The iPad: What's It For? (An Off-Message Commentary)

Although no fan of the products of Apple Computer (we, for instance, wouldn't even so much as consider switching from a Windows machine to a Mac or MacBook laptop even were they given to us gratis), we readily confess to hugely admiring the design of most of Apple's products; design so compellingly beautiful aesthetically that, for instance, even though we have no imaginable use whatsoever for Apple's iPhone, we can but barely succeed in triumphing over our thoroughly irrational impulse to go out and buy one. The iPad, however, as beautiful aesthetically as it is, is an altogether different story. New York Times technology columnist David Pogue ends his review of the iPad with the following question:

The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine.

The only question is: Do you like the concept?

To which our response is: What concept? From what we can see, the iPad is nothing more or other than a monster-sized iPhone display on which one can select and run "apps" just like on the iPhone. The notion that the iPad could in any way act as a stand-in for or even replace a full-featured laptop computer is simply prima facie absurd. The iPad has, of course, all that sexy touchscreen stuff going for it, but, for us, far from being sexy, touchscreens are a huge turnoff. We hate touchscreens. They seem to us almost perverse. We, for instance, could have had the display of our new Dell laptop be a fully functioning touchscreen and didn't even consider the option, inexpensive though it is. The last thing one should do with a computer display is touch it with one's fingertips (or anything else, for that matter). The proper function of a computer display is to do one thing and one thing only: display text and images with the utmost in detail, accuracy, and clarity. Period. Full stop. For us, the thought of touching a computer display with one's fingertips is as repugnant a thought as, say, the thought of a surgeon operating on a patient without first donning sterile surgical gloves.

So, what's the point of an iPad? No point at all that we can discern other than to be a slick new toy for those with too much disposable income on hand (the entry price of the bloody thing is on the order of some $500, for which money one could buy a fairly decent, full-function Windows laptop), or for those who are Apple devotees or cultists (which latter abound for reasons which elude us entirely).

Will the iPad turn out to be a commercial success? If one subscribes, as we do, to Mencken's (in)famous, barbed, but spot-on dictum that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, and broaden its reach to publics beyond America, it almost surely will.

Score another victory for the aesthetic brilliance of Apple's designers, the genius of mass marketing, and the stupidity gullibility of the American public and publics beyond.