iPaid through the nose for what?

With Apple announcing the release of the iPad can someone enlighten me as to exactly what the point of this thing is?

A guy I work with has 2 iPod's, iPhone, MacBook Pro and probably a whole host of other Apple gadgets I've not seen and was totally raving about getting an iPad on Friday but when I asked him why he couldn't seem to come up with an answer.

I'm not totally anti-Apple as I was given an iPod which I do quite like as I can take all my music on holiday with me but to be honest if I could be bothered my Nokia smart phone could just as easily do the same.

Has Apple managed to get into the human psyche of some people so much that they will buy absolutely anything that they produce no matter what the (very expensive) cost or am I missing something?

Dom

Hi,

I'm not an Apple geek by any means and whilst I recognise the dominance of MS and PCs in the corporate world, I do like the way that my Macbook just, well, err, works!

No hassle when plugging in devices or having to worry about jumping through hoops to marry sofware with hardware. No worries about defragging or other admin tasks, the little Macbook just gets on with sorting itself out. In fact unlike PCs it seems happier when it's never shut down and can get on with what it needs to do. When I do have to switch it on it's lightening fast unlike my Windows laptop which can take a minute or more.

The only downside, and this is not an Apple criticism, is that the Mac version of Excel is really no match for the Windows version. The VB editor is nowhere near as user friendly and sometimes syntax and instructions are missing completely.

So whilst I wouldn't automatically buy anything Apple produced, I would seriously evaluate it first and try to find reasons why I shouldn't buy it rather than why I should.

Just my 2ps worth.

I've read a few reviews of it and they mostly seem to have the theme of "I couldn't see why anyone would buy one, until I actually got my hands on it".
I am a Mac fan, but I wouldn't buy one of those for myself (until I win the lottery) but I can see how it would suit my wife perfectly for what she uses a laptop for - i.e. looking at photos, listening to music and surfing the web, whilst being small and light. I'm still saving up for my MacBook Pro.

I'm with RomperStomper on this one about what the wife uses it for (MacBook). It is quick and easy to use for Facebook, emailand picture sharing of the kids, etc. Its backup program (TimeMachine) is incredible. My wife is crazy about hers. As for its VBA -- and Access, it is seriously lacking and I much prefer my Windows machines.

Back to your original question. I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to buy an iPad unless you are only surfing the net and doing email. My understanding is that it is just a big iPhone with no phone features.

Alan

I bought my wife an iPad for Christmas and she absolutely loves it.

I bought my wife one for her birthday last year and she loves it.
IMO, any knee-jerk reaction to tech comes from a jerk. You have to experience to understand, and it is ideal for my wife. On its own it will never do what I need, but for what it is, it's great.

I went in the Apple shop in Manchester at the weekend and spent a while playing about with one. I was really impressed with it ... seems very much look a big version of my iPod Touch but obviously with a much bigger screen. You-Tube and the BBC iPlayer looked really good but, being practical, there were lots of icons that I just thought, "why would I want that ..."

I think I'd enjoy using one on holiday for music, films and perhap "books" and, if I had enough spare cash, I'd definitely buy one. But that's not going to happen any time soon :-(

Maybe, if the iPad 2 is out before October, I might get one for my birthday ;-)

It's funny because I was just today thinking that the iPad might be a good gift for my wife's upcoming birthday... now I am a bit confused as to whether it really is a good gift or not... she does love surfing the net.. mostly for shopping....hmm... what to do?

I think we all make a lot of assumptions based on what *we* currently do with desktop and laptop computers.

I suspect that, if you just considered what your wife, or you, could/would do with one if you had one, you would see it in a different light.

The other thing that goes through my mind is that it's kinda big ... not huge, but too big to easily slip into your pocket. By the time you've put it into some sort of protective cover it's getting inconveneient.

That depends I think on whether you normally carry a handbag with you...
My wife's iPad is WiFi only so she tends to only use it at home anyway.

I was sceptical at first but having played with one I do think they are quite cool although way overpriced (the email from Apple suggesting I buy one for my valentine got a chuckle and a press of the delete key) and just don't offer enough for me to even dream of buying one.

If you've got £400-£600 and nothing else to do with it then it's probably a nice toy.

Dom

PS I did feel kind of sorry for the guy who dropped his trying to push his way onto the train the other morning. He looked quite sad shaking it hoping it would come back to life.

I just saw this site comparing the iPad and the iPod Touch: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/3107...-vs-ipod-touch.... wondering if, the iPod isn't just as good for what she'd be using it for... it's a bit cheaper, not that I am a cheapskate but not sure if the iPad is worth the dough especially if you want the extra gigabytes.... and for sure the iPod touch is more portable...

For web surfing for any length of time past about 5 minutes, the iPad beats the iPod hands down (unfortunately).
Of course a netbook would be a lot cheaper.

