In a nutshell, what is the Ipad and why does everyone seem to criticize it?

[samhandwich22]

I have been living in the redwood forest for so long that I cant even keep up Apple's latest technology releases. What is the Ipad? A computer, a phone, another kind of ipod? Why do so many of my friends write about its comedy on their facebook status updates?

[Ms Malkin]

Because it is overhyped, underpowered and overpriced. It is a tablet PC but with iPhone OS

[Wes]

In a nutshell, the Ipad is very similar to the Ipod Touch(but larger and 200 dollars more expensive) So you can imagine why people are making fun of it. It is a waste of money in my opinion.

[Christopher H]

it is basically an iPod touch that's like 3x the size...it can't do anything more than an iPod touch...it still can't run flash anything

[David N]

Well,

Silly reason: iPad, geddit, pad like menstrual pad women use on their periods? I don't know if women use those in the redwood forest though, look it up on wikipedia. Mad tv acutually made a skit a while back about an iPad, before the real thing came out.
watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK2drIylnDw

Serious reason: It is basically just a bigger iTouch that cost like $500...
Kinda pointless, but apple excels at making gigantic profits of of useless cool-looking things so...

iPad: $500
http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/
iTouch: $200
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/features/

Look a little familiar to you?

[henry]

The iPad is basically a huge (10in screen) iPod touch except for the fact it has 3g connection capabilities. It has the same OS (operating system) as the iPhone. Many people are criticizing it and one reason is that it brings nothing new except it is big. People feel that no-one is going to listen to music throush it, due to its OS internet games are unlikely to be able to play on it as well
Hope this helped :-)

[Shaun]

The iPad is an iPhone on steroids.

16 reasons why it sucks:

"The name sucks! The first thing my fiancee told me about the iPad? “Honey, I think I’m getting my iPeriod, do you have an iPad for me?” It doesn’t take a marketing genius to figure out that the iPad is a terrible name for a product. I plan to write a blog post about the worst jokes ever about the iPad so if you have some funny ones, please email them to me.

The network sucks! While I personally don’t have any problem with AT&T, most people don’t agree with me, so I guess it’s fair to say that sticking with AT&T was not the right decision for Apple. They could have gone with T-Mobile, or Verizon (even though I think the iPad or iPhone will never ever go to Verizon) and everybody would be happy. Apple is not a company that aims at making people happy though. It aims at making Steve happy!

No Flash! Alex of Applicious says it all: No Flash on the iPhone was barely tolerable. On a device that you call Internet-specific to not have Flash is more than annoying, it’s insulting. Flash, love it or hate it, is one huge slice of the Internet. This is not optional.

No multitasking! During his presentation of the iPad, Steve Jobs called netbook cheap laptops. Guess what Steve, I might have a “cheap laptop” but I’m currently typing this post on it with 2 Firefox windows opened, TweetDeck, a Word Document and Flickr Uploader running at the same time. Can your iPad do that? Netbooks are fulfilling a need. The iPad is not. It’s just struggling to create a one. Not having multitasking on the iPad really sucks.

No camera! If you’re going to create a mobile device for Mom and Pops, you’d better give it at least a front facing camera because Mom sure loves to Skype her daughter. I didn’t expect a back-facing camera on the iPad, but I sure hoped for a front-facing one.

It’s big! Of course it’s big, it’s the purpose of it. Still, I’m confused. Does Apple have to license plus-size pockets as an official iPad accessory?

It’s heavy! At 1.5 Lbs, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to hold this baby for 2 hours without developing a tendinitis.

No Video Output! If you thought about plugging your iPad in your TV to watch a slideshow of your latest vacation’s pictures, then think again because it’s not going to happen.

It’s not pretty! Let’s be honest for a minute, the big fat bezel around the touchscreen is ugly.

The keyboard sucks! I didn’t expect the iPad to have a physical keyboard but that won’t prevent me from complaining about it. I hate typing on my iPhone and something tells me I’ll hate typing on the iPad even more because it simply isn’t convenient. When I type on a keyboard, I like to have the screen facing me, not laying down flat because it is unpractical and in the long run, it will most likely cause pain in the neck and back (I’m serious).

