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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2011-03-25, 11:59

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
From a 14-year-old, no less.

He gets it. Why some of the professionals and industry types don't (or won't) is now even more amusing.
I get asked about my iPad a lot. People ask me if it can do everything they'd do on a laptop and and you know what I say? Yes. There's some things a laptop can do that an iPad can't, of course, but things that normal people would do on their laptop? Most laptops are Word and Facebook machines. I think geeks sometimes forget that most people still use IE. Being able to install any app imaginable isn't exactly a priority, to these people.

I mean, the guy that interrogated me yesterday, he was impressed that the iPad had WiFi. "So you're browsing the Internet, right now?!?" He was very polite, but a power user he was not. Most people just want something that does what they want it to without most fuss. To a casual user who never felt entirely comfortable downloading apps on their PC, the App Store isn't going to feel limiting — it's going to feel like the best thing ever. It's like their iPad is 65,000 different things!

Nilay Patel said this perfectly on one of his last (FOF!) podcasts with the Engadget crew. Geeks like to put things in boxes — oh, is this is a netbook, or is it a sub-notebook, blah blah blah. But normal people don't care if the iPad is a post-PC device or a PC accessory. Ask them what their iPad is and they'll just tell you it's their computer.* Nobody's ever asked me if I thought my iPad was a worthwhile accessory. It's just, "do you think that's better than a laptop?" And I say "Yeah, I do."

*) And they wouldn't think of it as a "tablet" (and certainly not as a "slate"). Problematically, for Apple's competition, they'd just think of it as an iPad.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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