The temptation for someone like me to buy an iPad is irresistible. Apple has discovered high-tech heroin.
I have too many toys. I admit it. I have all the Star Wars vehicles. I told the boys that I bought the toys for them, but — get real — they’re my toys. I love toys.
Being a Mac addict is not a problem for me. I enjoy criticizing the company, but I think that they make wonderful products. I’ve been buying Mac stuff since 1986.
Actually, I’ve been buying Jobs’ stuff since 1986. I bought a NeXT slab in 1990. I had it until I went back to Mac in 1998 with a Macintosh Quadra.
Presently I have a Power Mac, which is getting very old at almost 6 years. (I’m early awaiting the release of the new Mac Pros sometime in July.) I also have a Macbook Air, which I love.
Oh, and an iPhone. I have an iPhone. (Though I prefer the Google Nexus One — more on that in a later post.)
Trust me, the urge to blindly obey Jobs — to be an Apple zombie — is very great.
Apple makes products that are not only useful, they’re cool. Never mind that Apple is rapidly becoming the most evil computer company known to mankind. Their stuff is just designed to be craved. It’s crack, and I am an addict.
The number of Apple addicts is growing. The more people use the iPad, the more their friends and just random strangers looking on want one.
My friend Don told me that he has directed his children to buy him an iPad for Father’s Day. Why? Because he saw a friend use one. That was enough! He wanted an iPad immediately.
Crack.
I can see the desire.
The iPhone appealed to me because it replaced several of my existing gizmos: It replaced my cell phone, my Palm Pilot, my camera, and my voice recorder. The cost alone — $600 for the first iPhone — was worth it simply because the iPhone replaced all those devices in my life.
The iPad has similar appeal. It’s compact. It’s portable. It does some of the basic things I do: email, browsing, games, reading. I can see myself more apt to fire up an iPad on a transcontinental flight than lugging out my PC laptop.
IT IS INSANE.
Yet, I do have a practical gene that overpowers my desire for high-tech addiction.
I just can’t justify spending $600 on a good WiFi iPad when I already have a laptop and an iPhone. Between those two devices, the services offered by the iPad are covered. Therefore, I probably won’t get getting an iPad.
Yet I confess: There is a strong desire to get an iPad.
No. It’s not a desire. No, it’s lust!
DON’T DO IT DAN!!!! I’ve always been very critical of Apple in the past decade because they’ve been so exclusive to third-party products. I think a large majority of Jobs’ zombies are people who converted after being disappointed by Vista. Apple’s marketing campaign (or more of a smear campaign) was also quite successful. Since they discredited Windows my making it look dumb instead of discrediting them using facts. Nerds around the world have fallen victim to iPad syndrome. I used one in the Apple store and was completely unimpressed. For the price they are asking for the iPad, I could buy a Kindle AND an iPhone 3Gs. Honestly, if the iPad supported Flash I would be writing this comment on an iPad right now. Because Flash makes almost everything suck less. But sadly that will never happen due to the little tiff between Apple and Adobe right now.
Comment by gamerguy473 — May 21, 2010 @ 3:49 am
My guess is that if you wrote that comment on an iPad with Flash it would probably crash! Anyway: I’m safe. No iPad for me. If someone gives me one, I won’t turn it down, but I don’t have any money to spend on one. I’d rather buy booze.
Comment by admin — May 21, 2010 @ 5:07 am