[caption id="" align="alignright" width="152" caption="Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press"]
[/caption]
David Pogue writes an interesting dual-view review of the iPad.
In 10 years of reviewing tech products for The New York Times, I’ve never seen a product as polarizing as Apple’s iPad, which arrives in stores on Saturday.
“This device is laughably absurd,” goes a typical remark on a tech blog’s comments board. “How can they expect anyone to get serious computer work done without a mouse?”
“This truly is a magical revolution,” goes another. “I can’t imagine why anyone will want to go back to using a mouse and keyboard once they’ve experienced Apple’s visionary user interface!”
Those are some pretty confident critiques of the iPad — considering that their authors have never even tried it.
In any case, there’s a pattern to these assessments.
The haters tend to be techies; the fans tend to be regular people.
He goes on to provide a helpful review -- from both perspectives.
At our firm, we're wondering who'll be the first to purchase an iPad. Our money is on the techies, though most of them are content to wait for the next generation. And Pogue makes a compelling case that this technology is geared less toward the traditional early adopters and more toward ordinary users.