You’re absolutely right, of course, to take me task on many issues. But I just want to defend myself on a couple.

On Niches: I’m not saying it has to fit into a niche; what I’m saying (poorly) is that a Tablet is what was expected. It was unveiled as a quasi-Tablet. And it just ain’t a tablet. A Tablet is a niche in which this does not fit. But what almost everyone wanted to have unveiled was a Mac Tablet.

On Design: you are absolutely correct about talking about what things do instead of what they don’t do. I agree. Except that in this case, what the iPad does doesn’t impress me. I’m underwhelmed. Most importantly, what it does is stuff that Apple is already doing; it does what the iPod Touch does, and it’s form factor isn’t as nice. When you go from the form factor of the iPod Touch or the iPhone (arguably some of the best designed pieces of technology of all time) to the larger form factor of the iPad, you almost necessarily need to add something to what you’ve got. Unfortunately, from where I’m sitting, the iPad doesn’t look to include anything the iPhone doesn’t, and seems to reduce the feature set instead. Clearly you’re not going to put this in your pocket… but Apple has already released something that does go in your pocket that does almost all of the same things.

And yes, I understand that decreasing the feature set can increase functionality, like your no-button mouse or the almost no-button iPods.

On Multiple Applications: I think that limiting the use of multiple applications is the poorest design choice of the bunch. If you hang out in the library, you should watch how the people there interact with their devices. Quite nearly all of the people under the age of 25 are using more than one application at once. They’re IMing. They’re emailing. They’re browsing the web. They’re editing their work. Now, look at how the I-don’t-want-to-say-older-crowd-but-you-know-what-I-mean crowd are using their devices; typically, one application at a time. Who is apple designing for? Why?

I understand that Apple has a whole hell of a lot of designers on board, and that everything that they have done has been on purpose. I don’t think that what they’ve designed on purpose is necessarily good. I think that what they’ve got works as the iPad Nano (AKA the iPhone), and yes, lots of people trashed the iPhone before it was released. Heck they’re still trashing the iPhone. But citing critiques of previous apple successes is kind of fellacious; the fact that this sort of device works with the form factor of a phone does not at all mean that it will work as the iPad.

It looks to me as if the iPad is just another device built with the intent of hooking into the App store, which is basically Apple’s way of printing money. Once again, I say look at apt-get if you want to know what an app store should be.

And last, but not least: Apple does not and cannot compete on price. They don’t have to, and they probably never will have to. It just isn’t the selling point for a Mac. Perceived value, yes – price, no.

I’m finding it quite mystifying that you (and many others) want this to fit into existing niches. My 11-yr old daughter has said to me “of course you don’t put it in your pocket! Who designs a 10″ device thinking that it will fit in your pocket?” While one might think it’s cute that she states something so obvious, it’s also wise. Obviously, Andrew, nobody is going to attempt to put this in their pocket and suddenly feel ripped off. Equally obvious is the fact that this thing is not going to replace anyone’s desktop (or tablet, or laptop)… it is not designed for that and anyone who believes that Apple is that dumb hasn’t been paying attention. It doesn’t fit in either of those niches … of course, neither of the current niches existed before the invention of laptops (hey, by Apple!), the tablet (hey, a failure), or the portable (arguably Apple again … maybe not). People said exactly the same things when those niches appeared (why do I need a tiny computer that does less, etc?) , but lo and behold they stuck around anyway.

Design. When thinking about design you will be completely useless if you approach this with the attitude “what doesn’t this thing do?” That will never help you to explain markets … the pros will tell you this. (I shall cite one: Bruce Mau, a leading designer quite explicitly states this … just in case you don’t believe me). You must ask “what does this thing do?” Yes, you must … you can continue with looking at what things don’t do, and the market will repeatedly baffle you as people snap up things that seem not to do things … oddly, people don’t pick up something at a store and think “hey, I wonder what this doesn’t do?”

