The iPad: Good or bad?

From this device you have the ability to watch all the media you want; movies, television series, music, you can even read books, purchased from iTunes of course, we wouldn't want to do anything without the almighty Apple approval would we now. To be perfectly honest I don't believe this device is evil incarnate however, I'm not sure about the company it comes from. Every time I watch the Apple promotional videos I am somewhat concerned about the sanity of the people in them. They generally do seem to believe the stuff they're saying and say it with the conviction of the most evangelical preachers. They refer to this device as magical and personally I don't trust a software company that believes in magic, and I worry that their helpline will involve clicking my heels together. Anyway back to the device, it has all the obligatory features that you would expect to see in a portable device in this price range; wi-fi, 10 hours of battery life, etc. and, Apples apparently revolutionary multi touch touch-screen which is also LED backlit. If you're a proud member of the more money than sense brigade you could have a 3G connection included, but honestly what sane person needs another monthly subscription.

The iPad was constructed using some environmentally friendly materials rather than mercury like many tablet computers are, its PVC free, contains no arsenic, which is always a good sign and the aluminium is completely recyclable. This means the Apple fan can feel just a little bit less guilty when they hear the inevitable death rattle of the very last polar bear clinging to the last piece of ice in the Arctic, that's marginally less impressive in size than what stuck at the back of my freezer. Plus you get that innate smug feeling you get when you buy the device that no other person you know can afford. This last aspect never lasts simply because any device designed to be as trendy as this one clearly is will be owned by everybody and their grandmother and her pet otter named Terrance Wakefield. But you still won't get arsenic poisoning.

The best feature about this device would probably be a tossup between the gaming experience and the web browsing experience. The web browsing experience is very enjoyable however, it only scores over the iPhone browser due to larger screen size, which honestly is not a big enough improvement for me. It just feels like the same device, only bigger. The same problem exists with the gaming experience. Yes you can get all the same puzzle games that you enjoy on the iPhone, except now it's nowhere near as portable therefore in my opinion, less likely to be used in this fashion. Now, I know there are going to be iPad exclusive applications and games; such as NOVA, a first person shooter similar to over-hyped Halo; Hero Of Sparta, a hack and slash game somewhat like the Diablo series released for PC in the late 90's; and Asphalt 5, a racing game that looks about equivalent to a last gen Playstation or Xbox racing game, and I'm sure they're all decent enough, but that just screams of Apple yelling "if this device doesn't have a purpose then by god we will make it have one", before going back to their largely iTunes and iPod funded money trough.

The biggest issue for me, with this device, is frankly I can't think of a reason to have one. We were told it was supposed to fit in between the gap of the smart phone and the laptop but to be perfectly honest I don't want that gap filled, partly because I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist and also because if it does, it's probably me. All those times when I might socialise with somebody, go out to meet with friends, leave the house etc. will be filled with yet another battery powered antisocial behaviour inducer. I just really don't need another device because it won't sit in the middle of a laptop and a smart phone, it'll try to usurp them. I'm also pretty sure that if you own an iPhone you practically already own this, not only that, but the thing you already own is in my opinion much better because you can make phone calls on it and it fits in your pocket, two things the iPad doesn't do