I saw this question about who was going to buy an iPad at The Digerati Life today, and I thought I’d respond to that question with a little post of my own reasons on why I am not going to get one.
Apart from the obvious reason of not having ~500 $$$ to spare – there are a few others as well. So here goes.
1. I couldn’t type on it: I went to Best Buy last weekend, and tried out one for about ten minutes or so. I wanted to see if typing on it was like typing on a regular keyboard or not, and I found that it wasn’t. I don’t want a device on which I can’t type like I normally do. If typing on it was really easy – I would have still considered it, but that is not the case. Though it is much better than typing on the iPhone – it still doesn’t match a real keyboard, and that was something I really wanted.
2. I already have a Kindle: If I can’t type on it then the next best use for me is to read books, but I already have the Kindle, and that works fine for me as far as a book reader is concerned, so I don’t want another book reader.
3. You can’t run multiple applications: My task-bar is always littered with several open things and that’s the way I function. But you can’t do that on a iPad, and that was another big let down.
When I thought about these three things, – it became really clear that if I were to buy this – it would just be another fancy toy that I will have no real use for.
Besides this – I am not much of an early adopter of anything I have to pay for. I tried out MS Office 2010 Beta, and regularly try out Google Beta products, but all of those are free, so there is no real risk of losing out on anything.
I know that the display is great and I can certainly understand why a lot of people really love their iPads, but as far as I am concerned it is more fun watching it getting blended than shelling out cash to get one.
Still haven’t had a chance to try one out yet as they aren’t available in the UK yet, but I have some of the same issues as you. I’m really not sure I will like typing on the screen, but may be able to get used to it. I also tend to have at least 3 or 4 programs running at any one time so the lack of multitasking may rule it out for me.
I looked at the iPad at Best Buy too, and while it was a cool looking gadget, it wasn’t anything I had to have. It was also heavier than I expected. I think it will be best to wait for the inevitable feature improvements and price drops and reevaluate at that time.
Interesting take. The iPad will multitask with the 4.0 upgrade, and since the iPad was probably attached when you tired it out in store, you probably couldn’t find the right angle to type at. Personally I like the iPad
William, theamazingipad.com
Yes it was tied in the store, so that’s probably one reason I couldn’t get to use it the best way.
I wasn’t aware that it will start multitasking with an upgrade. That’d be a really big thing. Do you know when that is going to happen?