It might be the biggest deal ever, but the iPad is really starting to get on my bad side.
I’m starting to become numb to the hype and the concept of a computer without a keyboard; it just doesn’t seem THAT interesting or groundbreaking to me.
Today at at WhereCamp 2010 in Mountain View, somebody TRIED to use the iPad to give a quick presentation, and “it just didn’t work”.
If a group of extremely technically competent people couldn’t use this machine to do something useful, I’m really curious to see what happens when in the hands of the average consumer… so far the “iPad as productivity machine” concept seems off to an awful start.
Conceptually I love the idea of keyboard-less computing, and I’m sure this kind of machines has a brilliant future in front of them: I’m just not sure Apple’s approach to it is the right one, and I really hope they are dead wrong about it. There’s nothing more depressing than the idea that we need to dumb down our devices instead of educating our users.
Update: it looks like I was onto something.