very slow. I had to retire mine when I found that the iPad – allowing as it does for magnification (zoom) is a much better and more healthy reading option.
The iPad is the beginning of a new revolution – tablets will get cheaper and I think Netbooks are doomed to disappear as they’re simply not useful enough for a variety of reasons.
Gavin
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Thanks to everyone – you’re convincing me. I’ll be keeping an eye out for you, Gavin at IATEFL to see it in action
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Graham,
You’re gonna love it.
Claire
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Testing the gravatar.
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I’ve a total ‘newbie-doesn’t-know-very-much’ type question – what is the compatibility like betweem the iPad and PCs? I’d love to get a tablet, but don’t want to have the added cost of having to retool myself with a Mac desktop and/or laptop…
Yours
Technologically challenged of London
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 9th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Mike,
I’ll be brutally honest, and say that I haven’t used an iPad with a PC, so I can’t answer the question in any depth. What I can assume (danger, danger!) is that if you have iTunes on your PC, then the iPad should play as well with it as it does with a Mac…
Gavin
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Mike Harrison Reply:
April 9th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Thanks for the frank answer, Gavin. Assumptions taken as such =)
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