Since its introduction, the iPad has drawn a fair amount of criticism, a significant part of which centers around its limited content-creation features and lack of ports that have become computing standards. Defenders of the device have often said that this is a device that’s meant for “normal” consumers, not geeks, and that from the average consumer point of view, the device does what most of them need to do on a computer, without the headaches that a computer brings. One article on TechCrunch said that this device is for older, non-tech-savvy people like our parents. That got me thinking: What do my parents use their computers for, and can the iPad meet those needs?

Meet my dad:

• 60 years old
• A scientist
• Knows how to use a computer but is not tech savvy.
• Has a couple of Dell desktops that he and my mom (who’s definitely not tech-savvy and doesn’t use a computer that much) use in some form or fashion everyday.
• Has a plain vanilla cellphone, and that suits him just fine.
• Twitter? Facebook? What’s that?
• Doesn’t have a laptop and really has no need for one as he rarely does computing on the go.
• He drives to work, so there’s no reading during the commute.
• Rarely watches videos on his computer. Prefers movies on his big-screen TV. The only online videos he looks at are the occasional YouTube clip.

Here are some of the things my parents use their computers for:

• E-mail, Internet.
• Word processing, spreadsheets.
• Frequently upload photos from their camera to Flickr.
• On a semi-regular basis, my dad has photos of cell cultures from work that he needs to crop, tone, caption, and save. Currently, he does this with an old copy of Photoshop, which I installed for him and showed him how to use.
• Occasionally make photo books from their pictures using the book-layout program from Blurb.
• An ongoing project of converting old home videos to digital files and burning them to CDs/DVDs.
• Another ongoing project of scanning in old family photos so they can be stored digitally.

Looking at that list, the iPad handles the first two items fine (though you have to shell out for their iWorks apps). The third item — uploading pictures to Flickr — is manageable as well, though, again, you have to buy the special camera adapter kit (it’s such a crock that you need a cable other than the one your camera came with). As for the fourth item — toning lab photos — I suppose he can download a Photoshop app or use a low-end online editing program, though he would be missing some more advanced features that he uses occasionally. As for the last three items, I’m guessing he’ll be SOL if he wants to do them on the iPad.

While e-mail and Internet make up by far the biggest slice of my parents’ computer usage, they are by no means the only things they need a computer for. The other items on the list, while not daily needs, are important enough to them that they would never replace their computer with a device that can’t do those things. And not being computer geeks, it’s much more likely that they will just buy one machine that meets all those needs rather than buying an iPad and another computer. The same likely holds true for my father-in-law, who mostly uses a computer for e-mail and Internet, but also for one other relatively minor thing that happens to be very important to him — scanning in his watercolor paintings and turning them into postcards to sell when he goes to an art show. Again, an iPad might meet 80 to 90 percent of his computing needs, but that last 10 percent is pretty darn important to him, and he’s more likely to buy one computer to meet 100 percent of his needs rather than an iPad to meet 90 percent and another computer for the other 10 percent. If the iPad were no more than a couple hundred bucks, my parents and in-laws might consider getting it as a toy, but for the same cost as a desktop that can do everything they need, I don’t see them getting it in addition to a computer.

That’s one reason I think the “this is for the average consumer, not geeks” argument doesn’t hold up — it seems to assume that the average consumer has no computing needs other than Web surfing and basic word processing/spreadsheet. While the average non-geek consumers might use their computer primarily for e-mail and Internet, chances are that most of them will have a handful of other minor but important computing needs that crop up from time to time. You don’t have to be a geek to need content-creation features, the ability to have more than one program open at a time, or a USB port. While they may be infrequent needs, they are important enough for the average consumers to take into account when purchasing their next computer. And if they aren’t “geeks” and aren’t tethered to a computing device all day long, then what are the chances that they would spend double the money to buy two devices when they can fill all those needs with just one device?

I don’t doubt the iPad will sell a ton of units when it becomes available, but I think the majority of those sales will be to people who are closer to the geek side than the average consumer. A lot of the praise for the iPad so far has been about its potential, and I definitely recognize what it, and other tablet devices, can become. However, from a consumer point of view, the question is not “What can the iPad do in two or three years?” It’s “What can the iPad do right now, and should I spend money on the version that’s available?” The potential of a gadget is something geeks worry about. Your average consumer doesn’t buy a device for the profound technological shift it symbolizes or what a future incarnation of it might be able to do. Even if you can build rocket ships and perform open-heart surgery with future generations of the iPad, it doesn’t change the fact that the Gen 1 version that you’re looking at right now can’t do those things. I’m pretty sure I, or my typical-consumer dad, won’t want to buy the iPad as it is now. Maybe we’d reconsider by the time Generation 2 or 3 comes out and the device actually lives up to its potential (and possibly get even cheaper).