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OMG: The iPad is just a giant/oversized iPod Touch!

roland.g

roland.g

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 11, 2005
7,500
3,282
I know what you are saying. Another giant iPod touch thread. Flamer. But no, exactly the opposite. I have never been a fan of the iPod Touch. It is too thin to hold easily, almost predicating the need for a case. Whereas my iPhone and subsequent iPhone 3G have never needed more than a back skin for scratch protection. So yes, at the end of the day, the iPad appears to be just a giant or oversized iPod Touch. But that is the beauty of it, no?

As a mobile phone, the iPhone does a superb job of bringing together the multitouch interface, the Phone app and all the other other apps that work quite seamlessly together. Mail, contacts, maps, safari, etc. all just interconnect. Being able to dial a number from contact info on a webpage, an email or by looking up a location on a map is probably some of the most used features. Mobile email is great. And then the App Store adds so many varieties to suit each person's taste, whether gaming, music streaming, productivity, whatever...

But the iPod Touch is just (in my opinion) a weak version of the iPhone. It is essentially just a toy for those who don't want the iPhone, don't need a phone, or whatever to be able to use many of the apps from the store. But if I just need an iPod, I would much prefer to go with a Classic for capacity or a Nano for size or even a shuffle for ultimate portability. But the iPod Touch to me is just a watered down iPhone, incapable of having anywhere access or doing the most basic functions: calling, getting data on the go. You can't pull out a Touch and use the Maps app unless you have a WiFi signal available.

As for the iPad, it is what the iPod Touch should have been. It is all the things that the iPhone does less the phone and for those that want to pay for the 3G version and data, it is completely mobile, yet it does it in the correct form factor. Of course I would want a giant iPod Touch aka the iPad, but I would never want an iPod Touch even if I didn't have an iPhone. Does that mean the iPad is not limited in some ways and also an overpriced "toy", maybe... time will tell. I for one have always been a desktop over laptop user and so the iPad is a great rest of the house companion to my iMac. My MacBook will probably get sold. So in some ways it is a great and lesser priced version of a laptop (Mac of course) that does so much of what I need instant access to without being a full blown computer. I have an iMac for that.
 
The iPad has it's place and I think this type of thread has been done a few times before.

I for one enjoy the size of the iPad for a number of reasons.
 
So to sum this up blah blah blah, I don't like the ipod touch because of the small size and that the ipad is better because it's bigger. Thanks.
 
It's not as if the community here complains much about the iPad, so all of these posts intended to show how some mainstream criticisms are wrong are just preaching to the choir, and thus, are a waste of forum space.
 
nsorrelle said:
It's not as if the community here complains much about the iPad, so all of these posts intended to show how some mainstream criticisms are wrong are just preaching to the choir, and thus, are a waste of forum space.
Click to expand...

I can point to so many other threads that are so much more a waste of forum space. But there are quite a few people here that have complaints. This was just my take on the whole iPod Touch thing as I realized I never liked them and now understood why. If you have a problem with that, then don't reply and this thread will die and drop down the list.
 
Not sure why Roland created this thread. The iPad is in fact a big iPod Touch, what's wrong with that? The iPhone and iPod Touch have proven to be very successful devices. It would only make good sense for Apple to build off the same successful devices. The iPad addressed the one major thing I had issues with in regards to my iPod Touch and that would be the screen size. The 9.7" screen allows me to do so much more than I could with my iPod Touch and that's probably why the iPad is so successful so quickly.
The OP is trying to make it sound like a bad thing that the iPad is a big iPod Touch, it's not.
 
Not to fan the flame here as I do agree this has been dicussed in great detail before, but now that I have had my iPad since Apr 3, here are my thoughts on this subject:

I use my iPad in ways I would not spend any valuable time doing on my iPhone.

1. I tried watching movies, tv shows on iPhone, but the screen is to small to present anything well.
2. I use my iphone in a jam for web function, but it is slow and fairly limited due to its size. I would not order anything online from it, where I certainly do on the iPad without hesitation.
3. The A4 iPad chip offers a snappiness not seen before running the iPhone OS (which is just another front end of a Unix platform). This has to be experienced to be understood. It is fast and responsive and I can jump all over the web and retrieve the information I want easily and quickly. The flash limitation is annoying and I hope that this is circumvented quickly as the iPad user base grows and can not be ignored.
4. I will bring up the screen resolution and real estate again as very limiting on iPhone and quite enabling on an iPad.
5. I read books on iPad, cumbersome on iPhone.
6. The apps are fun on both devices, but games are more playable on the iPad.

