I got a lot of negative feedback on my latest blog post, Criticizing Apple. In it, I shared my opinion on how the amount of unrealistic expectations that people had for the device were only bound to cause mass disappointment when the device was released. I ended the post by asking people politely (I even said please) to just shut up with their criticisms until they tried out the device for themselves. I still stand strongly by those words, but I feel like I should just make a quick elaboration.
After thinking about it for awhile, I believe I finally understand why many of these criticisms are being brought up. It finally hit me – people view the iPad as much more than just simply an iPad. For the record, the iPad never claimed to be a computer, nor will it ever be labelled as such. That’s the real problem. The iPad isn’t a computer. Don’t think of it as one and more importantly, don’t compare it to one.
Apple making a computer closed would be a morally reprehensible act. A computer can only be open – it should never be okay for a company to limit the amount of applications I can install on my MacBook Pro to a list of 140,000 carefully curtailed applications. It’s not okay for Apple to ban me from installing Chrome or Firefox on my Mac.
The iPhone, however, is another story. It’s understandably closed and controlled, two traits that I will admit sound quite awful but only lead to the device’s reliability and top quality. The iPad is much closer to an iPhone than a computer. It’s a mobile media consumption machine that is targeted at the masses. Being more controlled and closed, unlike a professional computer, will only cause it to have greater reliability and quality.