My Sick Mind

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...

"iPad is here!" proclaims Best Buy, in their latest e-mail solicitation received this afternoon. Wow, 500 bucks for an iPad? Sounds interesting enough to at least open the ad and see what all the fuss is about. As it turns out, "here" means something different to the folks at Best Buy than it does to the rest of us. If you're looking to pick one up for yourself or the kiddies in time for the blessed holiday on Saturday, you'll likely be disappointed. The gang at Best Buy is pulling the old bait and switch on you. The $499 iPad's are on backorder , as I saw when I clicked on the ad. There are, however, plenty of 64 gigabyte and 3G iPad's available for $829 and $729 respectively. Relative bargains when you consider presenting an empty package under your pagan Christmas tree on Saturday. Even the $599 32 gigabyte iPad is backordered. My guess is that the marketing people at Best Buy figure that you'll be so worked up over getting a "cheap...

I love the way Apple advertises the i- things on TV. They show happy fingers dragging apps all over the screen at lightning speed, typing stuff, reading newspapers, books and magazines, listening to music and sending messages with charts and graphs. It all seems so ... free. When we stop to think (if the TV gives us time) we realize that all of those things cost money. Apple makes it sound like all you need to do is buy the i- thing and you'll suddenly be hooked up to the world via WiFi or your trusty 3G network, but alas, that costs money too. Your $499 i- thing is suddenly a $300-a-month App Bill. Of course, you can do your banking by the i- thing too, which comes in handy for paying your i- thing bill. Tiger Woods is back to playing golf. Check the newspaper tomorrow (on your i-thing) and you'll see something like WOODS BACK AT MASTERS, 2 STROKES OFF THE LEAD. Try to find out who is leading the tournament and you'll probably have to scroll down to the third or fou...