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Sometimes the way I see Apple promoting iPad makes me see it as a fad, but sometimes it feels like there are spots it can secure for good. For example, the new

Sometimes the way I see Apple promoting iPad makes me see it as a fad, but sometimes it feels like there are spots it can secure for good. For example, the new TV ad shows a clip of someone making a fake oil painting with their finger. That's a fad - people who use that will be people who want to see what it's like to paint once or twice, not serious painters. A fat finger on a glass pane will never be a substitute for a brush on canvas. The other promotional video on their homepage right now shows a yuppie mom using it as a visual grocery list, a mechanic doing oily-fingered conversions on it on some gruddy garage floor while handling heavy metal equipment, old men playing backgammon, and a bunch of young adults around a table "jamming and recording" music together. All of this is gimmickry. The ads also show people browsing photos and videos and reading iBooks. These are things I can see people using iPad for more than few times, and the key to having tablets not fizzle out as a fad is letting the money pour in from gimmickry while focusing on these functions that can make tablets last - like a photo album and a book. People will never use iPads for half the stuff they're being marketed for. People will certainly try it (and make Apple a ton of money in the process), but they'll end up preferring the former methods because a pane of glass can only emulate them and not outdo them.

glhaynes 15y ago
The vast majority don't make art and music with their computers, either, but we don't consider it "gimmickry" when some do. Most computer users use their computers for a narrow and mostly similar range of things, just like most iPad users do. Both computer ads and iPad ads mix a few of the niche apps with a few more commonly used apps because it makes a good ad. I think it's really clear that tablets are not a fad or in danger of fizzling out.
- artursapek 15y ago
  The difference I'm pointing out is between these niche apps - sure they exist on both platforms. Plenty of professionals produce music and art with computers, I don't think I need to prove that. But nobody will do this stuff on tablets. It's because personal computers will always be more sophisticated than tablets, both in terms of hardware and input. On an iPad you can play with a fake 6-inch guitar with your fingers in Garageband. That's limited gimmickry, and will only be fun/interesting the first few times. On a Macbook you can directly record an actual guitar and produce an album in Pro Tools. Nobody will ever produce an album on an iPad. The same goes for visual and physical art, nobody will ever use iPads for Photoshop or AutoCAD. These are just things that require complex UI that you can't use without a precise, physical form of input like a mouse and keyboard. Touch input is too bulky for things like that. There are good fields to go into with tablet apps - we're already seeing this with the watered-down photo editing Apple is selling. http://i.imgur.com/HUBeu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HUBeu.jpg Some apps, like this and iBooks, can still be useful to typical consumers when they're this simple. But a lot of the other stuff is just gimmickry that sells on shallow novelty.
  - glenra 15y ago
    >Nobody will ever produce an album on an iPad. That seems like an extraordinary claim. I'm positive somebody will eventually produce an album on an iPad if that hasn't already been done. Whether it'll be a good album is another question of course, as is whether that'll become a highly popular way to do things...
    - glhaynes 15y ago
      http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/27/gorillaz-ipad-album-now-available-as-are-the-apps-used-to-make/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/27/gorillaz-ipad-album-now-a... Over a year ago.
  - glenra 15y ago
    You can directly record an actual guitar on an iPad (or iPhone, for that matter). And some of the new features they added to the iPad version of Garageband make it easier to use than the MacBook version. A few geeks are recording songs on iPads now; more are likely to do so in the future.

glhaynes 15y ago

The vast majority don't make art and music with their computers, either, but we don't consider it "gimmickry" when some do. Most computer users use their computers for a narrow and mostly similar range of things, just like most iPad users do. Both computer ads and iPad ads mix a few of the niche apps with a few more commonly used apps because it makes a good ad. I think it's really clear that tablets are not a fad or in danger of fizzling out.

artursapek 15y ago
The difference I'm pointing out is between these niche apps - sure they exist on both platforms. Plenty of professionals produce music and art with computers, I don't think I need to prove that. But nobody will do this stuff on tablets. It's because personal computers will always be more sophisticated than tablets, both in terms of hardware and input. On an iPad you can play with a fake 6-inch guitar with your fingers in Garageband. That's limited gimmickry, and will only be fun/interesting the first few times. On a Macbook you can directly record an actual guitar and produce an album in Pro Tools. Nobody will ever produce an album on an iPad. The same goes for visual and physical art, nobody will ever use iPads for Photoshop or AutoCAD. These are just things that require complex UI that you can't use without a precise, physical form of input like a mouse and keyboard. Touch input is too bulky for things like that. There are good fields to go into with tablet apps - we're already seeing this with the watered-down photo editing Apple is selling. http://i.imgur.com/HUBeu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HUBeu.jpg Some apps, like this and iBooks, can still be useful to typical consumers when they're this simple. But a lot of the other stuff is just gimmickry that sells on shallow novelty.
- glenra 15y ago
  >Nobody will ever produce an album on an iPad. That seems like an extraordinary claim. I'm positive somebody will eventually produce an album on an iPad if that hasn't already been done. Whether it'll be a good album is another question of course, as is whether that'll become a highly popular way to do things...
  - glhaynes 15y ago
    http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/27/gorillaz-ipad-album-now-available-as-are-the-apps-used-to-make/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/27/gorillaz-ipad-album-now-a... Over a year ago.
- glenra 15y ago
  You can directly record an actual guitar on an iPad (or iPhone, for that matter). And some of the new features they added to the iPad version of Garageband make it easier to use than the MacBook version. A few geeks are recording songs on iPads now; more are likely to do so in the future.