Media hype Apple iPad as game changer

I can’t remember a product where the media are jumping on a bandwagon without telling the truth. The iPad is being hyped in one story after another.

The Charlottetown Guardian writer gushes all over himself without even reporting the facts. “Future Shop would not reveal the exact number sold but noted only one remained on the shelf as of 3:50 p.m.”

Each Future Shop got 20 so they sold 19. Since the story was published on Saturday evening, he could at least have done the research on our story published that morning.

Everyone including the nondescript New Brunswick Business Journal is using the cliched label “game changer” for the Apple iPad. It’s a “game changer” for desktops – not true – and a “game changer” for Nintendo – again not true.

MacLeans Magazine has an article this week entitled Game Changer how original. A Google search turns up 233,000 articles with the same idea. The journalists like to read each other stories and do a mild re-write. It saves them from working.

It’s a tablet and after you hold it in your two hands the only game you want to change is going back to a laptop.

Tablet computers have been around for more than a decade. Most people find it very hard to work while holding a computer in their hands. Watch them at the hospital next time. The person with the tablet computer is almost inert, waiting for someone tell tell them what to write like a scribe in ancient Egypt.

Personally, an iPhone is much more convenient to use. Try balancing the iPad on one leg while you try to rapidly type an email. You’ll be dreaming of getting a keyboard for the thing.

We’ll try to cut through the hype and baloney.