Why You Should Not Buy Apple iPad | Apple iPad Best Price

Before the iPad release, many people have already predicted that such gadget will not be well received by the public. There is some sound logic behind it. One being iPhone’s phenomenal success will not necessarily translate into the iPad as well. The other is that Apple iPad is basically a tablet PC. And the big and powerful Microsoft, who holds the world PC operating systems literally, has done it way before without success. The case against the Apple iPad continues today, and likewise for this article. But this one takes a little different view and mainly tackles the joy of sharing and tweaking stuff, that Apple iPad have also eliminated.

You will all agree that most of the really exciting stuff has not come from big corporations with enormous budgets, but really from experimentalist and business minded amateurs. Afterall, where did the Bill Gates, Michael Dell and even Steve Jobs himself start? These people were able to shake the world and sell gadgets and systems without having to submit to the controls of a single company. You can bet that a company assuming a gatekeeper role for any personal technology will surely be fought off by them, if there was any.

Let us go down to the details now, and be more specific in our case against the Apple iPad. Based on what we have seen already in its design, it is obvious that there’s a lot of smart thinking that went into the design. It is very easy to handle and the interface is really attrative. But there is a big problem – they are all glued, there are no screws, so you simply can’t open them. What about those people who love tweaking things, improving them or modifying them to their liking? Remember that adage – “if you can’t open it, you don’t own it”? This is not very good from a holistic and innovation standpoint, as Apple has practically sealed the device against hardware and software hackers who normally modify the world for the better. What will happen to the American way, which nurtures the mind of a confident, entrepreneurial, and innovative person? People who love tweaking and changing things for the better? Apple’s answer – no worries, we have taken up that harware problem and all you need to do is use the iPad and enjoy it. This sounds thoughtful, and the millions of iPad units sold so far apparently proves that the general public is buying into this proposition. But isn’t this offensive to thousands of American minds? This is obvious that Apple’s model customer is the lame stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother or even a professional. Yes, I like tweaking things, but I simply don’t have time for all of this. So just give me a device that works, easy to use so I can do what I do best. Again, this line of thinking seems to be winning.

And what is left for you to do if you already own the iPad? Well, good news for you. The way you improve your iPad is not to figure out how it works in the inside, but to buy iPad applications or Apps so that your kids will not realize that the world is yours to take apart, re-assemble and make it better. And doing things as simple as changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the geeks. That hurts! Is this really good news?

Now, let’s take at the software side of things. Apple sure has made DRM its primary weapon. Apple has defined its business around these principles that customer shouldn’t be able to modify hardware, load their own software on it and especially override built-in instructions given to it by the dictating entertainment and the telecom companies. Like a Jedi, DRM is the way. The way to control what can run on your devices. What does this mean? Customers can’t take or share their content with competing devices and developers can’t sell on their own terms. This has created a single channel – the iApps – similar to Wal-Mart that controls access to my customers or users and dictates what is and is not acceptable material for me to create. The answer to this Apple’s one-sided contractual terms for developers: “Did you think that access to a platform where you can make a fortune would come without strings attached?” Sounds familiar if you watched Godfather movie.

Another case here. Do you remember the second coming of the CD-ROM? In the next wave that came, big media and production companies proclaimed that they are going to remake media by producing expensive to make and to buy product – the CD ROM. Do you recall what happened in reality? The money making did not last that long and open platforms and experimental amateurs eventually beat out the slick pros with the revolutionary peer to peer sharing technology. This is not to say that we should promote piracy in the open, and utter disregard of copyright laws. This is not the message here. If we learn from history, incumbents are more likely bad revolutionaries and relying on incumbents to produce your revolutions is not a good strategy. They’re apt to take all the stuff that makes their products great and try to use technology to charge you extra for it, or prohibit it altogether.

Steve Jobs

To understand the possibility of continuing to nurture American innovation and free enterprise, let us try to understand the dynamics of this market right now. The press has been all over the iPad hype because Apple puts on a good show, and because everyone in the media industry is looking for a daddy figure who’ll promise them that their audience will keep on coming back and paying! The reason why people, especially the latest generation, have stopped paying for a lot of content isn’t just that they can get it for free anyway. It is also that they can get lots of competing stuff for free. The open platform has allowed for an explosion of new material, some of it rough-hewn, some of it slick as the pros – think of Mozilla browser and WordPress CMS, most of it targetted more narrowly than the old media ever managed.

So for investors in the old media, who are still as confused today, the mainstream press is full of stories that affirm the internal media consensus. Yesterday’s empires do something sacred and vital that will eventually come along to move us all away from the innovation playground, with its amateur content and lack of proprietary channels. Exclusive deals are then made to move us back into the walled gardens that best return shareholder value to the investors. Good for you as investors, right? Sadly, no. The real economics of iPad publishing tell a different story. Even a very good iPad sales performance is not going to do much to heal the bleeding from traditional publishing. Wishful thinking and a nostalgia for the good old days of lockdown will not bring customers back through the door.

Gadgets come and gadgets go. The Apple iPad you buy today will be a waste in a year or two. The real issue isn’t the capabilities of the piece of plastic crap you unwrap today, but the technical and social infrastructure that go with it. If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad is plainly not for you. If you want to live in the fair world where you get to keep, or at least share for innovation the stuff you buy, the iPad is not for you. If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you’re going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the Apple iPad, again, is not for you.

We certainly hope that this gives you a balanced view on the Apple iPad, with all the hype that comes with it. We also hope that this message will reach Apple Inc. and give them some smarter insights as they move along. Business is good, but it should not be at the expense of the American way that made America what it is today. Enough said.