I really am getting sick of the iProducts (Apple’s naming convention, not the products themselves).  It’s just overplayed.

I heard it a million times before the official announcement: no actual product could live up to the hype over the iPad before its release.  Well, I hoped the iPad would suck, but I was still disappointed by how mediocre it is.  They’ve released a product somewhere between a smart phone and a netbook, but with fewer features than either.

As a Google kool-aid drinker, I have held my breath with the release of their latest products – particularly Google Wave and the various iterations of Android.  And with the release of both, was initially disappointed.  I was foaming at the mouth for a Wave account until I got one, and realized that I had no one to Wave with.  Even after I got some friends on there, I found I had no reason to use it.  Not to say that Wave is not a phenomenally promising product and will be very useful for some people – I’m just not one of them (much to my own dismay).

Android, when released on the G1 (a phone I still proudly own) was, in reality, just OK.  It was closely integrated with my Google account and all the Google products I already loved, which was actually the main selling point for me; but the OS was still missing a lot of polish and key functionality.  The hardware was sluggish and (OK!  OK!  I’ll admit it!) kind of unattractive.  Android, however, has a silver lining.  I can’t recall a product that has evolved and grown so quickly and so well.  With each update (each only months apart) the OS became more and more impressive.  Not just acceptable – actually impressive; From the Cupcake and Doughnut to HTC Hero’s Sense UI, to the Droid and now with the Nexus One, Android has grown up.

So, it was mostly as I suffered and grew with Android that I realized that Google’s style was to release everything in beta, and constantly improve it from there.  It worked for Gmail.  It worked for Google Docs.  It worked for Android (Google Voice has been pretty much amazing since day one and is still getting better).

So, I was surprised by how Google-ish the release of the iPad was.  I was used to Apple following the formula of impressive products with even better marketing; and salesman extraordinaire Steve Jobs as the cherry on top of the feeding frenzy frappé.  Apple failed on every point here (well, we’ll have to wait and see with the marketing), and frankly I’m trying to figure out who they think is going to use it.