Blog @ Kalsden

Disclaimer:  It’s my reasoning why I will not buy it.  Anything Apple makes is great and I am sure the iPad is a great gadget.

Anytime a new gadget comes out, people go nuts over it.  I am not a Luddite, but I am against the idea of carrying more than two gadgets at a time.  These days an average Canadian carries three or more gadgets (based on my observation) – a laptop, a cellphone and a mp3 player being the three basic necessities of life.

So here are the top few reasons why I won’t even think of buying the iPad…

1.  It will be hard to maintain.  iPad has a huge touch screen.  Don’t know about you, but I like to take care of my stuff.  Normal usage will leave scratches, marks and oil deposit on the screen.  A logical thing to do would be putting a protective film on it.  And that will be messy and kill the look of the tablet.  Imagine having a nasty air bubble at the center of the screen.

2.  I love my Apple laptop (the cheapest Macbook Pro that came out in 2009).  It’s the best “materialistic object” I have ever owned.  I think it’s brilliant, light and therefore very easy to carry around.  So why bother buying another gadget, that will violate my “no more than two gadgets” rule (cell phone and laptop)?

3.  I have a low-end Windows Mobile phone (HTC touch diamond) with which I can search Google Maps, watch youtube videos, view Office documents and even read PDFs.  Browsing the Net is a given.  And all of that comes at a fraction of the iBill (the monthly “tribute” for using the iPhone).  I watched the keynote speech by Steve Jobs where he introduced the iPad and all the main features of the iPad are already on the iPhone.

4. I am not much of a reader, so I will never appreciate the Kindle.  Maybe it is a useful gadget for serious readers.  But the iPad seems to be a stretched iPhone with a few added features like iPhotos.  However, for using iPhotos you are better off syncing your iPad with a Mac that has iPhotos or you have to pay for an Optional Camera Connection Kit… lol.  That is, there is no SD card reader.  Even a Garmin GPS comes with one.  This is what it says on Apple’s website – “And there are lots of ways to import photos: You can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the optional Camera Connection Kit.”   That is poor design decision to me.

5. You can’t make calls with it.  And to browse the Internet you will have to find hotspots (which isn’t a problem if you’re in Seattle maybe, but Toronto sucks when it comes to free wi-fi) or subscribe to hefty data packages.

Conclusion:

I am nobody to criticize Apple’s R&D.  But for any consumer who has a decent smartphone and a decent laptop, I deem the iPad to be a useless product with no real value whatsoever.