This hit hard: The one sentence that will convince you to return/skip the iPad

Consumption is not useless. Yes, the iPad is purely for consumption, but if that consumption improves you as a person/programmer/whatever, it is not useless. You state that "by getting the iPad, you'll spend more time consuming and less time producing", but I think that's a fallacy, if you remember that iPad time is consumption time, it can be very valuable. It is also important to remember that much of that time may be time that you never would have spent producing anyway (lying in bed, riding the bus, whatever). If you think your iPad is destroying your productivity, then sure, return it, but remember that the iPad is very good for consuming things, and in order to produce, you must consume. Don't discount the role consumption has in production (great artists steal and all that).

>books & iTunesU

>useless

pick one

That we have become a consumer culture concerns me greatly.

That said, if people switch from consuming via TV which is entirely one-way, and switch to a consumption medium like the iPad that is two-way, that's a revolution.

The iPad is a revolution, and as entrepreneurs and developers, we should be aware of how it's changing the world around us.

But it's not a replacement for building, hacking, making and tinkering, but chances are, you aren't prone to forgetting that since you're reading this website.

I wrote my first novel on my iPad. Got a lit agent a few months later from it.

The consumption thing is bogus.

This is the very reason I haven't gotten one, or any tablet for that matter. I've had access to my roommate's iPad 2 since day one, but I've never found a good reason to use it.

Skip? Meh...For those who wish to segment their lives into producing devices (Mac/PC) and consuming devices (iPad/Kindle) then it is actually a perfect fit!

I do understand the sentiment that your friend is providing by pointing out that your probability to become another consumer rather than a producer with the device in tow is a valid point!

So just buy and iPad and throw out your TV... assuming you have a TV that is ... ;-)

I would agree -- except for the fact that as a musician, I've benefited tremendously from the recording apps that have allowed me to produce multitrack songs, record scenery as background for my videos, and edit it all together in iMovie (a program that I don't have access to on a PC).

I will need to get rid of that netflix app, though. ;)

Most YC users are consuming links here, not producing... so yeah. Also, consuming on the iPad is a completely legitimate way to stimulate yourself into producing.

You can have both an iPad for sit-back consumption and a computer for productive creation. As a consumption device, the iPad is tough to beat, for those who don't have to be producing output at every waking moment. Sometimes, you want to ingest information, and an iPad is a very effective way to do that.

Tablets to me are just an easier way to check status updates and feeds, ie things I'm trying to get away from. They even favor laying down while doing it!

I'm constantly confronted with similar questions: should I watch this game on TV or spend the next two hours learning or making something, even if it turns out ultimately to be a failure? I'm getting better everyday at choosing the later.

It's only primarily a consumption device because there's not enough devs building production apps for tablets. Which is why I bought one in the first place. We're working on production tools that we'll use ourselves and which are designed for tablets.

Summary: Don't like it? Hack it better :)

What you say is more obviously true of a Kindle, but that doesn't mean that owning a Kindle makes you produce less overall. It just changes the way that you do consume when you choose to do so.

Well, your friend got that right but why didn't you get that before?

When I bought my Xoom tablet, I had in mind two things:

a. it would do a great remote control device for a headless and home-made music player (plugged to a decent sound-system),

b. I need to rest.

While a. was definitely the fun factor for me, b. was a way for me to stop bringing work home so easily. With a tablet, you can consume most of the stuff you would with a laptop but as you can't produce, you're not tempted to start working on cool-new-interesting-project-2315.

Mixed results so far as I still often bring my laptop home from work. Also, a. didn't go that far (because of b. ? [1]).

[1] Ah well, contradictions.

Well, that is Apple's end game for the iPad after all. The same goes for Amazon and its Kindle family of devices. Whether we like it or not, the iPad and other similar devices are media consumption devices by design. You really should have known that before you bought it.

Anyway, you do have the choice of either returning it or simply keeping it and making the most out of it. And that is by focusing on its strengths and basically everything that it does right.

It is far from consumption only. I do; Tons of email, all my note taking, use story boarding and notecard apps to outline projects, banking and investment, participating in online forums aka & reddit

Also, consumption is great. If you consume good things. Lately been watching pycon videos, reading hn, learning chef, aws research, and wiki tangents on sub atomic particles and german east Africa in wwi.

iPad fucking rocks. Everyone should have a tablet of some sort.

Do some iOS dev and this will no longer be a problem.

It also makes an awesome skype/facetime video phone.

I do a lot of consuming: I watch a few TV shows, read Hacker News, proggit, and read books.

Are you really advocating that we shouldn't consume anything at all?

To me, the reason I'm considering returning the iPad is that it's nothing more than a luxury computing device. Sure, it's kind of convenient in some ways (small and light), but in other ways, it's totally a drag (iOS is underwhelming, the lack of keyboard.) I like reading on it a lot, but then, the stuff I read on it is really just websites, and I don't feel like I need a dedicated device for that.

One reason why I like having (some) new widgets is that they change how I think about what is possible. You could not have figured out modern phones while plugging away with your old Nokia. Some devices help you see the future, and for me, my ideas are certainly affected by the technology I use.

Many apps are productive in nature - notes, reminders, stock trading etc. Kindle is very useful even if it's consumptive. Reading is consumptive, but also productive in the sense of 'doing something useful'. Besides, if you're away from your computer, aching to produce and you only have an iPad...write down what would help and make an app for that.

Citation needed! Who wrote that sentence?

---bluetooth keyboard > Pages, email, blogging.

---Garageband > music

---Camera > Photos, video, photo editing

---Painting apps > art, sketches, wireframing

---Internet > anything

Super turbo false.

So is a book.