think about it. first apple builds an ipad that has wifi with 3g as an option and comes with 16g, 32 or 64. this to me is professional marketing at its best. he makes a product that cant even expand its memory or change its battery and people are still buying it. consumers hate that and they still buy it. consumers hate soo many things about the ipad and iphone but yet they still feel the need to buy it. second you have to pay for 3g. who the hell is going to pay for 3g and pay for their phone’s data plan. interestingly, everyone. another issue that everyone is aware of is the fact that the battery cannot be swaped or replaced unless its sent to apple. now does everyone really think thats was made to make the device smaller and provide a better battery life? i hope not because its all a business plan that in the end will profit apple.

third, does everyone really think that they made a mistake and forgot to put a camera on the ipad? think again, that too is a marketing scheme that will indeed make them loads of money in the near future. look how many people bought this device without, and guess how many will buy it when it gets a camera soon.

there billionairs for a reason and thats by alluring customers and creating a need for a device that is not really needed. so to sum up, if you want the ipad, your basically buying a netbook a quarter of its space. a internet/movie/picture/organizer device that only has a certain amount of space (once thats done there NOTHING you can do) and limited battery life with of course all the other cons that come with it for $500. oh yea and add all the other accessories and add on that may be charged to you.

I am more interested in the productive good that technology does for society, like medicine saving people’s lives or people being able to work from home. Cell phones, the internet, etc. are all great for the distribution of knowledge and the facilitation of communication. I only use my cell phone to call my friends (or send text messages to them) every now and then, but I feel it is useful enough to be something I wouldn’t consider cutting out of my budget. A cheaper, bare bones model, yes, but I don’t see myself going back to now non-existent payphones and landlines.

Of course, these productive technologies don’t really get popular until they are “consumerized” it seems, (these “productive technologies” seem to play second fiddle in society’s collective consciousness because they are seen as “work” things) but if the consumer tech industry helps to drive those advances I can’t discredit the industry entirely.

Although I’m in a computer related bachelor’s program at a university, I’m not particularly keen of working/developing this type of technology either, as I feel the development part of it is rather boring. So, I guess like many people, I think technology is great (although, like everything, it does have some downsides, see pollution) but I’m not terribly interested in the scientific and/or technical side of it. I don’t want to appear to be anti-technology, because in reality I am far from it, but I remain borderline apathetic about most consumer technology.