All-Tablet's Eve: Bad Pundit Flashback

01/26/10 21:03

A few vocal contrarians have been poo-poohing the idea of an Apple tablet for months. But veteran observers (and by that we mean, us) notice a certain...sameness about the comments of these skeptics. These are the guys who cut & paste the “too expensive, functionally crippled tech toy” boilerplate every time The Steveness pulls another game-changer out of his hat.

Think we’re exaggerating? How bout this: In the same way they scoffed before the iPhone, the infidels we’ll call Embracers of the Conventional Wisdom were also quite confident that Apple had pulled a major boner in 2001 by introducing a little thang we like to call...the iPod.

Thanks to Apple user and amateur tech historian “sleevesend,” here’s a medley of delightfully misguided instant reviews of the original iPod from the Apple Yahoo Stock message boards on launch day, September 23, 2001 . Replace ”iPod” with “tablet” and see if any of these sound familiar:

Nah, this would be stupid. Limited market.

It seems a bit of a waste to devote a Firewire disk device to loading MP3 documents. Isn't that a bit of a conflict with the iTunes disk burning application, and the ready availability of dozens of wearable CD music devices?

WAAAAYYYYYY overpriced for what it is and for the niche it is trying to find a home in.

Will Apple phanatics ever get a gut-full of handing over their wallet ?

Geez...Compaq's award-winning PDA is within a few bucks of this overpriced, overhyped iDud device.

Guess that's why the stock is tankin - and i ain't kiddin.

$399??!?! Sheesh...I can get an Xbox (or PS2) for that much.

I was definitely hoping for something more "revolutionary" given all the hype.

That's literally a down payment on a brand new car these days....half the price of an imac....half the price of a decent iBook on eBay...for a tiny piece of electronic that's essentially $150 by any other brand on a bad day at eBay or half.com ?

Is CEO Jobs insane in the middle of a full-blown recession or what is his basic problem

What Apple marketing idiot sets these price points ?

This is sooo lame...

Right-I’m going to give my kid one of these. NOT!

You've been tricked.

PRICE!! look up MP3 players in Cnet, not much over $200, the best buy (rio) is only $165.

I was really hoping for something that appealed to everyone, not just mac people, IMHO, this is a cool bummer.

what a joke....hahahahahahahahahahha....thanks jobs.

once again the faithful get screwed.

tock price, I sense, is already factoring in this dud. Apple thinks they can over-price their product line no matter what device they hype and trot out to us...they are screwing themselves by not only DESIGNING the product as Mac only, but then crowing about it.

This is the CUBE2 - no doubt.

the apple sheep have talked about nothing for the last week other than the new product release. they talked about how revolutionary, sleek, slick, dell killing, and, microsoft killing it would be. they talked about taking the wind out of the windows xp sails.......YOU ALL HAVE EGG ON YOUR FACE. HAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH.

bend over and prepare for innovation.

(Fun Fact: “Bend over and prepare for innovation” was later used by Microsoft in a Windows Vista TV ad featuring Dan Aykroyd as Beldar the Conehead.)

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