The iPad - Cory Doctorow, you're right, you're wrong, and you're not looking at it right

Cory Doctorow has a big article today on the iPad, "Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)". It's one of the more negative bits on the iPad in these few heady days coming up, and in comments, responses by Joel Johnson and John Gruber. So let me step in.

First, some bits on my bias. I don't have an iPad on order (budgetary reasons) nor do I have an iPhone or iPod Touch (same), but I do really want one. I've owned Apple products since 1978, love my iMac, love my iPod, even love my AppleTV (watching my own Monk marathon on one as I type this) so I'll pre-emptively plead guilty to the fanboy label. And beyond Apple, I love gadgets (hence the nickname, hence the domain, hence the sight slogan). On the other than, I have really enjoyed hacking at things, I've done a lot of programming in my day, built my own computer, even built some arcade machines. So feet in both sides.

OK, Cory, you are absolutely right. The iPad isn't as open as many alternatives, and that is a significant downside. For the most part, you are limited to the features Apple wants to give you, the applications Apple is willing to sell (and Apple has been shockingly limited and arbitrary in many of those decisions).

And once you start buying into the system, it's hard to get out. On my computer, in iTunes, I've got 30 solid days worth of TV shows (and 19 solid days worth of movies). About half of those were bought through the iTunes store, wrapped in Apple's DRM, so I can't send them to an X-Box or a Roku or an O'Play - so if I get another TV, I pretty much have to get another AppleTV. (The other half were ripped from DVDs, unprotected H.264 MP4 files with a .m4v suffix, which also limits the options - though less so.)

These questions of openness are important. And something to consider before you get an iPad and get sucked into the system. Cory's article is important reading.

But Cory, you're absolutely wrong when you say nobody else should. The iPad is an appliance device. Just like any of the Video Game consoles, just like pretty much any smartphone (and pretty much all non-smart cellphones), to say nothing of things like digital cameras, remote controls, blenders, dishwashers, washing machines. And even things that can be hacked into - computers, routers, cars - the vast majority of people don't hack into them. These things are tools, designed to be used, not fiddled with, and "fiddling" only happens when the %@#$@# thing won't work like it's supposed to so you're trying to make it work.

These people who use tools instead of hacking them aren't bad people. They aren't stupid, they aren't moronic. And oddly enough - not all of them live in Topeka. Even when the use of the tool is consumption - a television, a radio, a CD player - that's something that normal people like to do to take a break from their life.

And while the iPad will mostly be used for consumption - there will be creation that takes place on it. The iWork suite really interests me, I'm excited about OmniGraffle - and if I had any iota of graphical talent at all, there are apps that make it easier for me to draw than moving a bar of soap around on a table (an early disparagement of GUIs, which also were said to be "infantiling").

If someone doesn't think about the implications of buying into the system that an iPad engenders, that's a mistake. But if they think about it and says "I'm fine with that" - that's their choice, and they SHOULD buy an iPad. Just like those like Cory who think about those implications, say "that's not acceptable for me", shouldn't buy one. So when Cory says "you shouldn't either", I think Cory is wrong. 

But the part where I think Cory and some other critics are looking at it wrong - for everyone who reads Boing Boing, almost everyone who reads Gizmodo, and the two or three people who read this site, the iPad would not and should not be their only computer. Given the choice between my iMac and an iPad, the choice isn't even close - I need my iMac. And if, say, I was going to be traveling to a client's city for a week, I'd need a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

But for a weekend trip to Chicago or San Francisco for a convention - an iPad would be all I'd need to pack. I can stay in touch (email, twitter), keep informed (rss feeds, browsing), enjoy a movie or two of my choosing (and my favorites tend not to be the ones on hotel pay per view), and even play a game. And should inspiration strike and either I want to do some writing or some sketchwork for a site or something - I can do that too. I could even write another blog entry nobody will read. As well as a laptop? Maybe, maybe not - but it's a no-brainer to "bring the iPad."

And around the house - I've got my command center set up, the Internet is at my fingertips when I'm in my chair. But in bed, on the couch - I've abandoned my post. And so if I get that ping that says "email received" - WHAT DO I DO???? I used to have a laptop, but between the heat and, well, with my bodyshape the concept of "lap" is somewhat hypothetical, not that convenient. It's also early spring, the air smells nice outside - but I'm not the type to just sit and look at the sunset.

Yes, as some sites are saying, there are some who could use it as their only computer. I know Cory derides it as "the stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother" (and I'm sure Cory's mother is busy building a cold fusion reactor in her back yard) - but I can see my parents getting good use from an iPad. Not because they couldn't deal with a real computer, my father had one of the very first Apple ][s and we built a KIM-1 computer. Because they don't WANT TO. But I think that will be the minority of iPad buyers.

For most people, it'll be a widget that lets you do some things in situations where a full computer is inconvenient. And people who measure it by the yardstick of "what a computer needs" will be missing the point.