No USB port! Did you want to plug your digital camera into your iPad to download your pictures. Too bad. Oh wait, you’ll actually be able to if you buy the $30 adapter Apple will be selling. That is mafia-style racketing.

No 16:9! Watching movies on the iPad is going to suck as it will render the movies in 4:3 aspect ratio with big black bars around it.

No Widgets! Ok, the iPad screen is huge but it actually feels empty. Why don’t we have widgets on this thing? Sticky notes, calculator, whatever widget?

The battery sucks! I don’t believe Apple when they say the iPad has a battery life of 10 hours. They were praising the iPhone 3GS battery. I still can’t get through the day without plugging mine in. Play NFS on your iPad for one hour, do a little bit of web browsing for 2 hours, and I bet you your battery will be dead before you can update your Facebook status.

The storage limitation sucks! Starting at 16GB, this is a complete joke. If you want me to store my music, videos and photos on your iPad (all this in top of my applications), I’m going to need MUCH more space than the 64GB limit.

Reading books on the iPad sucks! The Kindle might not be dead yet after all. I dare you to read a book on your iPad for more than 2 hours. By that time, your eyes will be crying, you’ll most likely have a headache and feel tired. That’s what computer screen do to you. I’m not a big fan of ebooks (I like the smell and feel of books – call me old school) but I do believe the e-ink feature of the Kindle is much better than what we’ll get on the iPad."

[chester]

Summary of the iPad:

-You cannot multitask. You can only do one task at a time. If you want to surf the web and type into a document, you can’t. You need to exit one and then open the other.

-No flash support. Enjoy the web without much of its content!

-Doesn’t use a real operating system, like Windows or Mac OSX. It runs like an iPhone, not a laptop.

-It doesn’t have an SD card slot or USB slot. You want to load all your photos and music on it? You need to buy a special dongle and attach it to the iPad. Ah yes, that’s convenient and cost-effective.

-Apple wants to say it will be great for reading books and magazines, but it has a bright, glossy LCD screen. Meanwhile, electronic book reader devices use an electronic ink technology that doesn’t strain the eyes and can be used in the sun. Electronic book readers can run on battery for days, whereas the iPad claims up to 10 hours, but probably has much less.

-You need to lay it flat and look straight down at it to type on it. It’s not like a netbook or laptop where the keyboard is flat and the screen is in front of your face.

-You can buy a keyboard accessory — you can spend extra money to turn a low-power netbook-type tablet into a non-portable desktop computer. Meanwhile there are products like Lenovo U1 Hybrid where you can slip the tablet into a netbook shell and turn it into a portable, foldable laptop.

-It costs $500, minimum, and has a 1 ghz processor. You’re paying $500 for something that has about the same capabilities as an iPod Touch, but is huge. Products with similar specs and abilities as the iPad cost less than that. If you want the model with enough disk space and 3G to make it worth your while, it’s $800.

My netbook has a 1.6 ghz Atom processor and cost me $200. And my netbook has an SD slot so I can make the hard drive space as large as I want. And my netbook has USB ports. And I can do multiple tasks on my netbook. Fact is, tablets have been around forever and the mainstream market didn’t want them. Just because they’ve slapped an Apple logo on it, should people suddenly want it?

[Mark]

It's an iPod Touch with a giant screen. People are criticizing it because there is nothing new about it except the screen size.

[jasin]

Its a tablet, like a tablet pc, but all integrated into one case. These devices have existed long before the ipad. Don't believe me ? Then have a look at the archos 9, toughbook H1, etc. These devices are supposedly for ebook reading, note taking, etc.. but I don't know, that's all stuff you can do on a laptop.

People are criticizing it because its a cheap ripoff of other devices that already exist. Its no coincidence that its nearly identical in shape and size to the archos 9 and it uses the name of a device, cell phone, created by fujitsu.