I was going to buy an ipad the other day, but in the end, I didn’t.
Exactly why I didn’t is an interesting question, considering the time I spent in the Apple store in Brighton playing with it.
In fact it is a question I am still asking myself…
Ok, first up, it’s expensive. About £500 for the base model with case, USB and SD card adaptors, and a stand.
It’s heavy. I made a point of trying to hold it as I would in front of the telly or out and about, and after only a few minutes it becomes obvious how heavy it is.
Beta.BBC.co.uk/iplayer reminded me that flash is not dead, and the more Jobs and co. open their mouths on this subject the more I want to support flash! By the way, the new iplayer which went public the other day looks really interesting, and it uses flash. Perhaps no-ones told them that they are not allowed to use it any more.
The main thing I want from a device of the ipads form factor is an ebook reader. I have built up quite a collection of ebooks, crippled by a multitude of different DRM systems. My Sony ebook uses the Adobe ereader standard that was sold through Waterstones. These are useless on the ipad. That said, the book I am reading just now is in kindle format so that would work fine.
My visit to Currys, after the Apple store, looking at the ipad on their display happened to coincide with the second f1 practice. This was great as I got to see the f1 timing app in full fly with the cars hurtling round the track on the big screen of the iPad. An excellent demonstration of how useful it is to have the big screen.
At this point I found myself thinking that maybe I would buy it after all.
Thankfully the shop saleskid came to my rescue by being so incredibly negative about the new product that I found myself trying to sell the device to him rather than the other way around. Idiot.
The lack of a SD card slot and USB port. These are failings in the design which require ugly protuberances to be applied to the device as a short term fix. Carrying extra adaptors with me when I take my camera out is a real nuisance, I just want a simple USB cable.
Finally the lack of the compass and GPS on the wifi model irritates me. I know these features are part of the gsm chipset, but I do not want the gsm version, I can tether the device to my phone, so I miss out on two great features and reduce the number of applications in the app store that will work on my device.
Anyway, the upshot of it all is that I am not going to get an ipad just yet. Maybe one of the android devices will better suit my purposes, we will see.
In the meantime the £500 that I couldn’t really justify spending will go towards my next computer, you know, the one that Apple has not released yet!