What exactly IS the Apple iPad?
There was a recent broadcast of This Week in Tech (TWiT) in which Leo Laporte expressed his concern about the Apple iPad, (which he admits he loves) being a “consumption” device and not one meant to create content. He said he was troubled by this and I’ve been reading the same thing on a number of blogs and opinion pieces; the iPad is just for consumption…as if this were some evil, twisted concept. Consuming information, and not being able to create it, has become a pariah for some strange reason. But only in relation to the iPad.
Yes, the iPad is mainly a consumption device. Let’s admit that right now. You consume information, in a myriad of forms, through it. It’s a reading machine. You can read the long drawn-out articles on the web that are just plain uncomfortable to read on a desktop computer…even a laptop. Normally I’ll only skim an article on the web when I’m at my desktop, but on the iPad I find myself reading whole articles from start to finish. This thing was built for reading! There’s books (iBooks, Amazon, B&N), magazines, RSS feeds, newspapers, forums, Twitter. That doesn’t even touch on the different apps for watching TV shows, news and movies. Radio also is “consumed” with this gadget and the list goes on and on.
So why the hand-wringing in calling the iPad a consumption device? Why is this such a bad thing? Where’s the indignation for an X-box 360? That big-screen TV sitting there doesn’t seem like much of a creation device either…and that’s been an consumption-only machine for over 60 years. Radios, novels, magazines, newspapers…all consumption, no creation. I’ve never heard someone complaining about reading Jaws and saying “wow, great book, but I wish I could create something on it instead of just reading.”
Are people complaining to just complain?
