How to Hate the iPad: A Break Down of the Backlash
A friend recently admitted a favorite past time of his - watching plane crashes on YouTube. Planes crashing, helicopters twirling out of control, boats sinking - all are fair game. For a lot of people, this has been the story of the iPad over the past few days. While some of us take the higher ground, others revel in off-color jokes and nitpicking the different ways the iPad will be Apple's biggest mistake ever.
TweetFeel, a sentiment analysis tool that uses tweets as its data set, offers us a snapshot of this darker side of the iPad.
According to an email from Andres Burgos, the project lead for TweetFeel, the company collected almost a half a million tweets since Steve Jobs took the stage on Wednesday, "cleaned the hell out of them and scored about 40,000" and found an overall positive sentiment hovering at around 60%. But this isn't the fun part. Nobody wants to watch people gush, so let's take a look at how that other 40% breaks down.
Some good news for Apple might be that a solid 38% of the negative has only to do with making fun of the name "iPad", something even potential customers might find themselves doing because it's just too easy.
After that, however, the biggest section of tweets complained that the iPad is merely a larger version of the iTouch or iPod. This could be a bit more serious, as it shows that people don't see the iPad as fulfilling a need. From here, we have the final 35%, with the lack of a camera and flash running neck in neck. The inability to multitask and potential network problems round up the Twitterverse's displeasure with the device.
We think it's this last 35% that really has some substance, as we've seen a number of articles focusing on these very points.
However, when it comes to that positive side, that 60% majority, Burgos said the sentiment becomes quite simple and the news for Apple is certainly good.
"The positive tweets are mostly folks saying things like 'It's awesome' [and] 'I want one'," he wrote. "When looking at Apple products, the positive responses are usually very 'Koolaid-esque' meaning they don't really say why they like it but just that they do..and they want."
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Clearly they named it the iPad so you geeks would keep talking about it by associating it to maxipads and whatever else.
Apple's PR people are geniuses and you little smartypants kids think you're smarter? Bah haha! Silly kids.
SO if you redid your chart and removed the "silly name" and the "feminine hygiene"... that knocks out nearly 30% of your haters. Flash? That's coming soon enough, that'll be another 15% out... you'll be pushing 45% of your sentiment removed.
Yes... maxipad jokes get old... eventually the dorks will want one of these.
I think madTV deserves some money: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsjU0K8QPhs
Apple iPad = POS gigantor iPhone/Kindle knock-off! Damn I'm disappointed as HELL!
Measuring acceptance of products by Twitter when a majority of RWW articles show just how few Twitter accounts there are per capita is illogical.
Twitter is not a good source of statistical information on marketing and product stability. Only a nation-wide survey conducted on random people (rather than the internet's elite) could remotely show how people really feel about the iPad.
The other good news for Apple if these numbers mean anything, is that the ones of 'substance' are all technical ones that can be overcome with new version or network improvements. I don't think this is for reading book (plain text), but it clearly excels at consuming media (and much more) in every other format.
Plus, I think that it will increase the halo effect. Once you have an iPhone *and* an iPad, it is only a matter of time that you start to think it is silly to sync them with a non-Apple laptop or desktop.
This doesn't what part of the audience is concerned by the "closed" - iphone like - approach for content & applications? It's seems more important than just goofy naming jokes, and "wait for version 2" feelings.
No count of the mentions of how much digital restrictions management hampers sharing media on the Ipad (http://collecta.com/#q=ipad%20drm) ? No mentions of Apple's track record of arbitrary App Store rejections and removals ? No mentions of the ridiculous choice of extension ports (http://collecta.com/#q=ipad%20usb) ? No mentions of the impossibility of installing anything not anointed by Apple ? No mention of the non-swappable battery (http://collecta.com/#q=ipad%20battery%20swap) ? No mentions of how Apple can remotely disable applications and media ? What sort of analysis is that ? Anyway, if any other company presented such a crippled product, would anyone notice it ?
Aside from all the negative comments, one has to applaud Apple's excellent marketing strategy. The more people talking about it, the more exposure iPad gets, and the more people will want to check out why it's got so many bad reviews. It's like movies with the most negative critiques are also the ones generating the most profits (net, not gross).
A good friend of mine recently died in a helicopter accident. I can't imagine what kind of morally bankrupt person would get off on watching "Planes crashing, helicopters twirling out of control, boats sinking".
