iPad Postmortem: Worth the Hype?

Even by Apple’s standards, the barrage of rumors and speculation and giddy anticipation that led up to the iPad was an outsize spectacle. But we’ll leave that to the anthropologists to chew on.

As far as the fortunes of the device itself, one analyst likes its chances. After all that build-up, the jeers were bound to follow like the inevitable ebb tide. Enterprise Mobile Today hears from an insider who believes that the iPad might be the first device to successfully bridge the gap between smartphone and laptop.

Steve Jobs had barely left the stage in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts after announcing the iPad and the complaining began on blogs and on Twitter. Just like the rumors and speculation that preceded the announcement, the post-announcement complaints began to take on a life of their own.

However, one mobile products analyst insists that the device will be a hit going forward and the only reason it’s being perceived by some as a failure is because it wasn’t what all the bloggers, analysts and pundits wanted.

“A lot of people were disappointed because it did not meet their own agenda,” said Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis. “No one has succeeded in the in-between space between a smartphone and a laptop, but I think this will in the long term.”

He expressed frustration with people claiming to have been briefed on the device in the weeks running up to the launch as well. “Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) doesn’t brief anyone in advance. I spoke to Phil Schiller [Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing] at the launch and he said no analysts were briefed in advance,” Greengart said.

(Web entrepreneur Jason Calacanis punked the press by spilling supposed features of the device the night before launch on Twitter. The features were a ludicrous grab bag – facial recognition and solar panels – but several news outlets ran with it. Now Valleywag is having a grand old time ridiculing them for being taken in.)

Read the full story at Enterprise Mobile Today:


Did the iPad Deliver?