So, why wasn't it as appealing to the broader base of consumers?

I played with one for a bit at Best Buy, but it felt clunky and didn't look as good as the ipad. OTOH I didn't buy an iPad either, as tablets just don't work for me.

The OS is on par with the iPad but the hardware is not. An iPad is thinner and lighter and made of glass and metal (as opposed to plastic) but they both cost $500. If you can't match Apple's aesthetics then you shouldn't charge the same price. Either take the loss for market share or figure out how to produce something that feels higher quality or go home.

I heard it was relatively laggy compared to the iPad- if Android has shown anything, not a deal breaker, but pretty important.

I won't deny it it was. Like android they had the capability to have the GUI hardware accelerated but never implemented it. Where it did excel was the multitasking. I would normally start 3-4 processes (for example, mail, twitter, music player, browser) let them spool up. By the time you got to the last one task the first would be ready to go.

WebOS 3.0 finally implemented GUI HW acceleration because if it was bad on the smartphone it would be unusable at tablet resolutions.

When people say that android is slow this what they mean, the interface doesn't flow it jerks.

> So, why wasn't it as appealing to the broader base of consumers?

A fruity brand is important these days. Fashion dictates what people buy. "Fashion over function".

Why is this answer so downvoted? People around me constantly rationalize how they made the best phone/tablet purchases, where in reality it's just fanboyism without admitting the product's faults.

An article that hit the home a few days back explains it: many consider this observation as a personal attack. It's not that prople who buy iPads are fashion victims - it really is great product. It's just not the perfect product for everyone. That and what we perceive as rational choices usually aren't. Our brains contain a whole lot of mammal under its thin layer of Homo Sapiens.

HP was really stupid launching the "Ouchpad" at prices similar to the iPad because the sum of iOS and its application support make it a better product. With a lower price, it could win some market share. WebOS deserved better management.

It's a facile dismissal - exactly the kind of fanboy behaviour you're accusing others of engaging in. "Oh, it's just the brand" claims imply that the speaker a) either doesn't understand or is ignoring the relationship between correlation and causation and b) appears to think complex decisions are binary.

> a) either doesn't understand or is ignoring the relationship between correlation and causation

I do understand. The iPod is an excellent product and is priced very competitively. It's not, however, the best choice for everyone and you cannot neglect brand plays an important role in how consumers pick products. I would love to use a Macbook (and I could - a nice, shiny one has always been one intranet form away from me) but then I would have to struggle like my fellow colleagues do to tailor it to my rather specific tastes. For me, it's just not worth it. That's not to say I wouldn't love to have one - my heart wants it. My brain denies it to me because it's not the best choice.

And therefore, being unable to run iTunes (unless under a VM running Windows or a hackintosh) an iPad as useful to me as a brick.

> b) appears to think complex decisions are binary.

Have you ever seen a teen shopping for clothes? Why do you think shopping for a tablet is any different? Why do you think most people (who don't understand the differences between tablets) turn this into a complex decision? iPads are cool, Touchpads aren't (and they really lack appealing applications) and Androids are clunky (they really are, but they have other things to offer)

I think you just proved my point: your specific reasons for not buying Apple products aren't universal. Other people who don't have your particular software requirements (probably 90% of people in the web-centric era) aren't going to weigh those downsides so highly when comparing price, battery life, hardware quality, available software, etc. - all areas where Android, et al. are struggling to keep up.

Saying "it's about the brand" is too simple because it could mean "Buzz / clinging to past glory" (i.e. the Sony strategy) or "well earned reputation for producing products people like" and heavily papering over the reasons in the latter case.

> Other people who don't have your particular software requirements (probably 90% of people in the web-centric era) aren't going to weigh those downsides so highly

If you think 90% of people really weight pros and cons of a mostly technical decision, you are an optimist. I am not sure most people who buy iPads know every other tablet available (and that includes things like the Nook) can browse the web, use e-mail, watch videos, run Flash thingies and play Angry Birds. Apple enjoys a powerful reputation and it's often a good enough decision to go with an iPad when you are confused by a lot of slightly different offerings.

The Touchpad appears to have been rushed out before it was ready and its software has a great deal of problems, but I am quite sure those problems would have been fixed relatively soon. It's been on the market for only 45 days, after all.