One of the more interesting critique of the iPad is that the device is just another means of “content consumption”, be it reading comics, ebooks or even listening to music. Most of the tech writers that came up with this lament the fact that the iPad, albeit an interesting device, does not support “content creation”.

Had these writers look a little deeper, the later statement would have been considered as bollocks. There are many ways to generate content, just not in the traditional way like that of using a PC or laptop.

groovemakeripad

Take for instance the Groovemaker app for the iPad. This music mixer app is more than capable of creating professional sounding tracks and a competition last year using the iPhone version of the app yielded amazing stuff, so just think how a larger, more intuitive version can do in the hands of DJs around the world?

trapster

Content generation of the crowd-sourced type has always been available since the days of the iPhone. From users checking-in to places and leaving tips on FourSquare to putting up the latest notice on roadblocks on Trapster, this is content generation for the Web 2.0 generation.

Don’t forget the made for iPhone, I mean iPad apps to pump out content to your blogging platform (e.g. WordPress), photo-sharing site (e.g. Flicker), micro-blogging (Tumblr, Twitter) and many more.

So I don’t think there is a dearth of content generation opportunities on the iPad; users have been doing so on the iPhone and iPod touch. The larger screen and faster processor on the iPad will just make it easier for users to do so.

I leave you with this: Since when content consumption is a bad thing? For instance, I play games and watch movies on the PS3 all the time; for all its processing firepower I don’t expect it to do anything more than that.