Tuesday, February 08, 2011

What you never knew you needed

Much like most things that plague recovering early adopters, the next phenomenal gadget is usually met with ridicule, as we try to list out reasons why it's stupid and we don't need it.

The first thing that crossed my mind when I heard about Apple's iPad was, 'What an unfortunate name to call your product, I hope it doesn't stick'. The problem however, was it did. Pretty soon apps started flooding into the already popular AppStore for the iPad, and people who aren't in the target market started asking questions about it, started *wanting* it. That's how you know how powerful their marketing campaign is, as Steve Jobs says, 'Its not the consumer's job to know what they want'. What you get is a stellar product, and record sales, unfortunate naming notwithstanding.

After holding off for the longest time, I caved when the Apple Store had a one day sale, and that was the beginning of my iPad experience. Ever since then, I really wondered how I had lived without it.

My day starts with the newspaper, only this time its in the form of the International Herald Tribune, delivered and updated in real time. Concise when it needs to be and lengthy when I have the time to spare, I don't remember the last time I picked up a physical newspaper but vaguely recall the last time I did there was nothing newsworthy except for the ads. A quick check on the CNBC app gets me updated on what I need to know for the day, and after that its off to work.

Documents to Go is great for taking my Word and Excel files with me, almost indispensable really. The iPad shines in that aspect, which is being on the go. Emailing, browsing, shopping, Facebook, music, catching up on Hawaii Five-O, you get the point...I have the distinct ability now to remain entertained wherever I am, in any environment, with a full charge of course. Even on 50% I managed to pull through a good half day with some fairly heavy use.

Not bad for something I didn't think I need, and now it isn't going to leave my sight.