The Apple and Steve Jobs Are Still Afraid of Android, And They Should Be resonates with me. It echoes some of the points I made yesterday.

What I saw at the iPad 2 launch press conference is the old-school Steve Jobs. Doing his best to shape the message, magical & copycats. The exact same technique employed in the early days of the Mac.

It worked too…

Within minutes of making the announcement, the tech journalists were oohing and ahhing. Branding the iPad 2 the device to beat. Never mind that nobody got to fondle a device for more than 5 or 10 minutes, or knew anything about the A5 processor, on-board memory, etc. It did not matter; the tech closet-fanboys media had been wowed, drinking Jobs' kool-aid by the pitcher.

Mission accomplished.

Fortunately for us, people have a mind of their own. Tech pundits are a lot like movie reviewers, pretty much incapable of predicting what the popular choice will be in the end. Doesn't stop them from keeping on trying.