AppleInsider Staff
Competitors are once again taking aim at Apple's top-selling iPad, with a new Nokia ad on Monday trumpeting the superiority of the Lumia 2520 tablet's attachable keyboard, long battery life and productivity capabilities.
In a bit of fun, Nokia's ad follows an iPad user as he becomes increasingly less enamored with Apple's tablet, pointing out arguments long since drilled into the ground by Microsoft and its Surface ads.
While the iPad itself is not named in the commercial, the narrator, who is voicing the main character's thoughts, says his new tablet is "thinner than a pencil" and "has been to space."
At first, the new owner acts smug with his purchase, noting that everyone wants one, while pooh-poohing the need for a keyboard. Things take an immediate turn, however, as we see our iPad-toting protagonist at a local coffee shop, frustrated that the tablet has no keyboard attachment.
Luckily, he came prepared with a MacBook Pro, called "the beast," which is apparently needed for any type of truly productive work. Nokia's 2520, by contrast, can be mated to a Power Keyboard that provides extra juice and physical QWERTY keys.
Next, the iPad's battery life comes under scrutiny, with the tablet dying while in the middle of a movie. Nokia is touting its fast-charging battery, which the company claims can be charged to 80 percent capacity in about an hour.
Finally, at the end of the spot, the iPad user concedes that one of the only redeeming qualities of the device is its light weight. When he finally sees the Lumia 2520, which solves all the problems discussed earlier in the ad, he asks, "Did I buy the wrong tablet?"
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I seem to remember that another company (once called RIM) also poked fun at the iPhone for not having physical keyboard. Microsoft would do well to remember that bit of history. In all seriousness, I can absolutely understand the use case for a keyboard with a tablet, but I think Apple sees the iPad as a fundamentally different type of computing experience. Sure, use a keyboard in those situations where you absolutely need one%u2026 but those situations really should be coming less and less frequently as time goes on and developers design software that brings a completely new experience to the end-user. I know that I'm in the minority in this, but I actually really enjoy the experience of Pages on the iPad. The combination of the soft keyboard with voice dictation probably keeps my productivity level at around the same as with a physical keyboard on a desktop. And on top of that, I actually get to manipulate the words on the screen with my fingers, and I personally find that to be a really awesome experience! Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to want to encumber the tablet end-user with traditional computing models. Instead of seeing a physical keyboard as a necessary evil that really should only be used in the most extreme circumstances, Microsoft seems to believe that the physical keyboard is an essential part of the tablet experience. To me, that makes tablets no different than a regular laptop.... and where's the fun in that!?
He didn't buy the wrong tablet. He's to smug to use a GREAT tablet.
Plain and simple. If your craplet needs a keyboard to operate effectively, you've failed to build a tablet. Instead, you've built a laptop for people who think it'd be cool to have a tablet because everyone else has one.
iPad has been out for how many years without keyboard or stylus and it's been doing just fine. When are these people going to stop hammering on the same "dead horse"?
[quote name="AppleInsider" url="/t/160892/nokia-takes-page-from-microsoft-in-new-lumia-ad-goes-after-ipads-lack-of-physical-keyboard#post_2439950"] Finally, at the end of the spot, the iPad user concedes that one of the only redeeming qualities of the device is its light weight. When he finally sees the Lumia 2520, which solves all the problems discussed earlier in the ad, he asks, "Did I buy the wrong tablet?"[/quote] Fear not, young iPad grasshopper. You did not buy the wrong tablet, you only are trying to use the iPad like a turn-of-the-century typewriter. Think again... do you really want a text-based keyboard when building a spreadsheet? Or do you want a ten-key pad and math formulae one moment and the text keyboard the next? Do you want a typewriter keyboard at hand to do photo touchup or other graphical work? A typewriter keyboard is like one-size-(kind-o)f-fits-all... very similar to how a Windows tablet tries to be a heavy bulky tablet AND a laptop that can't work on a lap. Besides, Nokia and Microsoft pretend there is no similar keyboard for an iPad... if you need to write your great American novel on a tablet. So far I haven't needed a keyboard for my iPad, especially since Siri is more accurate then my fingers and quicker as well. Life is better when you think in terms of the current century...