As an avid Apple fan, I’ve been known to feverishly follow the live blogs whenever there’s a Steve Jobs keynote. Despite telling myself that no matter what kind of tablet was revealed this past January I wouldn’t need one, I still ended up being sucked in part-way through. I just had to know what Apple had been up to behind the scenes for the last number of years. Right after the keynote ended, in the wake of Steve’s reality distortion field, I found myself going through the usual frenzy of trying to figure out how much money I could scrape together to purchase the latest Apple offering. What can I sell to get the money? Where can I get a last-minute freelance job? By the end of the day, I had come back down to earth and decided that I did not, in fact need an iPad. Not immediately.
Then something strange happened. As the week went on, contrary to to the normal pattern of increasing unnecessary desire for the latest and greatest, I found myself wanting the iPad less and less. I found I was no longer enamoured with the idea of a stunning, life-changing tablet of perfection and instead starting to see the truth. Where had Apple gone wrong? I think there’s a key point, one that Steve actually discussed in his keynote, where the iPad falls short.
