The Truth About The iPad, Day 300: I Barely Use It Anymore
The main thing you need to know about my iPad right now is that I'm not sure where it is. — It's definitely at home, because I've stopped bringing it to work most days. I think it's next to the bed, because that's where I've …
Context & Ripple Effects
The iPad's first year was punctuated by public breakups: SocialTimes' editor returned one in April 2010 (Why I'm Returning My Apple iPad), Harvard Business Review followed in June (Why I Returned My iPad), and TechCrunch argued in between that the device would sell well while quietly damaging sustained reading (The iPad Is A Kindle Killer).
This day-300 check-in matters because it comes from a keeper, not a returner — someone who bought in and stayed — reporting that the device has drifted out of the workday and down to the nightstand. It converts the early 'I returned mine' anecdotes into a usage-pattern question: what the iPad actually replaces once the novelty budget runs out.
First-order effects
- For Apple, the report is word-of-mouth erosion from exactly the reviewer class that fueled launch enthusiasm: an owner still counts as a sale, but one who stopped carrying the device to work signals it failed to displace any existing tool.
- For the reviewer personally, the iPad has settled into a narrow bedside-consumption role — the gap between what it promised as a new computing category and what daily habit actually kept.
Second-order effects
- If keepers as well as returners converge on light, couch-and-bed usage, Amazon's Kindle thesis survives TechCrunch's 'Kindle killer' framing — dedicated e-readers compete only for the reading slice rather than losing the whole living room.
Third-order effects
- If long-term-owner reports keep describing occasional use rather than laptop displacement, the tablet settles as a third device layered on top of phones and PCs — a consumption appliance whose industry significance rests on unit volume, not on replacing anything.
The trend: Tablet adoption is splitting between launch-window enthusiasm and long-term habit, with real usage data arriving months after purchase and pointing toward a niche consumption device rather than a laptop replacement.