Is that an iPad in your pocket or.. well yeah it clearly is an iPad in your pocket.

Urban Dictionary definitions for Gadgey:

Non specific person in Scotland; ‘joe bloggs’. Often used to refer to workman, or random person in street/crowd.

Another word for a ned in scotland.

Derogatory Scottish term for someone who’s not so well-off.

I’m obsessed with gadgets, and never more so than now, when I’m trying to stop myself from buying any (I have a wedding to save for you know). I’ve spent most of my evenings this week compulsively ‘researching’ various expensive items that I can’t really afford. But a little voice in my head has been telling me that I ‘deserve’ to treat myself. After all when was the last time I bought a cool gadget? It was 18 months ago that I bought my iPhone 3G.

Part of me realises that all I really want is a shiny new toy to play with, so trying to justify any new purchase as being in any way necessary would be to lie to myself, and you.

Now I knew I had an addictive personality, but I didn’t realise that shopping for gadgets could also become so all-consuming a hobby. According to the 99% however, I’m not the only one, and there’s even research to say why it’s so addictive.

But most of us gadgeys just don’t have a spare five hundred quid lying around to splash out on Apple’s latest gizmo so we have to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of any new purchase in detail.

E-Readers – the new Kindle (3G & Wifi) vs iPad

I like to think of myself as a writer, and therefore I love books, and am always reading several at once. I like their physical form, but I also believe that e-readers are the future (in fact they are already outselling hardback books in the US according to Amazon).  Also I live in a small flat and there just isn’t room for all the books we already have, never mind those I will want to get in the future.

Whilst the iPad clearly does a whole lot more besides being an e-reader, I see Amazon’s Kindle as having the following benefits:

• E-ink is easier on the eyes. Everytime I go to the optician my eyes have deteriotated – this can’t be helped by the amount of time I spend staring at a computer screen at work and at home, or squinting at the lcd screen on my iPhone. Whilst iBooks on the iPad has a built-in dimmer switch, it is still a backlit lcd screen – e-ink is meant to be much easier to read with. (I haven’t actually tried a kindle so I’m just going by what I’ve heard)

• It has free 3G. The wi-fi model is only £109, but for £149 you get free 3G which means you can download books wherever you are, and also use the ‘experimental’ web browser feature, without the costly monthly subscriptions necessary for the 3G iPad. I’m not expecting this to be very good compared to the iPad but if I can at least read my google reader feeds on it then I’d be happy.

• Amazon is good value. Whilst Waterstones is peddling the Sony e-reader for the bargain price of £99, according to the Register buying 36 books from them will cost around £80 more than to buy the same books from Amazon.

• Plus despite daft UK tax laws which means e-books have inflated prices here, Amazon has discounted many of their best-sellers in the new UK Kindle store – and from a cursory glance at Apple’s iBooks store, it seems that Amazon is (unsurprisingly) better value – and provides a far wider choice.

Of course there are downsides – the Kindle is only black and white, which already makes it look somewhat dated when compared to the gorgeous iPad screen, and doesn’t do any of the multitude of things the iPad can do. But as useful as having an all-purpose item is, sometimes it’s better to go for the dedicated device that does one thing but does it very well. I reckon the lure of all the other apps on the iPad would mean I never actually got round to reading any books on it. Of course I still want one…

Related reading:

Engadget: One Device to Rule Them All?

The Next Web: Kindle Outselling iBooks 60 -1?

Over the last few years, as many of you will have noticed, I’ve been a bit of an Apple fanboy (some people spell this fanboi – I have no idea why but seemingly it makes it a much wittier insult). I bought a Macbook, then an iPhone and as time progressed I got more hooked, until I’d imperceptibly gained that air of smug superiority and self-delusion that seems to go with the territory.

I’ve written a lot about Apple on this blog, and even written for Just Another iPhone Blog about the technological wonders that Steve Jobs and co have brought into the world.

But recently I’ve started to have doubts. Have I been hooked into some kind of faux-religious fervour that’s making me blind to the faults of apple products and willing to spend disproportionate amounts on their shiny and pretty but insubstantial wares (as Charlie Brooker suggests in this rather superb article)?