What does it do? It utilizes the App store on a larger format … thinking about this, that does matter … a lot. There are a lot of great apps and the larger format will lead to many more being developed in a hurry. Thinking about this (again) I keep on coming up with more things that I’m excited about seeing on a bigger screen. That’s me. For many, the iPhone screen is too small to really use for fun … my wife, for instance, isn’t going to play games on the little screen, and many will play way more games with the increase in size. The ebook thing may also be huge. Apple has good timing on this as ebooks are moving into the market in a new way. While some of us already read ebooks on the small screen, I suspect that way more will consider this a reasonable activity on a 10 in screen. (my father would never read on an iPod). The direct connection to the publishers (so, ease of purchasing), what I imagine will be a good interface for reading, and admitted limitations to the Kindle could make this big. If the iPad does take off, I think Apple will start making money on ebooks like they have on Apps … a year to 18 months from now we may be hearing about their massive revenues in that area. Some things have to come together for that, but it may very well happen. Admittedly, you and I read ebooks as .pdfs on our laptops (well, I do anyway) and think that it works fine. For every Andrew and Doug, though, there are a lot of people that wouldn’t be quite that flexible, but might try it with a better experience (they also wouldn’t search for books on Russian websites like you or I, but might like a simpler shopping experience). Once again, I suspect that there has been some serious testing on this.

Those are just two things, and I haven’t even actually seen one of these device in the flesh yet. There really is just one thing, though, that makes a huge difference. The multi-touch interface is a real “wow” factor. There are lots of computer guys that don’t want it and never will for perfectly good reasons. There are millions of people though who, when they see it in action, grab the device out of your hand and can’t wait to try it. I’m not speculating on this, I’ve seen it many many times. This sucker, looking all space-age and shiny, with that interface seems to already be having a certain magnetic attraction for people. Having used the interface on my iPod for a couple of years now, I’ve got to tell you … keyboards are starting to looking kinda primitive as a control device (still the best thing for typing, but I don’t type that much on my iPod … that’s not what I use it for).

So, the functions underneath are going to sell, but the layer on top is also very significant. So, think about what this does do, forget about what it doesn’t do, because people will buy this because of what it is, not what it isn’t. I assure you that the things that it doesn’t do have been intentionally omitted, not crammed in, or just forgotten about … this thing has been designed, and what I want to do is understand why it does what it does, and why that will sell (if it does). I must also say that the iPad would certainly have been a device only for crazed fanboys and executives looking for something to buy (like the MacBook Air) if it had been priced at $1000. Apple knew this, and they understood the importance of pricing this at $499 … they’re going to be taking a loss selling hardware in this case, I’d say. What they’ve learned, though, is that selling apps and now ebooks is where the money is … hardware has never had good margins for anyone. If this plan works, they’ll sell bazillions of both of those things and easily make up for the loss on hardware (Amazon has already made this work with a device that only does one thing).

Oh, and running multiple applications. I understand the absolute importance of this on your current machines, but here’s the deal: having used a Touch for two years now I can tell you that I have never once thought “gee, if only I could be doing something else while I do this” … while I would never have believed it myself, it just never happens. Of course, the Touch does multi-task … it plays music while using other Apps, and downloads things while other apps are running, because that is something people frequently want to do, and it actually does many other things behind the scenes as you well know. This is one of those Apple things that drives techies nuts … Jobs said, “there will be no simultaneous apps” and he has stuck by it in megalomaniacal fashion … and, annoyingly, for virtually everyone who uses these devices, he was right.

So, I am totally able to accept that this device might flop, but as I think more about what it WILL do (and the price), I’m doubting that it will (well, there’s also all of the people who have already told me that they’re going to buy one … more than told me that they’d buy a Touch when it was released … even I’m a little shocked by this). Obviously, we’ll see … the next couple of months opinions could swing any number of ways.

It weighs just a tad under 5 pounds, which is admittedly quite bulky these days. I run ubuntu, so I have hundreds of thousands of apps from a store that is integrated, except everything is free and developing and releasing back to the community is easy. I have very nifty software with facial recognition. It’s free for almost every platform, and it’s called Picasa. I’m not sure about Mac availability. I have a fullsize actual keyboard. I think my computer is fairly pretty (and I think the iPad isn’t) but aesthetics are pretty subjective.

So my computer does everything on your list that I care about, and more besides that the iPad can’t.

I take your point about the iPod touch and the iPhone, and I would like to ask: what will the iPad do that these other machines don’t? What’s the impetus to move on up to an iPad instead of an iPod touch or an iPhone, but not go quite so far as to get a Macbook or even an iMac? What I really want to know is what is the niche that they’re carving out? It’s not the tablet niche, because everyone who digs on tablets doesn’t dig on the iPad release as far as I’ve heard. Is it the iPhone niche? If so, then it doesn’t fit in your pocket.

And it’s not a storage device. Neither is ny iPod touch, but it is an extremely functional tool without my entire music collection on it. The same criticisms levelled at the iPhone since it was not the best phone or the best email reader, nor did it have the best carrier … why would anyone want it? The answer is simple and very applicable to the current situation.