iPad - Future Shock or Present Schlock?

Apple Fanbois are not happy that Other People do not love the iPad sufficiently, and at first reading I thought Fraser Speirs was going down this line:

one can't help being struck by the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against the iPad.

Some are trying to dismiss these ravings by comparing them to certain comments made after the launch of the iPod in 2001: "No wireless. Les space than a Nomad. Lame.". I fear this January-26th thinking misses the point.

What you're seeing in the industry's reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock.

But after reading the whole article, I come to praise, not to bury - his argument is essentially around reducing the level of difficulty in using new technology. He notes that:

The tech industry will be in paroxysms of future shock for some time to come. Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get "real work" done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the "real work".

It's not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table's order, designing the house and organising the party.

Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people's perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn't a price worth paying to have a computer that isn't frightening anymore.

Amen to that - and its a powerful business model, as Apple sadly is able to keep on proving over and over again in various sectors, to the discomfit of the crusty incumbents in them. There is an interesting argument that Apple is able to this as it has near - dictatorial design authority. But future shock? I think that could just be a linkbait headline playing to the present hypefest - as is mine

(Our initial thoughts on the iPad are over here)