iPad about

Ok, so everyone is talking about this blasted iPad now. It’s been named the everything killer, the new world, the way cultures should have been in the beginning. lovely. The one quote I’ve had trouble with is “the ipad is for the normal stupid, non-techy user”. I have to say, I disagree. Ok, it is simple to use. It is a cut down OS, less to go wrong. I understand that. But I like to speak to normal, non-techy users about tech. My girlfriend and some of my best friends are a fairly good test bed, though they all understand tech a lot more than your average person still.

Now, if I said to a lot of these users “you’ll be able to read the newspaper on the bus with it”, they’ll come back with. “Yeah, but I can buy the newspaper for £1, that would make me have to buy 300 newspapers, then a new iPad would be out by then”. It’s the same if I said that you can read books, view films. They can buy a book, they can watch a film on their existing laptop. And I have to say, I don’t disagree with them. No one can explain to a normal user that the iPad is just sexy and it has a screen like they would to me. The average user wants function. Like their laptop which keeps on crashing, but it works with that trailer site they watch because their laptop has Flash. They can use word while listening to, I dunno, something cool on Spotify.

So take these semi tech users. Now take the older part of the population, who have no idea how all this works, and to them, an iPad is a new sanitary towel. Can we convince them? I’d like to see you try. No, I think the iPad is something I will buy because I know that I read RSS feeds every morning before embarking on my bus journey to work. Wouldn’t it be good to read RSS feeds on the bus? Yes. I could do it on my phone, but the screen is too small. I would like to just have a bigger screen. And I will justify it in some way, but it if it isn’t too much and I enjoy it But I don’t buy the idea that it is for the average man on the street who isn’t a techy because $500 or whatever the price is (for just the one without the 3G, which I reckon is essential, 3G will have extra cost there buddy) can buy you a good load of other stuff. For me, I want one ‘cos it’s nice, and it has a screen, and screens to me are like crack!