The wonders of Apple

I've never really had the money to be a true Apple/Mac person. I love their products but they are still too much $ for me to be a solid Mac person. Jason traded me my Blackberry Pearl for his old school 1st gen iPhone when he traded up for the 3G. That was my first intro to Apple. I love my iPhone, I learn something new on it like every month. Which is a a sad thing to admit I'm sure but there you go. I use it mostly for the iPod which I listen to while working by myself in my lab. It's loud in there and I'm all by myself with the door locked, Pandora Radio is my friend. I figured out the mapping feature too (not the most accurate but if you zoom out it tends to make more sense) and the search function. See, these things I should have learned a year ago huh?

When the hype about the iPad started I thought, cool, nifty toy! I didn't for one minute think I'd own one as soon as they came out, not in my price range. Which is somewhere around, oh, free. I was still not willing to put out the $25-50 for a new power cord to my laptop. You know, the 7 year old Dell that eats power cords? Yeah, it has the larger battery on it but it doesn't actually hold a charge anymore so it has to be plugged in. After about a year the wire in the cord breaks. Apparently this is not uncommon in Dell power cords. Yay. Now you know why I'm never on line any more, I refuse to by another freaking power cord.

So as luck would have it there is such thing as a free iPad. Well, ok, more like free gift with purchase. Which is nice as long as it's not my money doing the 'purchasing'. Which it wasn't. I buy most of my consumables at work from a company called Phenomenex. I love them, they are so insanely helpful and they always have specials or are giving me free product. They have old fashioned customer service and if I call with a problem that my rep can't figure out he passes me on to a specialist in the company who can. And they have figured out some seriously strange ass problems out for me. All my instrument engineers are scared of me, when I have a problem it's just so damn obscure. I think the people at Phenomenex have some sort of strange affection for me. They may be sniffing chemicals in their free time but that's ok, they're my kinda peeps.

Plus they were having a special for a new product they were launching. One of those buy 3 and get 1 free or buy 5 and get 1 free plus a free iPad. Yeah baby sign me up. As it turns out it was a product that I had already started using. Since I am kind of one of their test monkeys I had worked with them for a few months to put this product in line with our normal procedures. Ordering a boatload was no problem, I knew I'd be using them all, it's a consumable. Sad part was that since I was already a regular buyer of it I was ineligible for the buy one get one free. My rep loves me though so instead he finagled me a free iPad 3G. Thank you Rob, I love you more than my luggage! Of course I don't travel so I don't actually have any luggage but I won't tell him if you don't.

So as soon as the first iPads were released they sent me one. And I though "Ooo pretty!". I could hook it up to my one lone surviving desktop at home (remember, the lap top has no juice and the hubby jacked his desktop with a virus) and downloaded stuff for the kid. Plants vs Zombies being the main entertainer but we had Spore too (originally for the iPhones). The kid was the only one who was using the iPad for a good month, Plants vs Zombies really is an entertaining game. We had some issues with the wifi in our house though, I had no idea what the password was. We had to wait for a friend of ours to come over and basically reset the thing and make another password. Which we wrote down and taped to the back of the unit. Or else, you know, we'd forget it again. So 2 nights ago we discovered the wonder of Apple. Dude, they rock. I will never ever buy another laptop cord for the rest of my life. I may never even buy another laptop. Unless I can afford a Mac. Or someone is giving one away for free.

The iPad? It's so lovely. I mean I don't think I'd use it for word processing or anything but we have a desktop for that. Even blog posting isn't too bad. I happen to be at work right now though so I'm on the laptop my awesome wonderful kick ass minion brought in and bought Clear for but if I were at home I'd be doing this from my iPad. We only ever used the laptop for sitting on the couch and flitting on the net, we never used it for it's full computer capabilities. The iPad takes care of that need. Plus it's small, light, you don't have to wait for it to boot up, you just push one and only little round button and "poof" internets baby. You don't need antiviral software, if you want sopmething from iTunes you can just download it from the icon. You don't need to attach it to a desktop for that stuff (like I did for the iPhones) unless it's time to back it up. It doesn't need to stay attached to a power cord, it holds it's charge forever, and I can use it at other free wifi places or, if I want to send AT&T more money (oh hell no) I can get wifi access where ever I want it. I don't see the need for that though, the iPhone does just fine for whatever I need when I am out and the AT&T plan for that thing is an obscene amount of cash anyway. I'm not sending them anymore of my paycheck thanks anyway.

When I first saw what the iPad was did I think I needed it? NO. But I think that had a lot to do with the fact that $500 was just not in my price range. Free is. I'm not giving this sucker up, it rocks.