“There are a few similarities between Wednesday’s Apple announcement and the blockbuster movie ‘Avatar.’ They both cost many millions of dollars and took many years to produce. They both required vast amounts of technology to build, and of course they will both make hundreds of millions of dollars for their respective companies. But they will also share another category: too much hype before their launch, and a result that comes across as intriguing and entertaining, yet sadly anticlimactic,” Nick Bilton reports for The New York Times. “If you travel back in time a few months before both ‘product’ launches, there was a tremendous amount of overexposure and bloated expectations.”
“So what happened to “Avatar?” We don’t know if it will change the movie industry forever, but as of Monday, it is the highest-grossing movie of all time,” Bilton reports. “As for Apple, in the case of its iPad announcement, the excess coverage and secrecy went too far… Apple, perfectionists when it comes to releasing products that begin with an ‘i’ and end with ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs,’ let the hype get out of hand. And the iPad left Apple’s investors underwhelmed, and generated questions and disappointment from many technology writers.”
Bilton reports, “If we can put the advance hype aside for a moment, did Apple release a game-changing device in terms of hardware? No, not really — they released a big iPod touch… [but] if we take a step back and look at the software, Apple has released a game-changing device.”
“Just wait until developers dig into the available screen real estate and the capabilities of the multitouch technology. I’m confident there will be games, newspapers, magazines and numerous applications that will wow the naysayers and follow through with some of the features we imagined this device would offer.
“There is a lesson here though,” Bilton writes. “Maybe we, the media, let things go too far?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll look back on some of the more pessimistic iPad reactions with incredulity someday soon. Like Bilton, we expect iPad to be a game-changing device that’ll disrupt many industries, from publishing to the PC industry itself. As we warned in the days leading up to Apple’s iPad unveiling: Anticipate Responsibly™. Not many took our advice. The same thing that’s happening now with iPad happened with the iMac, Mac OS X, iPod, iTunes, iTunes Store, and iPhone. We all know how those turned out. Someday soon we’ll look back at the iPad naysayers and laugh.
I initially rejected the iPad. Then I slept, dreamed of one in my hand, played along with it… now I can’t get that feeling out of my head.
I NEED ONE… NOW!!!
I remember being scoffed at when I purchased my 1st Gen iPhone for $500. Now these same people are the ones that either have an iPhone or bug me with questions about it because they are going to get one soon. I will be getting a 1st Gen iPad and as I did with the iPhone I’ll just keep selling it and use the money for the next gen.
“Apple iPad: What’d ya think, it was going to cure cancer?”
No. Just do (in) windows a bit more.
You should also mention Apple stores
I can’t wait to see what people produce for the ipad because that is when we start seeing what it can do.
iPad = Internet Personal Access Device
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/PADD – Perhaps Apple really likes Star Trek!
I want one and here’s why. My kids have taken over the family computer and all I want to do is be able to check my e-mail and surf the web. I have an iPod touch, but it’s sometimes too small to see things comfortably. I think people like myself will be the primary market.
Apple’s been eating the PC Industries lunch for years…Now it’s time for Dinner!
The Padd from Star Trek. That’s where the name is from.
I’m not a trekkie fan but I googled Star Trek and pad and what do ya know. Many photos of what looks like early versions of the iPad.
Back to the subject:
Even if Apple included a Transporter device in the back of it, people would still bitch.
Typical Apple product launch.
1) Rumors and anticipation
2) Letdown, pissing, and moaning
3) Realization and enlightenment
I think Steve is right, touching the iPad will be worth thousand words. It’s a game changing device. Fake geeks don’t get it. Nowadays a twitter user is a geek!
The iPad is breaking new frontiers. When I read the macdailynews live coverage of the event I also thought, so what? A big iPod touch. But after watching the keynote, I understood the iPad is aiming a new target. It’s a consumer product. How many people understand the finder and how it works. With the iPad you have the first computer without a finder. It makes the access way simpler. I think of my 80 years old aunt using her iPhone but lost in front of her Mac. She can’t organize a properly her mac, setup new mail account and mail is too complex to use. But she plays games on her iPhone. I expect the iPad being her next tool… Mine too!!!
After you pick one up, let’s just see how fast you can put it down!
Apple did nothing to fuel the hype besides sending out an invitation to an event, an invitation that wasn’t even explicit about what was being announced. All of these drumbeats were pounded out by a frothing tech media, mostly whoring for hits.
As far as reigning in hype, Apple couldn’t give out less information. Good luck reigning in the actual reason for the elevated expectations, Nick: you and your kind.