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand”

It all came to a head when I was discussing the new iPhone with a friend just before it came out. She suggested that it was overhyped and that there was always some kind of fault being reported in the press with previous iPhones. I could have patiently explained, in the patronising manner which is part and parcel of being a fanboi that certain aspects of the tech press were “out to get” Apple because of their huge success and in fact Steve Jobs’ every move is divinely ordained.

Instead however, I petulantly retorted “I wouldn’t expect you to understand”. She was, understandably a little offended by this, and I realised I was being overly defensive. I had lost all objectivity on the topic. And she was proven right when despite early reviews of the iPhone 4 suggesting it was the most advanced smartphone ever, antennagate hit.

(In case you don’t know, customers were reporting that the new iPhone’s antenna, which is actually part of the phone’s structure, had a weak spot at the bottom left hand corner of the phone, and if held there, in the normal way anyone would hold a phone (using what has become known as the death grip) it would drop calls!)

Touch Me

I still think Apple’s achievement with the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad are extremely impressive – bringing touchscreens into the mainstream and most definitely changing the face of computing whether the Haters (or should I spell it Hatas) like it or not. Of course their success is partly due to the groundbreaking functionality of the technology, partly due to the slick design, and partly due to their extremely clever marketing which makes you feel like one of the wealthy and supercool elite if you own their product, and like an unwashed peasant if you don’t.

However where they fall down is in their treatment of their so-called fans. They seem to believe that once you’re hooked into their never-ending sales funnel, you lose all perspective, all decision-making ability and all objectivity and are willing to keep shelling out no matter how badly you’re treated.

Now clearly on one level antenna-gate was blown out of all proportion; however as other commentators have noted, this was mainly because of the dismissive treatment of the early complaints by Apple, not least Steve Jobs himself, who personally replied to one complaint “just hold it differently”.

Eventually of course they had to call an emergency press conference and give cases away for free, which went some way to calm the storm, but what the whole episode showed was their arrogance in dealing with valid customer complaints. And the sacking of Mark Papermaster, Apple’s senior executive overseeing engineering of the iPhone and iPad, proves that something had indeed gone badly wrong internally.

Now things are even worse for the poor users of the iPhone 3G, which simply doesn’t work properly once updated to the latest 4.0 operating system. Apple have apparently, several weeks later, said they are “investigating” the matter, but this just isn’t good enough. It’s not an extravagant claim to suggest they are deliberatingly phasing out the 3G in order to force customers to buy the next model, even though many do not have a spare £400 sitting around with which to do so (and if you get it on contract expect to pay £800 over the course of 18 months).

Ok, so the new iPhone is twice as powerful as the 3G and so the old model can’t be expected to do everything as well as the new one – but my 3G had been working just fine up until the update – and it doesn’t even allowed multi-tasking on 3Gs, which proves they can easily adjust how the update affects different models, so there’s no reason why it should make it run so slow.

Screw You!

I was actually ready to purchase the iPhone 4 when my contract ran out at the end of July but I do not like the feeling that I’m being forced into it. And because my iPhone has a crack on the back that I only noticed after the warranty had run out, I can’t even get a decent amount to recycle the bugger. Plus, although I don’t believe the faulty antenna would be a big issue for me, it is likely to adversely affect the resale price and given the problem I have with the cracked 3G I am going to have to be more careful about these sorts of things.

So sorry Steve, but I’m waiting it out for now. And as for the iPad, well screw you. I do want an e-reader, but I’ll be looking at the new Amazon Kindle, which is a fraction of the price.

Not fans of Steve Jobbies

This isn’t fanboy stuff, this is future of journalism/publishing/entertainment stuff. (via Mashable)

 Christ. I have iPad fatigue already and they’re not even in the shops. I have been debating whether to add to the ACRES of unending conjecture, speculation and in a select few cases, reasonably intelligent coverage but as I have talked about it a few times here I felt I owed you some amount of what American TV shows call ‘closure’. So here it is, all you need to know about the iPants in one handy place which you may or may not choose to ignore.

