iPad: You Are a Fool to Pre-Order One

Thus declares InfoWorld, and it is a challenge to refute one of the objections raised by writer Galen Gruman, though I would argue that people who tend to pre-order products sight unseen are generally (and in the iPad’s case), not fools, but just impatient and love to consume.

Even though almost everything else that Gruman writes about the iPad is ignorant, his main point is a sound one: first generation hardware is usually buggy, so the iPad is probably going to ship with, at the very least, some minor annoyances. Remember the original MacBook Air’s overheating problems? I could not live with mine and had to get rid of it.

Let us assume that the iPad arrives with few intolerable glitches. The second reason why adopting first generation products is imprudent is because manufacturers have the persistent habit of leaving out key features that many consumers want. This is irrelevant if all 250,000 or whatever people who have pre-ordered the iPad are perfectly happy with the device’s specs, but I bet that a majority of them wish there were the following features: Flash (at least the promise that there will be Flash down the line), digital video output supporting 720p (for slideshows at home and true 720p video, as the iPad’s screen is not high resolution enough to display all HD pixels), larger list of committed publishers (so far, only a few big names have actually inked contracts to produce digital content for the iPad), and a usable onscreen keyboard (notice the commercial cuts away just before the actors are shown typing on the screen?). A second generation iPad will fix some of the aforementioned complaints attached to the first one.

In spite of some, in my view, unacceptable flaws, the iPad may be on pace to beat the first iPhone to a million units sold within 3 months of its launch. Are people “fools”? No, many of them are simply impatient and must buy something cool. I admit that the iPad seems very cool.

P.S. I hate Flash, but to have it is still better than to be without it. How effectively are you surfing the web when you are missing so much Flash menus, videos, images, etc.?

Source: InfoWorld