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Comment by NathanKP | Hacker News Reader

One interesting quote from the article (the only interesting part for me):

It’s like the iPad was a device we never knew that we needed. Until Apple gave it to us.

That is the job of effective advertising, to make us need products that we didn't need before. Apple is good at this. I know I don't really need an iPad, and am determined to wait until the second generation comes out, yet I can't help but marvel at the effectiveness of Apple advertising and media coverage which makes it seem like the iPad is something everyone "needs".

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I don't see this as effective advertising (though that is what gets you to buy it) as much as effective UX design. I never thought I needed a phone with anything but the ability to call, but now I can't imagine not having an phone with internet, GPS, email, etc. That change wasn't advertising, but the best design and form factor made at the time of its release.

Advertising gets you into the store, but an innovative product creates the "need we never knew we had."

Like others said, this has nothing to do with advertising. In fact, everyone interviewed in the article were already self-admitted Apple fanboys meaning the advertising probably wasn't all that important; they were going to buy it the second Steve Jobs got up on stage.

The important part is that after the initial "magic" has worn off, early adopters still love the device. They are not returning it or selling it. They take it everywhere they go and prefer to use the device over their laptop or desktop when it's possible to do so.

This is simply the effect of Apple building a really awesome product, not advertising.

If that was an advertising-created false-need, as with, say, a Slap Chop, you'd expect the four-weeks-later stories to all read: "As it turns out, I didn't really need it."

It would be some powerful advertising indeed, that could trump a month of actual use.

I think it's the loyal fan base that allows Apple to define new products. They listen to Apple, because Apple has repeatedly delivered great experiences in the past. Very few companies have this power.

I think the Apple fayboyism may be coloring some of these statements. The idea of a touch-screen tablet is hardly new, and many people, myself included, have been waiting for someone to develop a device like the iPad for years. Look at all of the hype that surrounded the CrunchPad announcement, even when we rightly assumed it was vaporware.

Apple isn't really an innovation company. They're great at executing on ideas that no one else has yet turned into a viable product, which puts them on the cutting edge. But they've never came up with something entirely new and created demand for it where none previously existed.

And I can find plenty of points at which the iPad falls short of my tablet wish-list, but that didn't stop me from getting one.

> many people, myself included, have been waiting for someone to develop a device like the iPad for years.

Of all these people, every one of them decided to passively wait, instead of taking on the task themselves?

As far as Apple innovating, IMHO, they are the current masters of producing analog interfaces for digital systems. They have to charge a premium for it, because it's harder. But plenty of people are apparently willing to pay that premium for that interface, instead of the cheapest microcontroller and a minimal number of momentary switches, so Apple wins. I don't know if choosing their own strategy instead of following the race to the bottom is innovative or not, but it certainly leads to products that stand out.

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