Just a few thoughts from an old Unix guy that likes something different than Windows....
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Macrumors needs a wind farm.
 
mcdj said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Macrumors needs a wind farm.
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An solar source of energy you say.:rolleyes:

Let's stick a solar panel on the back on an iPad and let it charge.
 
mcdj said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Macrumors needs a wind farm.
Click to expand...

MacRumors needs a blogging section.
 
My wife, who has the latest 32Gb touch, said she wants one with 3G, for many of the same reasons the OP has presented. For her, it would be a pseudo-laptop.

I'm almost in the same boat, except for the fact that I need a multitrack music production application in a portable form factor. I'm not sure of the A4's capabilities with driving softsynths, which is why I'm not considering a netbook for replacing my aging Toshiba laptop. Netbooks notoriously choke on softsynths and virtual effects.

However, if GarageBand gets released as an iPad app, with its softsynth and a way to export audio to an AIFF or WAV file, I'd get it the next day with no regret, even if the number of tracks were limited to, say, eight.
 
Despite the fact that I love my iPod Touch I actually find myself agreeing with the OP. I've never been able to justify the monthly cost of an iPhone to myself so an iPod Touch was a way to get a lot of the benefit on the cheap. However for most of the things that I do with my iPod Touch, an iPad would do the job better.
 
I use my iPod touch constantly. I don't want to pay $70/month + for an iPhone. So, I have a cheap phone and a touch. Works great. You're complaining the iPod touch is too thin? Are you crazy? That's what I like about it.
Anyway, I have an iPad too... Just use them for different things, as the iPad doesn't go with me "everywhere" like the iPod touch does.
 
HLdan said:
Not sure why Roland created this thread. The iPad is in fact a big iPod Touch, what's wrong with that? The iPhone and iPod Touch have proven to be very successful devices. It would only make good sense for Apple to build off the same successful devices. The iPad addressed the one major thing I had issues with in regards to my iPod Touch and that would be the screen size. The 9.7" screen allows me to do so much more than I could with my iPod Touch and that's probably why the iPad is so successful so quickly.
The OP is trying to make it sound like a bad thing that the iPad is a big iPod Touch, it's not.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that the iPad being a big iPod Touch is a bad thing, the opposite in fact. I just don't see the real need for the iPod Touch.

The iPhone was a huge success and Apple wanted to continue to make the App Store a success so the iPod Touch was a logical step at the time. However, only in that does it succeed. Otherwise it fails in my opinion. It gives those that don't want the data cost, or parents who wouldn't pay for an iPhone for their teenager for example, an out. And I understand that. But it misses out on so much of the functionality of the iPhone by not having wherever access or cellular and how all the apps and those two features can tie together. (I will say I prefer the WiFi only iPad b/c of cost, no added data plan, already have an iPhone for anywhere access, etc. The iPad will be more for home and trips, not for anywhere connectivity but that differs for everyone and I see why so many people are 3G.)

One thing people misconceive about the iTunes store and the App Store is that Apple makes money on it. They don't break even, but they don't rake it in either. It is minimal at best. And at the end of the day has a relatively low impact on their gross revenue and profit. They make their money from hardware: Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads. Software and consumable media are simply a means to slightly pad that revenue but more than anything else, they are a means to sell more products. Apple makes good margins on their hardware. So creating the iPod Touch simply allowed them to sell more "iPhones" to people who wouldn't be buying iPhones but really wanted the Apps.

But if any one product was cannibalized by the iPad it wasn't the MacBook, it was the iPod Touch. They will still sell their Nanos, Shuffles, some Classics, as well as tons and tons of iPhones and Mac computers, but if any one product sees a decrease from iPad sales it will be the Touch. And it just makes sense that it would be that way.

Like I said I am not really bashing the Touch, I simply never liked the feel of one in my hand, nor felt the need since I had an iPhone. And the one thing that my iPhone always lacked for some things was screen size. And the things that my MacBook always lacked for some things was weight/wait. With an iPad I get the screen real estate that my iPhone lacks and the easier portability and faster access that my MacBook lacks.
 
roland.g said:
But if any one product was cannibalized by the iPad it wasn't the MacBook, it was the iPod Touch. They will still sell their Nanos, Shuffles, some Classics, as well as tons and tons of iPhones and Mac computers, but if any one product sees a decrease from iPad sales it will be the Touch. And it just makes sense that it would be that way.
Click to expand...

I think that you're really understating the effect of price on what people buy. The 32GB iPad is double the cost of the equivalent iPod Touch; that difference has got to have an effect on the number that Apple sell.
 
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