Over the weekend of Apple's April 3 release of the iPad, 73% of circulated tweets were favorable toward the iPad, but 26% expressed disappointment that the iPad could not replace the iPhone, according to a study from Attensity.
Overall, sentiment toward the iPad has been favorable: Just 26% of tweets pulled were from people that disliked the iPad:
Below, other findings from Attensity's study of Twitter sentiment toward the iPad from April 3 to 4, 2010.
What Do People Like?
The most popular features of the iPad have remained the same since just after the January 27, 2010 iPad announcement: Applications are the primary driver for positive sentiment (38%), followed by the likelihood that the iPad may replace the iPhone (26%).
Positive reaction to the screen (17%) and keyboard (9%) increased slightly, while positive sentiment toward applications and iPhone replacement has declined.
More people are now talking about the iPad as a Kindle-killer (5%), and for the first time a significant number of people are tweeting favorably about the quality of the email interface (4%).
iPad Applications
Overall, there is little negative sentiment toward the top iPad applications: iBook is the most-favored application (34%), followed by Netflix (31%), which was downloaded extensively by iPad users during the weekend and generated significant positive sentiment, according to Attensity.
iWorks applications have also been heavily downloaded (27%); however, many had the impression that the app was going to be included in the iPad for free, and those who did understand that they were going to have to pay for it were expecting a lower price, according to Attensity.
The third-party Facebook application generated extremely negative sentiment over the weekend. Facebook had not yet released its iPad application; accordingly, many consumers tried the one that was available, in some cases thinking it was the "official" Facebook application.
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What Don't People Like?
Negative iPad feature-related discussions were substantively different over the April 3-4 release weekend than on the January 27 announcement: The top feature now driving dissatisfaction is the inability of the iPad to replace the iPhone (26%).
Previously, the lack of Flash support was the top negative sentiment driver, cited by 41% of tweets circulated on January 27. That lack of support has become less important, now 19%.
Some consumers are unhappy about the higher price point for iPad applications (17%). Grouped into that dissatisfaction are those consumers who are unhappy with the synchronization and backup speed when connecting with iTunes.
Fewer consumers now express negative sentiment toward the iPad because of their intentions to stay with their Kindle: Just 8% of tweets express that sentiment, compared with 26% of tweets in January.
About the data: Attensity pulled a total of 50,000 tweets from Twitter from April 3 to 4, 2010, and analyzed their content.