 WHAT IS IT?

 A huge bloody big iPhone (well actually iPod Touch as it has no phone or camera). It looks a bit daft held up, but it looks pretty cool on your lap pretending to be the New York Times.

 WHAT’S IT FOR THOUGH? I ALREADY HAVE A BLOODY IPHONE.

 Good question. Nobody really knows. Some have said it’s an upgrade of the portable TV. Some say it’s useless cos you can’t view porn.. I mean ‘flash’ on it.

I say, it’s a portable storefront, a touchable shop window, for Apple to sell you crap. If the iPod was their way to sell music on iTunes, the iPhone their way to sell you widgets and games via the app store, then the iPad has been designed to sell you both of those plus reading material via the iBooks store.

 My favourite sci-fi blog io9 called the iPad  ’Crap Futurism’ and much of what they have to say rings scarily true. They quote sci-fi author Karl Schroeder who says “what Apple has done (again) is seize the moment with a combination of a device and a business model . .” and the writer of the piece agrees that “the iPad isn’t so much new technology as it is a shiny, pretty doorway to a mall where you can buy everything from books to movies.”

 Not only that but as the article also points out, the focus is very heavily on consumption, not creativity. Lots of people are worried that if this is the future, it’s one controlled by Apple. The iPad will allow for very limited customisation and won’t run any of the programmes used by creative professionals such as adobe creative suite, or even the iLife suite which, though basic, made my MacBook such an attractive purchase. Twitter programmer Alex Payne agrees, saying that he probably wouldn’t have become a programmer if he had owned one as a kid.

 Let’s face it though, Charlie Brooker is probably right as always. 

 ”I don’t want to hear how the iPad is going to make my life simpler. I want to hear how it’ll amuse and distract me; how it plans to anaesthetise me into a numb, trancelike state. Call it the iDawdler and aggressively market it as the world’s first utterly dedicated timewasting device: an electronic sedative to rival diazepam, alcohol or television. If Apple can convince us of that, it’s got itself a hit.”

NEVER MIND ALL THAT, HAS IT SAVED THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY OR WHATEVER IT WAS YOU WERE WITTERING ON ABOUT IN THAT REALLY LONG AND POINTLESS POST YOU PUBLISHED THE OTHER DAY?

 Not that I can tell. It doesn’t seem, at first glance to offer anything new for the publishing industry, as in fact it makes web browsing so easy that it might even do away with the need for a lot of the paid apps necessary on the iPhone due to the small screen.

 According to Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, the death of printed reading materials has been greatly exaggerated, and Peter Preston for the same paper reckons the iPad is destined to be landfill, like so many ‘revolutionary’ gadgets before it.

 A PAD IS FOR WRITING

Clearly, this video by Peter Serafinowicz is a p*ss-take. But personally, I think the iPad might be quite good if you could write on it.

A decent handwriting conversion programme does not to my knowledge exist yet, but if I could write notes using a stylus that were cleverly converted to digital text (which could be used by multiple apps like iWork, Simplenote, WordPress etc), I could really see the iPad being useful for writers & bloggers, freeing us from the tyranny of the RSI inducing keyboard and mouse (multitouchscreens are probably even worse for RSI) and thus being more than just another way of consuming the web.

However the fact that a keyboard dock has already been announced makes me think this is some way off.

FiNALLY

As for its other obvious fault, apparently the ability to use more than one app at once may be on the way in the next iPhone upgrade (and therefore the iPad as they use the same OS).

So, in conclusion, do I want one? Yes. Do I need one or can I come up with a justifiable reason to get one? Not really.

Finally, Patrick Jordan of Just Another iPhone Blog, who I’ve written for in the past, was interviewed on ABC news before and after the announcement, alongside a couple of other Mac bloggers. I think he did a cracking job. And he’s already set up a sister site called – yes you guessed it, Just Another iPad Blog – so I will be reading that with great interest in case they can come up with a decent excuse for buying one…