Last week, I made my mind up at long last, just as the announcement was made of the iPad pricing to those outside of the US. I will not be getting an iPad, nor do I suggest any essay writing, university studying student to get one either.
With the first ten over here, this is the second installment; completing the twenty reasons why you shouldn't get an iPad.
If you're going to release a product, there are two simple rules. Firstly, don't release it with a major bug. Secondly, try and avoid distributing it with malware (not that the iPad did, though).
Oh, and that university which embraced the iPad? Yeah, it's now charging an extra $500 a year as "bandwidth fees" to keep the network ticking over.
Well the iPad can't multitask. It will in the future - along with the ever-popular iPhone, but the future isn't now.
They may as well have called it the iTampon or something. Although, thankfully with time, it'll overtake the actual meaning of it and be as perfectly normal as saying the 'Wii' - which, of course was mocked when it was first announced. On the other hand, we Briton's didn't really get the joke seeing as we don't call a 'pad' a 'pad', as such.
I would too agree that the iPad can be nothing more than a distraction. Isn't that what smartphones are nowadays? What would you rather do in a lecture - listen to the lecturer, or play the highly addictive iCopter game on your phone?
On this side of the pond (Great Britain, though the prices aren't really), it's around £25-£40 a month depending on how much data you use. In my books, that's not too bad. But if you look at the wider contract costs for data say, with a Microsoft KIN device, you'll begin to realise how expensive 3G access can be.
I can pick out two textbooks required for my modules this year at random. One is a criminology dictionary and the other is an introduction to social policy. Not only are these two books (incredibly popular as they are) not on iBooks but they cost £95 together. E-books may be convenient for the reader, but it loses the author money.
With that shiny, glossy screen and the fact you have to balance the device on your bent-over knees (which gives you pins and needles, by the way), you'll want to plug it into an external monitor. Don't get me wrong; you can, but the quality will be not as good as what you paid for.
With wireless and 3G activity, GPS activated and maybe through watching a film or two, some people have to charge it up twice a day just to keep it going. Not ideal for a campus-travelling university student, I assure you.
Even though I wouldn't know - being a lousy Briton and all that - my fellow citizens will understand that AT&T is to Verizon, like O2 is to Tesco Mobile. It's bad. Oh, and they don't even seem to have the full infrastructure in place. That's like buying all the windows and doors to your house when you don't even have the walls up yet.
The man, we only know as the "Mac Guy" (because he has every Apple product there is to man, and whenever you see him, he's on his own working on some geeky programming), he was showing off the iPad to everyone in the vicinity around him - and they just didn't care.
The "Mac Guy" has no friends, and he's rude and arrogant to people. He's actually American - which makes it all the more hilarious for us Brits - but people around these neck of the woods acknowledge that buying an iPad will turn you into the "Mac Guy", and that's not a cool thing to be.
Charlie Brooker sees the satirical side of the iPad, showing what it is really useful for.