Why would normal Twitterers complain about DRM? That part was expected. This is Apple, not Linux. The "missing" features and name were previously unknown. I'm sure the thousands of speculative articles proclaiming it the Jesus Tablet didn't help. Any Apple fan who cares enough about DRM also knows enough to expect a jailbreak within a short period from launch.
Here's another interesting statistic:
95% of all comments on internet tech sites are posted by unemployed, parents basement dwelling, PC gamers who own at least 3 MacSux T-shirts.
@imkindabad - For sure, put all the things that are missing into the next version, and you'll have a lot more believers. That doesn't change or invalidate what people are saying right now, though.
And I don't know if that movie analogy holds true. For $10, I can see if a movie actually sucks or if my friend just has bad taste. Or if a whole lot of people have bad taste...for $500 plus, I don't think "the more people will want to check out why it's got so many bad reviews."
@zato - hah!
Although it seems pretty useless without multi-tasking to me anyway, the tiny screen size (http://www.crestock.com/uploads/blog/wallpapers/set2/crestock-281777-1024x768.jpg) is really what kills it for me.
If the IPad is the same as the IPod, then it will be junk when the battery is no longer rechargeable.
This is what kills my desire for it.
Yeah unfortunately these things are not going to be user serviceable. Everything about them screams Apple proprietary BS so assuming you kill your battery you'll have to ship it off to be replaced.
I'd have loved to see this thing actually be a bit bigger (yeah go figure). They made it too big to be easy to use and too small to be comfortable to use.
It will make a cool remote for the uber-geek home theater system or something cool to mess with but I don't see it displacing laptops or PCs anytime soon.
All these negative comments are expected after the religious revival like frenzy around the rumors and the launch.
I don't know what people were expecting? Maybe nothing less than a product that did everything from every electronic gadget they ever owned and a couple of new "things" that only Steve could have thought of at a bargain basement price.
Even then someone would say its missing some connector to attach an obscure widget or it failed to recalculate 25 google spreadsheets simultaneously or would not hold all the books ever produced since the printing press was invented.
" "cleaned the hell out of them and scored about 40,000" and found an overall positive sentiment " Cleaned out the overwhelming disdain for this iFail- this is so Apple media spin ridiculous. This TweetFeel must be an arm of the Apple Propaganda Bureau. iTampon captures the essence of ridicule for this trinket. The curt seven letters encapsulates the shock of the letdown felt after all the Apple hype.
I'm impressed that anyone would take the time to "clean" and "score" 40,000 Tweets in a day and a half.
For one thing, a sample size of ~ 40,000 is probably statistical overkill, given that we generally rely on polls of far smaller size (~3000 respondents) to predict matters of far more importance:Presidential elections.
I am, however, less impressed that Burgos should resort to the phrase 'Koolaid-esque' in describing the less-specific positive reactions. One of the first (if largely ignored) rules in journalism is to adopt a neutral, objective tone in describing facts. Comparing people who are enthusiastic about a new product to suicidal cult members seems to fall somewhat short of that ideal.
I think it's somewhat misleading to read TOO much into twitter-land comments, especially when people are talking about a device they have no experience with.
In addition to the factor of the tweets being mostly speculation instead of experience, there's also the question of how much one can say in twitter itself. Who's going to get into a long explanation of "open" vs "closed" in tweets, for instance? And if they do, they're probably going to split it over multiple tweets, which is going to come across a rambling ranting in the world of twitter. For all we know, ranting like that would have been "cleaned out" from the sample. Or it wouldn't have shown up at all, if the author didn't think to keep adding '#ipad' to whatever they were saying.
I won't debate any of the pros and cons of the iPad itself in this discussion, but I do think this is a case where it's pretty pointless to try and analyze the twitter-chatter. One of my friends used to say "Any philosophy which can be summed up 'in a nutshell' belongs in a nutshell", and I think that applies here.
It is no surprise that there would be a lot of tweets about the name, for instance, because it's so easy to make some insipid inane joke in 140 characters. You need no brain, no thoughtful analysis, no struggling to reword your thoughts to fit into 140 characters. All you have to do is type "TAMPON -- HAHAHAHAHAHA!" and you get to pretend that you're so amazingly clever. It's tailor-made for twits.
All the talk about the iPad is hilarious. Obviously the marketing does deserve a good laugh but the other negative factors are also worthy of attention amid the hype. No multi-tasking or Flash? Are you kidding?
I did like Stephen Colbert's comment about how the iPad beat out the TamPod.
