“I don’t get it. It costs $500 for the basic model, when you could get a laptop with a lot more functionality for about the same price. The iPad hype machine has been in full effect this week, and I still think it’s just that—hype,” Alex Cook blogs for Seeking Alpha.
“Nobody has ever made a commercially successful tablet computer,” Cook writes. “So, why then is there so much hype? It’s not just a rhetorical question. For one, even if you are not a Mac user, everyone loves Steve Jobs… That said, Steve Jobs has been wrong before. One of his earlier projects before he was ousted as the Apple CEO (and obviously before he was re-hired later) was the Apple Lisa. It was a computer built in 1983 with a graphical user interface and features now associated with a modern computer—significantly ahead of its time in 1983. Unfortunately, it was horribly expensive and ended up as a commercial flop.”
“The iPad could be even worse. At least the Lisa was ahead of its time. The iPad isn’t ahead of anything, but it’s certainly expensive,” Cook writes. “Tablet computers didn’t flop when HP was making them because HP lacked vision or creativity; they flopped because tablets were a bad idea.”
Cook writes, “I don’t buy the iPad hype. Analyst expectations for iPad revenue are way overblown. If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll gladly eat my words, but I’m pretty sure that I’m not wrong.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iCal’ed with relish.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Robert S.” for the heads up.]
Wish they would ship me my flop so I coud see firsthand!
Really? He’s using the Lisa as his example?
Unbelievable!
Wow, either he’s a moron or a hitwhore.
IPads sold out in one day!. Hardly a flop.
I hope he is hungry, he will be eating lots of humble pie.
HP, vision? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Yet another idiot that just don’t get it!
Lisa? Really? Does this moron know how old the Lisa is?
He’s trying to compare 20 year old technology with the iPad?
Has he been hiberating for 20 years and just woke up?
This guy reminds me of the IBM CEO who in the early days proclaimed the world would only need 3 or 4 computers
Dude has obviously never tried to use a laptop on a crowded commuter train. Besides, it’s not a laptop but a totally new device; if the guy was around when the first laptops came out, he’d be the one saying, “Who needs to spend so much on a portable computer when there’s a perfectly good desktop at home?”
I’m disappointed in MDM for even wasting the space and my time on this Bozo.
I don’t see the point in an iPad. At home I have a laptop, that I can also carry around, in a case, with me if I need to take it out of the house. It’s not like I can simply put it in my pocket like an iPhone/iPod touch.
It’d be interesting to see how the iPad does, but it wont be as successful as the iPhone. Maybe this will be comes Apples ‘2nd’ hobby?
A flop? Over 150 people waiting for one at my local apple store upstate CT. I love mine and now on my deck using it. It’s better than all the hype and after showing it off in the am two people went and got theirs. Most of my iPhone apps look great 2x and I find Im using a few game that I paid for and enjoy more. But MDN is not one of them! When is the iPad ver going to be ready. I can’t wait to use my iPad for work. It fits great in my briefcase and no more draging a laptop case with me. I had a HP Mini 10 for a few weeks and did not like it. Went back to the store during the return date. Funny, while in line saw someone using a Toshiba netbook and asked what he was going to do with it after getting an iPad. Said it too was going back. Lol.
Another brain stem!!!!
Maybe the people that purchase the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac computers should become the analysis for a change. Since they already know more about computers than the so called analysis.
Sad, when the general “uninformed” computer buy is so much better informed and visionary than this tech writers!
Thanks Steve Jobs for alway throwing a wrench in Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and the tech industry mundane and tasteless vision of the future.
It will sell well for 3 months… When the new iPhone and iPod Touch come out… No one will be interested in the iPad…
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Flop as in gigaflop, 1 million iPads sold on day 1.
People have made tablets before, but people had made so called smartphones before. They were shit. It took apple with their high quality hardware and software, that were designed for the medium, to do it properly. At the most basic level it’s not hard to understand that decent products are better than crap ones.
With relish? Add some mustard and ketchup as well to those words he’ll be eating?
I am using mine to type this comment. This thing is awesome. Yea yea yea you can use your laptop. Go ahead. This fits into a different category and if your not into it so be it. The man hit it right when he said it fits in the middle. It does!! It can’t replace my iPhone and it can’t replace my MacBook pro. Much easier to carry this around then my laptop and much bigger than my iPhone. Well worth the money. Guess he hasn’t gotten his hands on one.
Yeah, it’s such a huge flop that I went to Best Buy yesterday with absolutely no intention of getting one at all, and yet I ended up walking out the door with a 16GB model after seeing the display model. This totally blows any Netbook or Tablet PC out of the water and I couldn’t resist at $499. This is going to be yet another huge hit for Apple.
I applaud Alex Cook’s courage and honesty in the face of all the MAC fangirl’s distortions, lies and manufactured fawning over MAC’s latest in a long line of flops. How can so many reviewers get it wrong? I’ll tell you this: something fishy is coming out of Cupertino.
Cook bravely dispels the multitude of falsehoods and delivers clear insight through the MAC fog. He is at his best when he writes that many wonderful and innovative laptops can be had for the same price of the I-Pad. The best part is consumers have a lot of choice as they all run Windows, Silverlight and Microsoft Office. Thank you again, Alex, and suck it MAC sheep.
Your potential. Our passion.™
@ Catseye
I’ve always preferred a nice chutney.
He sounds as though he doesn’t own an iPad.
If that’s the case, then he’s trying to cram the iPad right in there with every tablet he’s ever seen.
What he fails to realize is, so many of us know that Apple isn’t going to produce a me-too device that mimmicks what everyone else has made.
HP has been making tablets for years, sticking to their well-worn paradigm for tablets. The only way they’ve been able to maintain any interest is by dropping the price; not innovating or incrementally adding functionality, just making them attractive with lower pricing.
Most of them are running XP, which is indicative of how much expansion has occured in the last ten years. Keep something around long enough and developers might consider taking a crack at it. I suspect that most, like Cook never jumped in with both feet for fear of being left at the alter in the Church of Microsoft.
Apple wouldn’t dream of competing in that space; building a tablet to fit the HP/Microsft paradigm for tablets, instead they’ve created a whole new space that doesn’t involve either of them, nor Cook, it would seem.
But Cook, just watch and see how quickly Micosoft comes around to dabble in iPad ecosystem. I’ll wager Microsoft will make more money from the iPad in the next few years than was made since the first tablet arrived. The same will prove true for any developer who has been turned away in favor of software written by larger production houses.
Cook, why would you flagellate yourself in such a public manner, unless you were being paid to do so? I imagine it’s easy for someone like you to eat crow after selling your soul.
“eat my words” = very safe comment.
How about “I’ll bet my monthly salary”
Functionality: My wife is using hers to read her email this morning and absolutely loves it. She can use it for that much more easily than figuring out a laptop (problems stop her) and is much better for her at seeing the full email than her iPhone.
It is just easy.
I’m with “Wings2Sky”. He has to go back 27 years to find something to support his naysaying? Maybe he should crap on the whole of computer future history because Babbage never got his Difference Engine built in his lifetime?