ipad

[OneRedArmy]

I've had the iPad since UK launch back in May and I use it almost exclusively when I'm couch surfing and travelling, at the expense of my laptop which gets much less use.

Pros
Great screen. REALLY great screen* (see cons below). Fantastic for movies & browsing.
Already lots of great apps, including Amazon Kindle app, which is way better than ibook.
Pressreader, which has a raft of global newspapers delivered every morning in searchable PDF (including the Irish Times).
Great native email client, much better than expected.
On screen typing surprisingly easy and fast. Again, much better than any other touchscreen I've tried.
Starts instantaneously, closes down similarly. For use when travelling this is a significant benefit over a laptop.

Cons
Price. Seriously overpriced whatever way you look at it.
As good as the screen is in indoor conditions, its absolutely useless in daylight without an anti-glare screenfilm.
Its heavier than you would imagine, which makes reading in bed tiresome after a while.
No over-the-air-syncing. USB in this day and age, seriously?
Lack of flash support. More websites than you imagine still use it.

I'd agree with Adam that unless Apple change their approach to doing business, their 15mins of fame could hit a wall soon. They are behaving more and more like Microsoft as the months go by. Its very hard/impossible to grow double digit and remain a youthful, entreprenurial company at heart. Antennagate really didn't reflect well on them IMO.

[dahamsta]

Already lots of great apps, including Amazon Kindle app, which is way better than ibook.

Gah, sure I've Kindle on me dinky little Desire. Surprisingly usable too, although I haven't read a whole book yet. Seriously tempted by the new Kindles, but the ridiculous price of ebooks will continue to put me off. In some cases they're charging twice the price for something that uses less resources and has a distribution cost a fraction of that of a real book. I don't think so, Tim.

They are behaving more and more like Microsoft as the months go by.

They are, but Microsoft are still at it. The difference is need and want. MS keeps chugging along because of the lockin, which is fading, but not quickly enough. Apple thinks they have a lockin with the App store, but they really don't with Android and to a certain extent Symbian hammering away at them. Need MS, want Apple. No-one needs Apple. No-one.

I can't argue with "unless [they] change their approach" they'll screw it up, but I don't think that's a factor with Jobs involved. He's just too pig-headed. Gates is a kitten compared to him on the pork-lobal front. He's his own, and Apple's, worst enemy.

He's a complete pr*ck too, by all accounts.

[Jofspring]

In fairness I've never heard anyone complain about apples customer service (not that i'd be talking to loads of people about it in fairness). The iphone 4 problems where blown way out of proportion. My brother has one and even when the bars drop when holding it in the "death grip" it still receives texts and phone calls so i see no problem with it. My Nokia N97 does the same thing when held a certain way. Many others have reported very little if any affect.

Personally i got my first Macbook last year and have never had a problem with it. Not one (Touch wood). Numerous amounts of people i know though have had windows 7 for a very short period of time and are already having loads of problems with it so it seems Microsoft really are going no where at the moment.

I'm not big into the tech side of things and i didn't even know who Jobs was when i bought a mac for the first time. I went purely on the advice of friends when deciding to get one. So he could be the biggest ass hole in the world and i wouldn't care. The product i bought from apple is doing exactly what i want it to and thats whats important to me. No computer company in the world is perfect (and that includes apple), neither is any tech device to be honest. Every bit of technology has its flaws. Most people will buy what suits them which is fair enough if it does what they want it to.