I enjoyed reading Simon’s thoughtful notes on the iPad, and thought his conclusion was particularly good:
A large group of people out there (and I count myself as one of them, most of the time) don’t want to tinker or take their devices apart[.] They just want things to work really well, be beautiful and easy to use. Is that so bad?
The answer to Simon’s question is no.
It may be an early adopter thing (of which I am not typically one), but the debate about new things like iPads seems to miss this point. Such debates about what gadgets like an iPad do and don’t do or have is valid, and the conclusions people draw from those debates are perfectly fine. But the basis on which early adopters have those debates is very, very different from how I suspect most people approach buying stuff.
This may seem self-evident, but the fact that Simon offer his rhetorical question at all indicates it may not be.
For me, you only need to look at the hoards of people playing with an iPad in an Apple store to see that Cory Doctorow’s views on the iPad may not matter.
(A side note: without wishing to pester him too much, I wish Simon would blog more. He’s very thoughtful in what he writes and adds a good dash of style when he does.)
arbitrary constant 