The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that said Apple’s iPad is a blessing and a curse for developers. I actually had to read the article a couple of times because I was sure I was missing something. It would seem I wasn’t the only one. Roughly Drafted’s Daniel Eran Dilger had significant issues with the story and wrote a rebuttal as part of his “Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad” series of articles.

The Journal’s story, written by Yukari Iwtani Kane, says many developers won’t be able to take advantage of the iPad the same way they did with the iPhone. There are a number of reasons including the lack of multitasking and the fact the iPad has no camera.

Dilger replied saying, “apparently Kane has never heard of the iPod touch, which iPhone developers have successfully accommodated for more than two years now. Like the iPad, it too lacks a camera, but that has not made it a failure nor resulted in a bewitching curse upon Apple’s third party mobile developers.”

I was struck by something else when reading through Kane’s article. She compares the iPad to a laptop.

Like this:

“For example, the iPad, like the iPhone, doesn’t allow applications to run in the background so users can’t perform several activities at once—as they’re accustomed to on a laptop.”

and

“With no videocamera, services like Skype Ltd.’s Internet-calling service will be limited to voice-calling and instant messaging, at least for now. That’s the same as the iPhone, but less convenient than a laptop.”

Perhaps Kane hasn’t heard yet, but the iPad is not competing with a laptop. It’s not meant to be a laptop, not built like a laptop, and it doesn’t use apps in the same way a laptop does. And I’m glad it isn’t anything like a laptop.

It’s also interesting to note that Kane wrote the article for the Wall Street Journal claiming the iPhone would be a failure in Japan. Dilger took that one on too.

Dilger also posted a video on his site talking about the iPad and Kane’s story. Definitely worth a few minutes to watch.