A very interesting and insightful article. Much of the criticisms that i have read about the iPad pretty much expresses closed-mind, Luddite point of view all too common with the technorati bloggers. They are happy with the status quo. Happy that 2/3 of the carbon released into the atmosphere is the result of clear cutting equatorial and evergreen forests, much in the quest to satisfy the world's demand for paper. Yup, there's no reason to see a tablet computer succeed, whether it is from Apple or anyone else. But if we hope to fight global warming and share knowledge in amazing new ways, we need inventions like this more than ever.
America has become a nation of critics. We're never happy unless we have something to hate, something to ridicule, something to doubt. Invariably, any new idea is seized upon as a threat to the established order. So the technorati immediately pounced on the iPad for its lack of a 5 1/4" floppy drive, for not being beige, for having bezels to prevent fingers from inadvertently touching buttons and links, for not having a camera so that the techno-dilittantes could walk down the street holding it in front of their faces playing augmented reality, for not having this, for not having that, for not being nuclear powered.
But ask yourself: what do bloggers accomplish or create to make the world a better place? What have they invented that will change the world for the better? The answer: nothing.
Truth be told, criticism and ridicule are tools of choice of bitter, closed and small minds. As for me, I accepted that the iPad in whatever form it would appear, that it would be a version 1.0 offering, for all that this infers. Ask yourself: did the first automobile have a stereo and and air conditioning? Did the Wright Brothers Flyer airplane have seats that stretched out into beds or on-board video? Did the first telephone come with call waiting? No. But each of these, as well as Guttenberg's then nascent movable type, changed the world. And I hope Steve Jobs and Apple will change the world yet again in ways we cannot imagine now.
Someday, you will tell your grandchildren that you once read your news, your magazines, and your books all on printed paper. You will tell them that you once roamed the stacks of books in a large public library. And that you used to strain as you lugged an armload of printed textbooks under your arm to school each day. And they might laugh at you, and look at you strangely. All for good reason.
The fact is that the ridicule given by know-it-all techno bloggers and twitters is similar to that of people who never believed that man would fly, that we would ever set foot on the moon, that the status quo would never change. It's why I shake my head at short-sighted articles like this. Will the iPad be perfect? No. The first version of anything never is. None of us have yet tried it ourselves, and nor have the know-it-all bloggers. So take a step back. Look ahead to the future, which started last week, by the way. I believe we are at the start of a change so immense that we will comprehend it only a decade from now.
It's Baron von Raschke, fool spammer!
At the risk of being virtualy stoned to death here, i would say this: Twitter users are the "early adopters of fashion".
Not everyone, of course, but a majority of the users in Twitter are only there because "it's hot" "it's cool" and "everybody has one".
In a strange coincedence, those are the exact same reasons why many of them would buy an iPad.
Come to think about it, those are also the reasons why many of them make jokes of the iPad.
Why should one buy one ?
That's the main thing.
Have you noticed Steve Jobs was using a cable to upload the data to his iPad?
So you need a cable to use it in order to have the required speed.
I don't know why you felt the need to "take the higher ground" - out of my friends, it was the girls making the comparisons to hygiene products!
Anyway, this is all well & good, but is meaningless as a measurement of its potential success (which I guess is what I'm interested in) unless we can compare it to reactions after other Apple product releases. :)
Oh, I felt no need to take the higher ground. I am on the side of reveling in off-color jokes, myself. :)
I am very interested to see where this iPad goes. I think one of the key things it may offer is an Internet device that you don't turn off. That's where it being like the iPhone will be for its betterment. It will be the "check the Internet randomly while sitting around the house" device because, unlike the computer, you'll never feel the need to turn it off...
...do people actually turn their computers off anymore?
After the iPhone launch the main issues were: no GPS, no MMS, no multitasking, no flash, fingerprints on the screen, no replaceable battery, no keyboard, AT&T, the $600 price tag and "I've been doing all of that on my (insert brand) for years." One could argue that the list has grown smaller but actually, it is much the same this time around and in general even quite similar to the resistance encountered by the first Mac.
The "just a bigger iPod touch," is a predictable reaction. The average person sees the new in terms of the old. But people with specialized experience, say, developers, can see the change in size and power as a massive expansion of possibilities for functionality, which eventually will be realized because we're already working on it. That is, the killer iPad app is just around the corner. And when consumers actually try out the device in an Apple store, what initially seemed like "just" a bigger iPod Touch" will suddenly become a brand new experience, as we've already seen repeatedly in hands-on reports from San Francisco.
