Book by its cover.

I was browsing through DropBox's support forums and there was a discussion about a request for a full iPad version.

Once specific reply indicated that the iPad was not an innovative product, sight unseen, purely based on the specs. So this person in their wisdom is judging a product based on their specs, totally buying into the "more crap is better" argument. I'm guessing they go around buying books based on their cover, or buying music based on the attractiveness of the artist.

They refer to Apple as not being "innovative" based on the specs. How is HP, or Dell, or Microsoft being innovative by utilizing the same specs, just more of them? How is that innovation? How is including a USB being more innovative? Innovation through specs is dead.

If we were to look at Apple products based on their specs, they would be mere Unix boxes, with substandard-sized hard drives and missing RS-232 and parallel ports and can't support floppy disks. Let's not speak of the fact that Microsoft has done their darndest at copying everything that Apple does, from their consumer electronic products, to their operating system user interface. And it's not only that Apple does a good job marketing their products, it's that everyone else does such a crappy job marketing their's. Their competitors attempt to slam Apple's products by talking about specifications and lower price point...but they fail to understand the human psychology. Sometimes paying more for a product equates to a perceived higher value of that product. To their point, Apple does not cut corners when it comes to the design finish of their product. They didn't settle for a plastic screen on the iPhone, iPod Touch or the iPad. It's glass. It has an oleophobic coating. They don't make their product look like a 20-button remote control. People will pay for good design and Apple places a high value on good design.

Specs are a commodity...there is no value in innovating through specifications. Moore's Law has changed all that. So if RAM is the same across devices, processor speed is the same, if all the specs are the same....the only thing left is price...AND the user experience. Unless you've used the iPad to browse the internet or use their apps that have been written to completely leverage multi-touch, you cannot make a valid argument that Apple is not innovative.

Based on the venom spewed by this forum poster against Apple products, it makes you wonder what kind of emotional childhood trauma this person was subjected to? Based purely on specifications, I'm betting they would buy the cheapest car possible because all cars are basically the same, and they would do it without test driving the car...or at the very least, slander all other cars without driving them, but based solely on specs and price. Tires are tires. Engines are engines. Quality and design be damned.

Just because a device has USB ports out the ying-yang, has a larger screen, has all these technical specs going for it, you're still running Windows...a version of their operating system that has been adapted for multi-touch usage....not an operating system that has been written to from the ground up specifically for a touch interface.

By the sheer volume of tablet devices spewing out of the woodwork trying to follow Apple into the marketplace, Apple must be onto something, right? But again, their competitors do not have an answer for the iPhone OS. They do not have an answer for the application distribution model. They do not have an answer for the free media publicity, the hoards of Apple loyalists, nor the clean finish and design of their products.

Their answer is only half an answer, and their response is late to the game.