![Photo courtesy of mathowie [Flickr]](http://www.thepracticalnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/4489514673_71c7978c6c.jpg "Photo courtesy of mathowie [Flickr]")
At first it was just an annoyance. Now, it’s a giant thorn in my side. It makes me not want to log on to Twitter, and it dominates my Google Reader. It takes over multiple headlines in my Google News feed every day. I’ve grown to absolutely loathe the iPad.
It’s not the gadget itself that I hate – it’s the ideas behind it, and it’s what it has brought out of the American people.
#1 – We will fall for a slick marketing campaign every time.
Our current President proved it: put together a nice marketing campaign, and we are hooked, even if we all know it won’t live up to the hype. Regardless of your political leanings, look at the facts: President Obama promised "hope and change", yet everybody still hates us, we’re still at war (if not MORE in war than we were before), and the country is just as divided as ever. But because the campaign looks cool, we ignore the facts.
Now, let’s look at the iPad: it can’t play half the Internet because it doesn’t have Flash (and you can’t install Flash on it either), you have to use a $30 adapter to hook up a keyboard, or anything with a USB cable, and it doesn’t even have the functionality of an iPhone. It’s a computer that can only do one thing at a time.
Because of a slick marketing campaign and unprecedented hype, people have fallen for it left and right. Read the reviews: they all bury these facts amidst compliments that are supposed to make you buy the device, like its stunning display and long battery life. Big deal. What’s the point if it doesn’t do anything?
#2 – Apple fanboys are hiding behind the "target market" argument.
We have been led to believe that this computer is for parents and grandparents that hate "complicated computers" and are looking for something that just works, right? This is for children who can sit on the couch with these things and use it without directions, isn’t it?
Apple is using this "target market" argument, but we all know they are just looking to sell to a bunch of people that have Apple stuff. What a waste of money for these kids.
#3 – It’s not closed for simplicity, it’s closed to make Apple more money.
Why wouldn’t you install Flash on an iPad? Because then you can’t watch Hulu. Without Hulu, where can you go to watch episodes of shows on your Pad? Oh right – The iTunes Store.
Why can’t you install your own stuff on an iPad? Because then you have to buy programs from where? The App Store, where Apple takes a 30% cut of the profits.
This type of philosophy is gouging the customer and misleading them to thinking that they are doing them some kind of favor. If you want people to support your product financially, present all the options and just make yours better, rather than prevent them from entertaining other choices. That’s the exact opposite of a free, open marketplace.
And I’m not even going to talk about the fact that if you want 3G service and you have an iPhone subscription already, you still have to pay for another 3G subscription for $30/month (that’s $360/year – the price of using it will be more than twice what you paid for it in two years). Oh, and the Wi-Fi is busted on it (which, by the way, is great for your "average" grandparent who can’t work a computer anyway).
#4 – It is the height of consumption, which is the building block to a crappy society.
Picture a guy who sits for a couple hours a night and watches television. He’s probably in dirty clothes, he’s fat, eating potato chips, and is regarded as a non-productive member of society. He’s a loser.
Take away the television and put an iPad in his lap. All of a sudden, he’s a young, hip, successful guy who is on the cutting-edge and you aspire to be him.
We have been brainwashed into buying another gadget that is all about consumption. When people do nothing but consume, society takes a dive. The last thing this country needs is another way to waste time and let the world happen to them.
When we’re hungry, we buy TV dinners or go pay somebody to cook for us. When we’re fat, we pay doctors to perform expensive, unnecessary operations to curb our eating, or we buy stupid gadgets that shock us into having abs from late-night television. When we want more money, we look to the government, or we complain that we’re being held back. And when we want entertainment, we spend $75-$100 a month on cable and satellite television services. And now, we’re being trained to want an iPad when we want to "interact" with a computer.
You can’t do anything but watch, play, and read on an iPad. You can’t create products. You can’t build a business. You just sit there like a big potato, staring at the stupid thing. A computer should be used for more than reading blogs and watching Fred on YouTube (God help us). It should be used for more than playing mindless games. It should be used to create, write, interact, and design.
We can now add getting a "regular" computer to learning how to cook for yourself, exercising and eating right, and physically getting together with friends to entertain yourselves on the list of things we’ve forgotten how to do.
The iPad makes me sad. Can we please ditch this "I gotta have the new gadget to show off to friends" attitude and start doing something useful with our lives?
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