Originally Posted by romperstomper

Of course a netbook would be a lot cheaper.

Yeah! but it doesn't have the oooh...aaah! factor of the touch screen and apps.

She actually has a netbook, but I think it is crap.. it only has 1GB and can't put anything else on it... keeps telling her to "clean up the hard drive". She only has an anti-virus running on it.

The specs on the iPod Touch battery life is:

# Power
# Battery Type
Lithium-Ion
# Playback Time - Audio
Up To 30 Hours
# Playback Time - Video
Up To 6 Hours
# Charge Time
4 Hours

so it would be that much reduced for surfing life?

It would be reduced but I was thinking of the comfort factor. That's a small screen to stare at for long periods.
Re the netbook, you should have got a Linux one. (LinuxMint is really good from what I've seen so far. Starts up and shuts down really quickly, and no real need for AV).

I love my iPod Touch and, for sufing the net, it works quite well ... but you really can't do it for long, particularly if you need to type something rather than select a link. It's wifi and connects with no problem to my wireless router and even in the odd hotel, whatever, with free wifi. But there's no 3G so I can only really surf the net on it home and, realistically, I'm going to use my laptop.

Battery life has never struck me as a problem.

Originally Posted by NBVC

She actually has a netbook, but I think it is crap.. it only has 1GB and can't put anything else on it... keeps telling her to "clean up the hard drive". She only has an anti-virus running on it.

I've been asked to look at a few friends' netbooks when they've slowed down and a bit of tlc normally gets them zipping along as long as you're not doing anything too heavyweight. Pop on basic AVG Anti-Virus, Chrome, Open-Office and Skype etc and they seem to cope just fine.

Wouldn't buy one myself but they're good for the very light user/web surfer.

Dom

Looks like I am going to have to think this one through a bit... yuk! I am no good a gift buying.... it's dang stressful!

I bought an iPad last October and have not looked back.

I like that it's always on, no wait. Checking the weather forecast in the morning is only two taps.
I set it on the kitchen bench, check what's in the fridge and google for recipes. Handy to carry around and even check the forum while I'm cooking dinner.
I've downloaded a few free and a few paid apps. The kids love it.
It keeps its charge forever.
I loaded a few movies on it and we took it on our recent camping trip. We charged it up in the car, even with the engine off. The kids could watch a movie or play games on the rainy days, and most importantly, during the long car ride.
My husband snuggles in his arm chair and reads the on-line papers.
The kids play multi-player games with their friends, lying on the floor with one child per iPad corner.
Whenever we need to check a map, we now use the iPad. Satellite view is great.
I have a few ebooks on it.

All these different things we could certainly do with other tools, too. But here we do all of them with just one device.

I feel I have not even scratched the surface of what else is all possible with it, but I know it was definitely worth the expense.

The 64 GB WiFi was a good choice for us, since we mostly use it at home and if we take it out of the house we don't need the web.

Another question on the iPad.

For those of who have it, what size (GB) do you have and is it worth the big $ jump to the next size? I was thinking that if I get this for my wife, I'd go with the 16GB .. as I said, I think she'd mostly use it for surfing, email and perhaps watching a flick or two... I am not too savvy on the apps and how quickly they take up space...

I note that Teylyn went for the big 64GB. Is it worth it or would have the 16GB been enough for your usages?

I don't think it's the apps particularly but more what else you want to put on it. I have over 25GB of music and photos on my ageing iPod. Start putting movies and any other memory hungry files on you iPad and I reckon you'd eat up 16GB pretty quickly.

Dom

Google have also recently unveiled their tablet OS, Honeycomb, so it will be interesting to see how quickly the serious iPad competitors come along running that and whether prices start to drop.

Dom

On my Windows PC, a lot of the movies I have are around 750Mb. mp3 files are anything from 3mb to 6mb (or more) depending on sampling. High resolution pictures also take up a lot of space, unless they do thing different on Apple kit.

I think you could quickly eat up 16gb but, with discipline ... that is, remove the film after you've watched it ... it would probably be OK.

I always tend to upsell myself because the incremental price can be relatively small ... but maybe not in this case.

Regards

My wife's is the 16GB which is fine for her. She doesn't keep a lot of music on it since we have iPods for that, so it's mostly photos, apps and the odd film.

I just bought one for my wife, she's been using it for about a month and loves it. She keeps her google calender/schedule on it, downloads free kindle ebooks, surfs the web, plays games. So far we've only downloaded a few apps; one where you hold it up to the night sky and it shows the constellations is pretty cool.

We have the WiFi only version with 32GB. As others have said, we don't use it to store music as we have ipods.

I guess then, the 16GB would be enough, since her too would use it for mostly surfing, pictures and music... and the odd movie, that she wouldn't necessarily keep stored in the iPad.