Notes
Forrester is full of morons
Forrester analyst Ted Schadler wrote a post on the Groundswell blog today about using the iPad for business. It is a generally complimentary article, but what stood out to me as moronic were Ted’s requests for features not yet available on the iPad:
- Full Microsoft Office Support
- Mouse support
- More and better business apps
So, basically, what Ted here is looking for is a netbook.
First, Apple doesn’t really want to get into bed with Microsoft to support Office (they have 3 perfectly good, designed-for-the-iPad apps that will read all your files). And while Pages, Numbers and Keynote may not be exactly as powerful as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, they should be able to get the job done in any situation that would require you to put together something at the last minute.
Second, part of the beauty of the iPad is that it doesn’t need a mouse. If you need a mouse, you may want to rethink the iPad as your only device. Your reasoning behind needing a mouse:
For pete’s sake, I can use a bluetooth keyboard, why can’t I use a bluetooth mouse? That would make it a full authoring tool.
I’ll tell you why, Ted: just because you can doesn’t mean you should. (See also: Flash, multi-tasking.) This is something that Apple understands and Microsoft does not. Oftentimes adding something just because you can usually ends up negatively affecting the finished product. Most Apple detractors want to talk about all the things that they can do with their fancy Android phones. I’ll tell you, having used both Android and iOS, there are reasons that Apple chose not to include things. Because it lessened the end experience of the user.
As someone who works on the web, I see this “we should do this because we can” mentality oftentimes with web applications and sites. In the words of the wise sage Tim Gunn, Learn how to edit.*
And more business apps? If you’re a professional, you should be able to be creative and figure out a way around it. “But until we get access to corporate applications…” As in what? I don’t understand this at all and without specific examples, I call BS.
Analysts are supposed to understand the industries that they report on. It seems Mr. Schadler doesn’t.
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