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iPad vs PlayBook: Who Cares?

Tony Wanless

| April 21, 2011

Image by: Digital Trends

Seriously, folks, the media-hyped iPad-PlayBook "frenzy" is stupid.

Why all the cultic frenzy around Apple’s iPad – and the badmouthing of RIM's new PlayBook? They’re just expensive tools.

I’m mystified at the press – and electronics fanboys – reaction to this week’s release of the Research in Motion (RIM) PlayBook tablet.

The universal story seems to be that there were no overnight lineups to buy the PlayBook, or stampedes to the electronics stores, so the launch must have been a failure. The real failure was probably in the eyes of the media, which weren’t able to get pictures of crazed fans lining up to get their hands on one.

It all sounds like a case of gadgetry horse racing, egged on by the media and stock analysts. By that I mean everyone sees the launch of every new gadget as a race between competitors for the largest and fastest sale, and of course, the largest revenues.

Who cares who’s going to win?

Seriously, folks, this kind of frenzy is stupid. Yes, the Playbook and the iPad are both tablet computers, and yes they are competing for the hearts and minds of gadget enthusiasts. But is this kind of competition really going to affect your life?

The iPad was the “first” to release a tablet, although people seem to forget that Microsoft had one a few years ago that bombed. Since then it’s generated a cult-like following, with gadget freaks hanging on every utterance from the Apple tower in San Francisco and insisting it’s the greatest innovation since the invention of electricity.

Since I generally subscribe to the Groucho Marx rule of cults – I won’t belong to any club that will have someone like me (meaning just anybody) as a member – I’ve never been mesmerized by whatever voodoo Steve Jobs uses on people.

Neither am I all agiggle and waiting with bated breath for the Galaxy Tab or any one of the other 950 or however many tablets are being released this year.

To me, they’re all simply tools. Just like computers. Just like telephones. Just like electric drills. Nobody builds a religion around an electric drill. They just drill holes with it.

I know, much of this frenzy is being driven by bloggers and other media who want to conduct search engine optimization by injecting the names iPad2, PlayBook, iPhone4, Blackberry Torch, and various other examples of keyword stuffing into all copy (like I have just done).

But I don’t care. Despite all the hoo-haw about releases of the Playbooks, the iPads, the Thingies, or whatever they’re calling the next one, I’m not getting excited.

They’ve barely started, but I’m already sick of these latest gadget wars.

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iPad - I care! OK Tony. So

Submitted by BoomerWestVan (not verified) on Thu, 2011-04-28 10:14.

iPad - I care! OK Tony. So I'm 64 and spent a lot of my life fighting with incompetent Microsoft software. My world changed when I bought a MacBook Pro 4 years ago. I could forget CTRL/ALT/DEL and I would bet I wasted hundreds of hours and burned countless neurons to use my PC. Just received word that my iPad2 will be delivered next week. My tech smart friends travel to most meetings with their iPads and save their laptops for heavier lifting. But most of the time, I just want an Internet access and eMail/Calendar for daily use. I do take exception with your "expensive tools" statement. My most valuable assets are my time and my energy (I did say I was 64). And lastly, I am a banner waving Canadian and a Blackberry user forever. However, made the mistake of moving to a Torch (an abject failure) and recently switched to an iPhone. The best place to get a read on the future is spend time in lounges at airports. People here value their time and I see a ton of Macs/iPhones and iPads. Hats off to Apple (in spite of their very closed shop approach) for building tools we can use!

Tony Wanless That's a very

Submitted by Tony Wanless on Thu, 2011-04-28 11:43.

Tony Wanless That's a very good argument, Boomer. Especially the time and energy equation. I always believed the Mac array was more of a cult thing, but you definitely have me re-thinking it all.

Tony Wanless Hi

Submitted by Tony Wanless on Mon, 2011-04-25 09:57.

Tony Wanless Hi Aaron: Congratulations! I've never been accused of trolling before, although I guess you are being somewhat accurate. I am flaming in a sense. I have no argument that we're on the precipice of something better. Tablets are the future of computing simply because they promise to be more useful than old-fashioned computers. But I think my "trolling" still holds water: There are other things in life than computers and I don't understand why we have to build cults around them. As I said, they're really just tools, albeit marvelous ones. My antipathy to the tablet wars has nothing to do with fear of change -- that's just an easy epithet to throw out -- and I've never been afraid of change before. I'm not a software developer and so have no need for a tablet right now. When one becomes truly useful to me, and more than just a beckoning toy, I'll get one. But I'll make my decision on such considerations as need, cost, application and the usual things we consider when we buy something. I won't make it because everybody's doing it. That road leads to consumer-like madness and waste.

Ok, Tony, so this is a good

Submitted by aaron.hilton (not verified) on Thu, 2011-04-21 21:46.

Ok, Tony, so this is a good bit of trolling, but hey. I'm game. What's the big deal? How about it works, for once! I'm not just talking about the hardware, but the bigger deal is with what you can DO. You'll have to excuse the old way of doing things though. You're looking at big difference; a future without a disk drive, a computing environment that completely transforms with each app, a touch surface that is connected to a global network, software that goes beyond the confines of a web browser. Now think about it, a bike and a car both have wheels, and if you've never seen a bike you might just get all grumpy about the loss of two wheels and the exercise. Sure we had tablets and PDAs from Newton, Palm, to Microsoft's ugly attempt at a tablet computer. Sony's made their fair share of amazing miniature laptops. I had a Compaq iPaq back in the day, but sadly the software just stunk. The designers didn't get a chance to design how people used these things before they got shoved onto the shelves. You can just sit outside and yell "I don't get it", or maybe for once we're on the precipice of something fundamentally better. So let me try to illustrate what the big deal is. iPad is built on the same foundation as a Mac or an iPhone. That means every bit of effort to make the Mac, iPhone, or iPad better gets shared around. We're talking about faster web browsing, better Mail programs, and all that. More importantly, for every bit of effort to make a _software developer's_ life easier gets poured right into the same tools. That means it takes me 2 months to make a revolutionary, ground breaking enterprise tool that runs on an iPad, versus spending a year building the same for web browsers. I'm given the latitude to design something great, to spend my time crafting very good software, instead of fighting with yet another flaw in Internet Explorer. I'm given a great big collection of software foundations so carefully vetted by Apple that my software runs reliably on top. Reliably, three generations later! It's not just the surface of what you're looking at that counts. Apple has built an empire of stone, and now people are getting a taste of RIM's empire of painted styrofoam with Playbook. I look forward to competition, but it sure as hell isn't coming from RIM. Google's Android is inexorably moving into Apple's turf, and that's a battle worth watching. For now, enjoy Apple's taste of elegant little devices. Tony, you could try picking up an iPad, I dare ya. But I bet your old habits will be too hard to break and it'll all just rub off as a two wheeled car. Cheers! ;) - Aaron.