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Comment by alex_c | Hacker News Reader

shrug

Let's see how well it actually does before we go on about how brilliant Apple's marketing guys are.

Yes, the iPad has potential. It doesn't make sense to dismiss it offhand just because some of us might not have a use for it.

No, not every single Apple product has changed the world, even though they're all introduced as revolutionary. It doesn't make sense to accept their marketing copy as gospel. Lots of companies pay lots of money for sentences like that, it doesn't mean they're all successful.

Ultimately, the market will decide this one. Yes, it MIGHT change the world, but it really is too early to tell one way or another.

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Certainly marketing can lie. The "funnest iPod ever" didn't make the iPod touch into a brilliant gaming console. (Casual gaming, maybe, come to think of it, but that's beyond my knowledge. Anybody else know about this?) However, it's good at indicating what somebody wants you to think. Droid's ad wanted you to think: "iPhone sucks, Droid rules." Apple's ad wants you to think: "This thing was made by a wizard." Relevant to today's discussions because a lot of people seem to be wondering what Apple's thinking, when I think Apple's been pretty obvious.

I actually wouldn't call this revolutionary. That's why we're not reacting gleefully. It's evolutionary. It just happens to have evolved in a way that gives it a potential radical significance.

Semirelated: Studying advertisements is a brilliant way to study history. It lets you in on all society's biases and wants and needs and fears. Modern advertisement is as insightful to the human condition as modern poetry, though it goes at it a bit ass-backwards and rarely as tactfully.

I disagree that it's just "potential" radical significance. I think the advertising claims are quite verifiable by looking at the specs and comparing with the iPhone's success, and thus it's a slam dunk. I think you made a strong argument that those who say it's not going to be a big deal because it lacks GPS and a camera aren't representative of the target audience.

Indeed! But all sorts of things can happen to stop it from becoming truly radically huge. Certainly it'll sell well at first — so did the Kindle. I wouldn't call the Kindle radical, though, even if it is pretty big (and a damn good product at that). By "radical" I mean "so big every family has two". I can imagine that happening, but I wouldn't take it as a given.

Ah, I see. I didn't realize you were speaking proper English rather than Internet English, and thus "radical" actually meant something far removed from the ordinary. I've been spending too much time on twitter where "awesome" often means "not bad".

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