The real problem is the Internet. It is too easy to setup a news/opinion site. With so many sites, people with keyboards (call them what you wish) need to fill space and attract clicks to get paid. So they write fictional pieces and call them analyses or whatever. In order to get noticed, they become more creative with their fictional pieces.
This ties into the second, even bigger problem. People believe what they read as though it is factual and invest (gamble) their money based on fictional information. And then panic they when the truth comes out.
Great theater for the well informed. Otherwise, otherwise.
We won’t be doing the same things only four times the size, but new things.
A Plus no one has mentioned (Windows Tax):
For all those NetBook owners who need to spend a weekend backing up their settings, documents, address book, bookmarks, etc then finding the CD, finding the CD drive, reformatting the drive, reinstalling XP, reinstalling virus detector, then putting it all back together – buy an iPad and Apple can do it all for you in minutes (if it is even necessary).
I expected at least the ability to run Pandora while browsing the web. I mean is that seriously too much to ask? There are smartphones with half the power, run by companies with less
than half the talent and operating systems with half the capability that can run upwards of 50 simultaneous apps at the same time. And the iPad can only manage one?
I don’t know about everybody else asking for webcams and HDMI out or what the fuck ever, but my expectations were fairly simple for a device of the iPad’s caliber. Not to mention the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch which should also possess the capability to multi-task.
Those who make excuses for Apple today would laugh Microsoft out of the building if Apple made multi-tasking a priority for portable devices and Microsoft produced Windows variants that could only run one app at a time. We’d never hear the end of it. MDN would be sure to snarkily include it in the MDN Take of every post that mentioned those competing products. Hypocrites, the lot of you are.
If iWork can email/share its documents directly as PDF or Office format(.doc, .xls, .pp.) that would be a huge benefit as you could continue to work in the iWork formats.
I think Apple has put in the Core functions that developers can program to, without the frills. Then they will examine what lasting items we complain about then bring those out as a software update (e.g. multi-tasking) or a new model (e.g. camera) in Jan/Feb 2011.
Well said. Before the actual announcement, hard for Apple to say less than nothing.
Actually I expected a lot more. I fell for the hype hard, I thought we were getting the fancy new multi-touch gestures that came close to Minority Report. That’s really what I was looking forward to and it didn’t happen. But you don’t see me getting pissy over that because I created those ideas, I am the one who allowed my imagination to run wild. So I just got over it.
But running more than one app at once?That should be a given. It’s not some outlandish fantasy and it’s pathetic that Apple can’t deliver three years after showing us the iPhone for the first time.
iPad will be The 21st Century’s Electronic Coffee Table Publication and Clutter substitute.
Say goodbye to the clutter of multiple magazines – They all be available in the iPad,
Photo albums – consolidated ad gloriously presented and organized in the iPad
Merchandise and Shopping Catalogs that are strewn everywhere in the house – gone and efficiently presented and searchable by keywords
TV Guides- Gone and now in the iPad
This is where Quatro’s technology will filter monitor and collect royalties for Apple and allow user filtering and regulation to avoid spam like invasion of unscrupulous advertisers
Living Room Clutter will be reduced , not to mention how much paper will be saved, etc…
The only problem will be, how do you pry the iPad away from one family member to another? Maybe families will have to get 1 for the kids and 2 others for the parents….
On the other hand, any vendor that has a strong enough interest, may subsidize and give away promotion serving iPads if they can squeeze a one or two years subscription out of you…Again this is where Quatro comes to into the picture…
iPad is the Digital Multi Publication for every household in the 21st Century.
Okay. Got it. You want multi-tasking. We all do. Shut the fsck up already. Get to work so you can buy the iPad like we all know you will.
I am not sure exactly what technology would have satisfied people, its always best to work within a practical framework. It is the software that will use the potential of this device especially if the unseen hardware in the form of the A4 and its offspring is as good as expected. This will give a whole new range of software developers (and small existing ones) the opportunity to produce new ways of doing formally desktop/laptop functions and that will be massive. No one has said it but companies like Adobe and indeed Microsoft should be very worried, the rules of the game they dominate have just been completely revised and their bottom lines could suffer considerably. Even when the iPad is on sale much of that potential will be seen if the iWorks apps havn’t done so already. Lets see then how the bloated and ludicrously expensive software of the big boys look in that new world. Going to be more fun than people comprehend at the moment.
I was not expecting to cure cancer but I definitely expected a camera, and an option to get out of a “widget” mode and run regular applications!
At least the iPad isn’t an overbloated anti-American, anti-military, pro-environmental whacko piece of crap like Avatar. It just runs nice little apps at a nice price.