Tuesday 23 October 2012

The not so new iPad

On Monday, after much soul-searching thinking and convincing and reviewing my finances I decided to buy an iPad 3, the all 'new' iPad as they were called.

What I hadn't counted on, was Apple announcing that they are not only releasing a new ipad mini but also redesigned iMac and MacBook Pro. Certainly didn't consider for a second that the New iPad would suddenly become the not-so-new iPad.

Does this ruin my enjoyment of this device ? Well. Yes it does. I had decided, having looked around at various options that in replacing my netbook I was going to buy a tablet, and a keyboard. This I considered to be a better solution than the ageing, slow and downright unusable netbook. I'd looked at different machines. As us transformer prime being the preferred choice for quite some time. I wanted a keyboArd, I also wanted some thing that would do the job very well of replacement netbook and tablet.

The transformer prime seemed to do very well in my criteria of, how good are the apps ? how quick is it ? How light is it ? How good is the battery life ? It then came down to cost. Quite simply any tablet without a contract would require significant outlay. Now I've been doing Lots of overtime at work lately, and figured I deserved treat. The battery power was important as much as mobility as I wanted to be take the device out of the flat because I seem to get distracted and prevented from writing when I'm here.

The cost of the device and the ongoing cost of the contract and the benefits of having mobile connection for the device all weighed up. I wrote out a pro and cons list and tried to break it down realising that there was a limited amount of money to spend.

In the end it boiled down to was it better to make a larger financial outlay now and having a lower ongoing monthly expenditure, spending less now and having a larger ongoing monthly expenditure or paying more money upfront and having no ongoing cost.

I decided that it was better to have the additional ability to connect to the Internet away from home with the contracting tablet and therefore less initial expenditure. This is good because this allows me to continue using my overtime to clear my existing credit card bills and also worked out well because one of my other existing ongoing financial commitments comes to an end in January 2013.

Yesterday I was excited as a kid In a sweet shop or on Christmas morning. This evening, as I see from the news about Apple's latest releases, I feel miffed and more than a little bit screwed over. There was no hint that the iPad was Going to get a facelift a mere 7 months after it was released.

Shocking really, those devices  no longer carry the chache of having THE LATEST technical gizmo.

Is that really all that important ? Well to some people it is. Yes. To me, not so much. I still feel gruff about the situation though. I had decided to buy the latest version that I could as the difference in price between it and the ipad 2 wasn't really enough to make the financial incentive sweeter to go one generation back. My (not so) New iPad is now not the top dog, the latest device. Right now that doesn't make a difference, but in years to come will mean that at some point it will stop being supported by Apple and stop being capable of running their latest ever changing IOS.

Is this really any different from any other computer manufacturer ? The nature of technology is that you get a doubling of power or halving of price ever six months or so. Moores law. To expect anything you buy computer wise to be 'with it' three years later is unrealistic. You should though still be able to expect it to be supported and able to run software that you need.

My netbook, which my (Not so) New iPad replaces is about three years old, and is completely useless. The updates to Ubuntu have now taken so much of the memory that like me, it really struggles to wake up in the morning. I am sure that if I downgraded the operating system it would still have function enough to browse the web and for word processing etc.

As we journey ever more into the cloud.. does this make us more or less vulnerable to such continual progress that leaves people without very deep pockets on a never ending journey from gadget heaven to  obsolescence. 

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