Hey genius, the cable steve was using that was plugged into the iPad was linked to the overhead projector.
Reg, you beat me to the comment about the overhead projector, but you're too nice. I was going to call LEADSExplorer a dumbass for making that comment.
Remember the “1984? ad that pitted Apple as freedom and creativity (the girl in red shorts) vs. IBM – the oppressive controlling Big Brother presence.
Apple is undeniably the new Big Brother, controlling everything from which apps you can download to whether or not you need Flash – a de facto Web Standard.
Apple Fanboys – you’re the mindless drones watching the presentation – in case you don’t recognize yourselves.
It's the hyperbole of some that has irritated me. GameChanger. Revolutionary. Future of Computing. Really?? For a limited use media consumption device?
My favorite meme is 'computers are hard and this is simple. This is great for grandma and junior.' Really? Because my retired parents are quite adept at computing and my ten-year-old daughter can use computers like it's second nature. Where are these people that think computers are hard to use?
In fact I have only one program on my PC that I find difficult to use, badly designed and prone to crashing: iTunes; which of course you need to muddle thru in order to use this simple device.
I think one of the main things I saw this weekend was the war between geeks and seeming "others".
Perhaps geeks would buy iPads for their moms, and so iPads won't take off [at least right away] because those geeks don't approve of iPads due to the geeks' awareness of iPad shortcomings... OTOH perhaps mom would rush out and buy and iPad because mom doesn't need all the geeky features and wants just the few things the iPad does. Who knows?
In reading the forums, I discovered (hadn't thought about it) a possible killer for me: Apple's control, sole-sourcing of media. I'm not sure I'd want Apple to be the sole decision-maker as to which books and other "art" I'd be able to access (and at what price).
Before the release, Apple fanboys thrashed everything out there expecting this device to be so much superior and adding a lot of innovation. Now that it is out, there is ZERO innovation in the hardware and even software but it sickens me to know that they all just want one anyway. Apple knows that there is no serious competition right now (aka need to innovate) and is simply cashing the appstore cash cow.
Similarly, when Nexus One came out with several advanced hardware specs, Apple fanboys were not impressed because iPhone 4G (or whatever the new version) would excel it in several ways. I am now pretty sure that iPhone 4G will not have anything much to offer except to update the hardware specs to contemporary standards.
The battery on my dell lappy was in its last weeks...
So I purchased a 9cell battery very cheaply on ebay.
That and installing win7 extended the life of my laptop another couple of years......
That alone is enough to keep mem sticking to wintel stuff...
iPad could be very helpful for physicians, among others. It will be easier to look up lab and X-ray reports on an iPad than on an iphone. This segment of the market could boost the sales of iPad. There are several Apps related to medicine already. eg. epocrates. It may come in handy for eRx also.
Raj Warrier
Apple is forcing Jeff Bezos to raise the price of Amazon Kindle books from $9.99 to compete with IPad pricing to publishers. Kindle readers hate that.
Watch "Hitler" on YouTube ranting about why he hates the IPad. Good summation of why not to buy one.
@Raj - There's a good conversation going on over in Mike Kirkwood's post on this very topic - The Healthcare System: An Apple Tablet's Biggest Opportunity.
I put the "it's an iPhone" statement as a plus! Though, Apple does need to start taking that platform to the next level for that plus to start to show.
AT&T is NOT an issue. AT&T rocks.
If name was an issue, then why did the "Wii" sell so well? Humans are so ego centric these days...
Camera, big problem! What were they thinking!!!! Must be front facing too.
Flash is a sore spot I agree, but I'll wait for HTML 5. I hate Flash. It's a major security hole.
It's not the fact that it doesn't come with flash that pisses me off, it's the fact that it runs the iPhone OS, thus making it impossible for it to run flash. Apple doesn't allow applications they don't approve (which includes interpreters) on iPhone OS. Unless Apple makes the iPad a completely open platform (and by this I mean in the sense that Windows and Mac OS X are, it doesn't need to be open source in the least), I refuse to purchase an iPad, and I will encourage people not to buy it.
Ya he notado que Ipad a recibido varias criticas negativas y con razon, pero segun creo AT&T solo por $15.00 ofrece Internet al Ipad sin tener que supcribirsi al telefono, creo que esta es una ventaja significativa, pues con mi Ipod solo me puedo conectar a la red de Mi casa o de un parque o lugar que ofrece el internet.
Blanca
I think you pie chart covers almost everything wrong with the Ipad...what a gimmick