Being a technology addict, I purchased the iPad. I've ignored the iBooks and all those readers they sell because I just can't get used to reading a book on a computer screen. I prefer the real pages. And when I'm on a beach, it's one thing to get sand in the pages of the book but another to get sand inside your computer. And a book doesn't need a battery that has to be recharged -- or if the light is too bright, you can actually read the pages better than the glare you get on a computer screen.
Yet despite all that and knowing that computer developers are geeks with no lives who know nothing about regular people and design programs and apps that look great in concept but have no practical usage because the developer has no practical usage for themselves, I bought an iPad.
Here's what it does that great. It has a touch pad screen that allows you to shift from one group of menus to another.
Here's what it does that sucks. You have to download most of the aps, and most cost money and they all come from iTunes. The ones that are free generally require you to download an upgrade that costs more money in order to get it to work properly.
You're familiar with Aps.
But here's the other problem. The iPad doesn't replace your computer. There are some Aps that allow you to connect to your computer, like watching the movies you have downloaded on your computer, laptop or PC from the iPad using wireless -- but, they only let you watch movies purchased -- yes purchased -- from iTunes.
You know what iPad really is? It's an Apply sales person who you now have invited in to your home who constantly pushes you to spend money at Apple's iTunes store.
So greedy and selfish of Apply. But isn't that what Apple and Macs are all about. Money. So little really applicability. It's a financial umbilical chord from your checkbook or credit card to Apple and without it, the iPad is worthless.
Sure, you look cool carrying it around and using it at a restaurant. Wow! No, you don't look cool. You look like a sucker.
There's more. The computer technology developers really are morons. They have all the answers and none of the answers. Their programs are designed from their perspective on need, which has nothing to do with the needs of the users or the masses of people.
For example, you want to search for an App. There are something like 1,565 total aps that appear on the screen about 12 at a time. You touch the next button ... next .... next ... you get to about 300 and finally find one that looks interesting. You click it. Read it. Discover it's crap. Then hit the return button. And badda bing (easier to spell that voile) ... it takes you back to the beginning. And you have to sit there and tap the next key over and over again to get to where you were so you can continue the search. I haven't been past App 320 yet and not sure I will ever make it.
Oh. I can search. Another genius idea from the stupid technology developers. But, what do I search for when I don't know what they have? Maybe I connect what I want with what they have, but it ain't easy.
It doesn't have a camera or recorder. It's difficult to connect to a printer. There's an App that let's you connect to Canon printers. I have a brand new one, but it won't work because my printer is not on the list.
Once you download the App how do you get rid of it? Right. Like some genius technology writer who never thought that all of their great Apps that they write might be worthless to us average pee-on like me. So it's almost impossible to get rid of something you have placed on your screen and pretty soon it gets crowded.
They give you some basic software. I use Outlook on my laptop, but of course, Microsoft Word and Outlook hate Apple -- they used to be BFFs, Apple and Microsoft, but no longer. A modernday competition between Sony BetaMax and VHS garbage that has long been replaced by CD and DVD pay-through-the-nose technology.
So I synced my laptop Outlook files to the iPad and then, of course, you run in to the problems that geek technology writers always miss when creating their genius. My iPad loads all my emails. But to delete them, I have to do it one at a time in several key strokes. Or, finger strokes. Swipe the email to the left and a button pops up asking me Delete? Yes, moron. I have to tap the red Delete button. For every email. And I get a lot of emails. Of course, geek technology writers who have no friends do not get much email so why would they care that it takes one hour to delete 350 email messages on an iPad.
Wow. Technology.
Now, it costs $100 a year to protect the iPad from internal problems. Not if you sit on it and crack it, for example. But if the technology fails, as it will.
And, it costs $25 a month to connect to the AT&T WiFi 4G. Which is not reliable, by the way. But who cares at Apple? The point is they offer it so why are you complaining that it doesn't work? Working is not the goal of the Apple iPad.
The goal is money. To soak every possible penny out of your pocket. And you pay, what? $1,100 for the iPad and the service and protection in the first hit? And they got you for the rest foy our life. A monthly subscription of $25 that you pay so you can look cool while you simmer in your now deteriorating mind as the software does what it wants, not what you want.
But what choice do we have in human society? The laptops will be outdated soon. Everything will be on a cell phone and iPad or iPod or iPhone. And it will cost you through your iAss.
I had two laptops die on me over the past six months, laptops that were only 2 years old, just beyond the warranty periods, of course. Sitting in a pile reminding me of the thousands Apple and Microsoft already yanked out of my pocket like new teeth that only needed a cleaning but were extracted without anesthesia.
Such is our lives? Maybe that should be the new soap opera, one that laments that computer plagued world of today. Computer Daze of our Lives.
-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com
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