Planned Obsolescence

My God, it's huge!

That's the new iPad 2, or whatever the gang at Apple is calling its latest tablet thingy.

For all of you who stood in line, waited or otherwise spent a lot of money on the iPad, you're about to have your bell rung by Apple. The new iPad is thinner, lighter, faster and features (egad) a camera on the front as well as one in back. Imagine that.

And it all happened less than a year after the last iPad was released, which makes me think that there isn't anything here that shouldn't have been available before - except that they wanted to plan another product unveil in a year so that the buzz would continue. It's more about marketing than technology.

Just like the iPhone, the other big techno gadget that gets just a little better every year, your money isn't well spent as much as it is merely spent. One thing it does not have is an expansion slot for SD or other types of memory cards. That's interesting, since it is probably meant to encourage consumers to buy the $800 64 gigabyte iPad rather than the $500 16 gigabyte model. After all, you can get a 16 gigabyte SD card for about 50 bucks, and Apple could probably install a slot in the iPad for about three cents.

It all sounds like a lot of fun, and creates a huge marketing opportunity for Apple, since the story makes all the big-time web pages (translation: Free Advertising) and makes the stock jump a little. Personally, I think you'd be better off spending $800 on a few shares of AAPL or some groceries than the latest iPad. You'll figure that out when Steve Jobs is standing on a stage next February telling you how the iPad 3 is thinner, lighter and faster than the iPad 2, which was really cool 11 months ago.

Ironically, it comes in black and white, but the decision to buy one isn't as simple.