There is no question that Scott Kelby has every right to publish an iPad-only magazine. Please read his Q&A  which is pretty funny, as we expect from Kelby. Condescending, but amusing. Reading between the lines I’m guessing that there was a certain amount of disappointment from non-iPad users and he certainly made it clear that if you aren’t a fan of his decision, then tough luck. Again, no question about it, that was his decision to make. And I have no doubt that, based on messages I’ve read from Scott Bourne as well, that a lot of people on the Internet express their disappointment without much regard for the fact that they are communicating with a fellow human being.

One of my jobs is working for an airline and I get to see a lot of technology being carried by passengers as I move around the terminal during the day. I see the occasional iPad, but not very many, perhaps two per day. I haven’t seen any other tablets being used, but there are an awful lot of laptops. This a very unscientific study and I’m not trying to pull a conclusion from it, except to say that it is always the iPads that are being left behind! People keep a good eye on their laptop, but the iPad, not so much.

I’m not so upset that Kelby chose to make the magazine iPad-only, even though I don’t have one. I was disappointed, but I’m not in the fetal position crying my eyes out.

I’m more disappointed by Kelby’s reaction to the criticism leveled against him.

You see a lot of people on the Internet trying to grow their following, presumably because they believe they have a product or a message that they would like people to hear. The question is, at what point do you/your organization become large enough that it is no longer acceptable to react to criticism by playing the “if you don’t like it, go away” card?.

Consider this (ridiculous) analogy: there are two grocery stores in your town and one has a selection of bread products which you prefer over the other. One day you go to do your shopping and on the door you see a large notice: “Only owners of {insert random make of car} cars can purchase certain bread items”. You approach the manager and suggest that this is not very friendly and ask if the policy might change in the future. What if they add to the sign; “If you don’t like this policy, there are plenty of other places to buy bread”.

Do you go out and buy a {insert random make of car}? Or do you go to another store and do ALL your shopping there instead?

Note to Scott Kelby: yes, the information in your magazine is available elsewhere, but a lot of people like your way of teaching and spreading information. Putting a magazine on an iPad, or other tablet, is not life-changing. We get that clicking the screen and making images bigger is cool, and that a lot of people have not done tablet magazines very well. But you are alienating some of your customer base and you could be nicer about it. So could they. Fail, for both of you.

Note to other companies: when you consider issuing responses to criticism like Kelby did, you might have grown to the point where you need someone to handle your PR for you. Making fun of current and future customers is not cool.

Note to people who want to give criticism: to quote Wil Wheaton, Don’t be a dick.

Note to self: I think Kelby did this just for the street-cred. Of all the iPads in the world, there just aren’t that many in the hands of people who are also interested in off-camera lighting. There can’t be much of a business case for it, when an HTML5 version could probably perform the same way, but what do I know. He’s just trying to be cool.