Report: The iPad won’t go mass market anytime soon

You're right in that regards. My dad had read all the newspaper articles (in Kolkata, India) about the iPad and based on the tech-journalists' observations, decided that the iPad is a toy and can't do anything useful. When I told him I am thinking of buying an iPad for my mom for her birthday, he said "No! iPad sucks. Just buy us a regular laptop."

I explained to him that for the first time in the history of computers, there is now a low-priced portable computer that he doesn't need me to fix or setup. It won't get viruses, it is easy enough that my grandma can use it, and it just works like the iTouch that he is so familiar with. Suddenly it clicked in his head. He asked "So this will let me go to Gmail, Facebook, all the news sites?" I said yes. "And this will have games that your mom can play all day? And it will let us read your blog and see your photos? All of it wirelessly?" I said yes.

He said "Ok. Get two then." I said it doesn't have webcam yet so I'll give you one now and next year or so when it gets a webcam, I'll buy two. You'll get one and I'll keep one and we can video-chat from our sofas across the world (I'm in Florida). He was happy with that.

I think the real problem is that even though most tech-journalists aren't programmers or engineers, they still align their interests with the techies and try to think like Slashdotters: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." Good journalists see through the different layers and can more realistically describe a technology for what it's worth. Yes, it sucks that the iPad needs a regular computer before it can even be turned on and it sucks that the iPad doesn't have a webcam. But think about it. Dynabook is finally here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook and it has a LOT more software applications available than you could imagine. My dad doesn't care about USB or even true multitasking. He just wants to go to a website, listen to music, and play a game or two. iPad is a true consumer electronic product. A laptop is not.

People can make theoretical arguments all day long, but nearly every person that's seen my iPad has been interested in it, hesitantly asked if they could pick it up, then stood there and played with it for as long as they could, usually just saying "wow". Often punctuated with "I'm gonna buy one of these."

If Apple can continue to get these things into the hands of ordinary people (and from reports about how many people are playing with them at their retail stores, they're accomplishing that), they'll continue to sell amazingly well. I've never seen a product sell itself as easily as iPad does, including the original iPod and iPhone.

It is a wonderful step forward to be sure, and it is probably a great fit for your parents and numerous other uses. But can you please not bastardize and hollow out, in this "good journalist" zeal, the soul of the Dynabook ideal. Not reduce that concept in service of making sound better this product which uses, as fall-back position number one, in response to any criticisms, the line "but it is for content consumption". This device could have been, and still could be (if it were allowed) the embodiment of that ideal. But Apple has held it back from crossing that line.

Maybe I'm being crotchety here, I can see that possibility. Maybe this coffee buzz and this morning's urge to hold on to some piece of naïve idealism is leading me astray, but there was something deeper in the ideal of the Dynabook. Something noble and in line with the best of humanity in the intention to free every individual to use the computer as an expansion of themselves. Not just the narrower vision of the next step in couch-potato consumption along controlled and approved channels. Do the journalists' eyes not see the difference? Can't you?

I believe one of the most important ways for this to fit into people's lives is by seeing others (especially non-tech people) using it. So yeah, it'll take a while. I get the same kind of feeling as when the white headphones were starting to appear, though.

Interesting how the TechCrunch article cites the "qualitative research" of simpsoncarpenter.com -- whose site my grandmother would never navigate to find whatever article Mr. Carpenter wrote about the iPad. I guess he knows about what "won't go mass market anytime soon" from his own example.

For HNers purposes, quantitative research might be more significant. Me, for example. I don't care whether an iPad has no place in my work/personal life.

I do care whether enough (quantitatively) people are purchasing/using iPads to influence my business decisions about how I target my app development work. (I know, I'm a mercenary SOB, right?)