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“FC Expert Blogger” Patrick J. Howie thinks a bunch of things about the tablet market and every single paragraph is another link baited piece of…

He starts really strongly ending the first paragraph with this bit:

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 tablets coming out this year, and most of them seem to have no better sense of purpose than to replicate the iPad. This is a doomed strategy, if it can be called as strategy at all. But the iPad and the majority of its competitors are focusing on a very narrow view of what the tablet can do.

I can buy that, but I need you, Howie, to sell me on that last sentence. And so he tries:

Rather, the tablet has the potential to improve our productivity. While the iPad 2 makes some strides in this direction compared to the original iPad (especially with the stronger processor), the focus of most of the enhancements are aimed at improving the entertainment value of the device.

When did anyone ever complain about the processor? I seem to remember people applauding it and complaining about the lack of RAM, but ok let’s move on.

But it is just stronger processing power along with a mindset towards increasing our capacity to do things–not just playing games–which represents the future of the tablet.

OK, but you just said the iPad 2 has a stronger processor, so we are all good then right? Also didn’t you just say that the processor is only a minor part and that we need to focus on productivity — surely you don’t think processing power and productivity go hand in hand?

Apparently not, because he starts to talk about the Kno tablet and brings up this gem:

First, the Kno comes with a pen, which is too “uncool” for the Apple but which is very handy for writing compared to the impractical touch-screen keyboard.

Right, because all those pen computing devices of the past worked out so well for people, I mean even the Palm Pilot wasn’t great. But I can see the practical advantage of pen computing for writing notes and Howie follows with another strong point:

With the dual-screen, you can truly multitask in a way that just is not possible with the single-screen iPad. Users can compare two articles side by side, perform an Internet search and take notes at the same time, and even perform analysis on one side and document the results on the other.

That is a killer feature, but only for a very niche group of users: academics. Also you should Google: “laptop”.

But what is this:

If Apple would spend more effort improving the functional ability of the iPad, enabling application developers to create apps that truly improve our productivity, then the future of the tablet will arrive that much sooner.

Where is the proof that they are stifling or not-approving apps that increase user productivity? Simplenote, Dropbox, OmniFocus, 1Password are just a few of the approved apps that I use daily to improve my productivity. Most apps that are not approved are entertainment apps, not productivity apps. I really don’t see the evidence here and I think this is an idiotic statement, but I digress.

Because now he gets to the Xoom:

This is why the Xoom is so intriguing. Motorola and Google are two companies that have proven their ability to see around the corner and they have made it much easier for developers to get applications to market than Apple has with the iPad. However, the Xoom is really built to be another iPad with an emphasis on entertainment–as if two cameras is really the key to success in this category–which is a shame for all of us.

So the Xoom has potential because Motorola AND Google are building it!!! But, alas, it is just another iPad clone according to Howie.

I don’t even understand the logic here: he starts to touts the Xoom before then lumping it with the 100s of other iPad clones. This makes no sense, if you say that Motorola and Google are “two companies that have proven their ability to see around the corner” then do you mean that Apple is not that type of company?

After all it was Google that created Android and Motorola that created the iPhone — wait, nope. Google bought Android and Motorola is on its death bed.

I think the real argument Howie is trying to make is that Apple should allow all apps on iOS — which is clearly what he seems most frustrated about, not that he really thinks the iPad 2 is bad.