Oh my god, this is the most sane tech article I've read in the last few years. Most of the people who use consumer electronics like that pretty much are spoiled little princesses.

That's a joke, son. You're s'posed ta laugh.

You really think Bilton was being serious?

As a veteran tech writer I take exception to your blah blah blah. tb;dw (too boring; didn't write)

I think, Paul, we already have tech writing "that focuses less on finding flaws and more on focusing on possibilities." We call it "advertising copy."

(Also, that sentence of yours is really, really bad. Break it apart now. You want tech writing that focuses less on finding flaws and focuses more on focusing on possibilities? Isn't that "focusing" a little redundant?)

Unfortunately, many tech writers aren't as eloquent as Glenn F. (that wasn't snark.) The majority of tech blogs are staffed by folks who are techies first, and writers in a very late second.

Anyone still looking towards the NTY for honest tech news, needs to take the rose colored glasses off.

It is commonly known that the NYT will use their "newspaper" to push the technologies of vendors that they have current contracts with.

Most tech writers are neither.

Comedian Monica Piper used to do a bit about her dad, who stands in front of the microwave impatiently growling "Come ONNNNNNNNN!"

We're all just too in love with our visions of flying cars to appreciate the real wonders we use on a daily basis. And I am not referring to the ridiculous Apple claim of the iPad being "magical and revolutionary;" it is neither. But we live in a time where we can do things that WOULD appear to be magic to someone from as recently as, say, 1960. Watch the beginning of The Terminator (1984) as Sarah Conner runs frantically from site to site trying to find a pay phone to call the roommate who is about to be murdered at her house by a robot from the future. She can't find a working one, and so the girl dies. And today that's just hilarious.

When you love something with all your heart, when you've attached your self worth to your possession of it, and that thing displays even the slightest flaw, you don't love it any less; you just start hating it too.

I'm glad you linked that Louis CK bit, because it's exactly what I thought of.

I mean, honestly, the world we live in, as safe, well-off members of the industrialized world, is just too magical for the reviewing paradigm of "must find something unfavorable to say so I don't seem too enthusiastic" to come off as anything but whiny.

You want something to complain about? There's plenty. Just keep some perspective. "So, in summary, while it certainly doesn't do everything, the iPad 2 - along with every other piece of consumer electronics we use today - is basically the best kind of magic crossed with every gizmo from Star Trek. The downside? 98% of the world can't afford one." -fin-

Punch yourself, because this is the exact same shit you write.

#4: You are wrong. I'm a tech writer, it's what I do for a living, and consequently I work with other tech writers. While there are a few who are as you describe, the vast majority are 1) totally in love with tech, especially personal technology, and 2) excellent writers.

Care to link to a few posts to back up your position? Go ahead, I'll like to a lot more that show a complete love of tech that's also well written.

I was gonna blame time pressure related to having to write up-to-the-minute "exclusives" on novel tech (which I personally believe ruins most video game reviews) but this is an observation from someone who's been using the iPad for ages and wants to contrast a feeling of obstruction (even for those few seconds) with a feeling of instant gratification. I doubt the writer really meant that he is exhausted from the strain of waiting on his magic rectangle, merely that his rectangle experience is now more magical.

Paul, I generally agree with your point here, and yet I think you've misrepresented Bilton's piece a bit. It's true, his complaint is a dumb one, but it seems clear that it's just setting up the real point of the post, which he makes shortly after the part you've quoted, and which I think is genuinely thought-provoking and novel among the iPad reviews I've read:

the instantaneous start-up changes the game. And the main reason is that it makes using an iPad more like reading a book.

Apple fanboys wonder why the rest of us hate them?

You really should go to YouTube and look up Louis CK's "everythings amazing and nobodys happy." How messed up is that we have to moan over 5 seconds?

Paul, the trouble with tech reporting is that those that write it are still writing to the users from 20 years ago.
Who the hell would notice or care about that .1 of the 5.1 slothful seconds to start an iPad? If it were .2 or .3 would the current end user really give a ratsass?
Fuck no.

I completely agree with you. As a non-J school Com grad, it is writing like that that makes me want to punch that person, too.

The reason your 'tech writer' is complaining is probably this: for years he poked fun at Apple fanbois, and how overpriced all Apple computers always were, and how there were no games....

... and now he (yes) has gone and bought one, and he's still hearing that voice from his past in his head going "sell out! sell out! fanboi!" but he just couldn't help himself...

Because people don't understand the more complicated issues, like the iron grip Apple has over what you can and can't do with your hardware. And tech writers are too busy playing Angry Birds to explain that to people.

"Something that focuses less on finding flaws and more on focusing on possibilities."

And therein lay the problem with the tablets in general and iPad fanboy-users in particular. The only thing it is possible to do well with these things is look like a pretentious douchebag. Need to enter numbers or data into a spreadsheet or database? Need to bang out some code or write up an executive summary for that quarterly report? Want to fire up ProTools or Autotune and try (and fail) to make Rebecca Black sound like she's actually singing about 'Fri-yi-day?' Please, by all means, forgo a keyboard and mock-type on a touchscreen.

Douchebaggery I say!

Apple: Giving you basic tech that should have come out years ago and calling it revolutionary.