> Yet you still own one... Can't be that worthless.
I won mine in a company drawing. My wife's Lenovo laptop is only
marginally larger and is almost as good on the entertainment side, but
has the benefit of being a full-fledged, high-power computer. Oh, and
when you factor in the $100 worth of apps, and accessories necessary
to make the iPad useful, her laptop is even less expensive. It just
lacks that instant-on, instant-off functionality and the touch screen.
With a second battery, she gets about the same runtime (8 hours) as I
do with the iPad. She carries hers around like I carry my iPad around.
> And the better tablet option would be.... ? Oh Yeah, that's right, the rest
> suck.... There are no better options.
The parallel is Olympus making it impossible to use a viewfinder AND
flash at the same time on the E-Pens. Removing the USB port on the
iPad is like Olympus making the hot-shoe unusable. It doesn't diminish
the usefulness of the device for "normal" perfect-conditions usage,
but it is a show-stopper when you want to use it beyond the very
narrowly designed usage-spec.
As to alternatives? I find it interesting that the other tablet/pad
manufacturers have been able to figure out how to stick a built-in USB
port on their devices.
Another parallel is this: My wife and I have a Toyota Prius. It's
great for what it does, but the design spec is very narrow. It is
intended to move up to four (small) people down the road on very
little gasoline. But it won't go offroad and the luggage space will
hold MAYBE five shoulder bags if you jump on the lid to close it. We
really like this vehicle. But we only like this vehicle because our
second vehicle is a large Jeep Grand Cherokee. It goes offroad and has
enough storage space to go camping for a couple of weeks. We ONLY have
the Prius because we have the Jeep. If we didn't have the Jeep, the
Prius on its own would be far too limiting. Ideally, we'd like to have
a vehicle almost as capable as the Jeep, but with the powertrain of
the Prius. Split the difference here and we'd have a nice SUV that
gets 30-35 MPG and I'd be standing in line to buy it.
Alas, Toyota hasn't been in too much of a hurry to bring it out. What
for? They are already selling EVERY hybrid they can make. They
literally can't build the stuff any faster. But just as almost every
Prius owner has an alternative larger vehicle, every iPad owner has a
computer.
In fact, you can't even USE the iPad without a host computer. It's a brick.
And speaking of bricks, the user-agreement for the iPad is very nasty.
The upshot is that Apple can turn your iPad into a brick for any
reason at any time without any user recourse. All you've bought is a
shiny piece of aluminum and glass. They can even deactive paid apps at
their will. According to the agreement, you essentially sign away all
rights to any actual or implied usability. All you get is a metal and
glass object.
AG
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|