Yesterday, we finally had the chance to touch an iPad the first time at the new Gravis store in Essen (Germany). When it was introduced I thought: Hmm… nice, but is it really worth 499$ (or here in Germany 499€!)?

With more and more reports and videos that I’ve read and seen in the last few weeks since it came out officially in the US and now also in Europe, I was really warming up for this device, though – I haven’t ordered one from the Apple store. I wanted to buy it on my own, but that’s another story.

By having the chance to test it in a quiet atmosphere, I found some painpoints that hinders me from getting one (not mentioning that you have simply no chance to get one until July).

For example: It’s really heavy. If you see it, you don’t think it’s that heavy. Sure, compared to a good reference book, it’s a lightweight, but that wouldn’t be my main function for this which drives me to the result that I simply don’t need it: checking websites. You can check websites also on the iPad simulator with the same effect and you could be sure if it works or not.

I’m having my MacBook around pretty often and it’s very comfortable to work with. Sure, playing videos makes it hot easily, but I don’t see the reason to spend 499€ for this device as I don’t see a real usage for myself in it. It’s hyped, that’s it. If you’ve read some of my last articles or my old blog, you know, that I enjoy to use Apple products since software is mostly better designer and more intuitive compared to their Windows competitors, but I also try not to react “Fanboy”-like. Apple does a lot mistakes in my mind when it comes to politics, but that’s not what I want to discuss here. Just to highlight: At the moment, Microsoft is more congenial than Apple – they are opening more and more stuff to OpenSource which is a step into the right direction and letting me do more with Windows 7 than I could ever do on my Mac (for example: customize it). With one leg, I’m already back in bed with Windows :/ Now: Complain! Just as an argument why: Outlook. I haven’t tried Entourage yet, but Outlook for Windows is in my mind THE BEST eMail & Collaboration software in the world – shout at me, but in my mind it is (if it’s connected to a great working Exchange Server).

I wouldn’t say that I would never get an iPad for me or my wife. I also can’t see the future through a glass bowl and I’ll try to keep my mind open.

Another issue I run into is the cellphone. Not “THE”, but mine. I’m happily using my iPhone 2G for 3 1/2 years now, but I would love to make the next step and get a 3G connection when I’m out of my office. iPhone 4G/HD – whatever, will be 100% sold by T-Mobile in Germany and you can’t select another provider. I guess there’s nearly no chance to get an unlocked one unless you’ll get one from Belgium or Italy. No big deal, because Bruxelles is just 200km from here, but… I don’t know. Having the iPhone was nice and so, but again: mixed with Exchange it’s nice, but also you can’t use all the stuff that Exchange provides. Call it: Tasks for example.

So, I’ve also taken a deeper look onto unlocked cellphones on the market and let me say one thing: It’s horrible! The only GUI that is nice enough is Android, and guess what: you can’t upgrade it as easy as an iPhone to a new software version. Why? Well, because the companies like HTC and Co want to sell phones! New version of Android called “Froyo”? Yes, but the best chance to get it to buy a new phone. In some ways I miss the old times. I was a happy user of my SonyEricsson K600i – it simply worked, could do some videos and photos, play some MP3s and that’s it. Sure, eMail and Web was horrible, but in the past it doesn’t matter that much. As resumé – I will see what will come at the WWDC tomorrow and then I will take my time (and give Apple time to ship it to the local stores) and then choose if I want to get one or not. My iPhone 2G is phone and would be perfect if it wouldn’t miss the 3G Maybe I should get an iPhone 3GS when the 4G comes out

Now I’ve written a lot and need to change the title from “Hmm… iPad” to a better fitting title yey…

Have a great day!

Ciao
Dennis 

So you could imagine, that I’m a happy user with Macs. You’re mostly right. I love the easiness to do things on OS X, for example using Panic’s Transmit 4 and mounting the FTP directly to the Finder. Great option. And there are so much tools that I love, call it Billing for my accounting, call it TextMate for coding or yes – of course – Photoshop for being creative.

But like every medal, there’s a backside. Apple get’s strange these days. They are on the way to control EVERYTHING you do on you if you use their products, censoring their App Store which is fine if you want to avoid to have malicious software on your device, but I think it should be my opinion if I want to see some nipples or not . The other point is this Flash discussion. I’m NOT a fan of Flash and have rarely done Flash stuff for customers in the past, but in my opinion, I want to have the option and while that’s ok on a little iPhone, I think it’s a bad decision on the huger iPad. Sure, there’s HTML5, but in some situations it doesn’t fit. The iPad App store follows the same censorship as the iPhone App store.

Another issue that comes with 1 manufacturer creating 1 line of products for their own OS is, that they can decide what the computer should do and what not. Speaking of FireWire and MacBooks. My MacBook here has NO FireWire. That said, I have to mention that I ever liked FireWire more than USB2, because it keeps the CPU cold and does the calculation with it’s own (Oxford) chipset. Apple decided that I shouldn’t have this port anymore, for various reasons that I don’t understand. Ok – I can live without that port, sure, and if I wanted to have it, I could get a MacBook Pro which has it. In notebook areas that’s a thing that annoys me, but I understand.

But let’s shift to another product I invested a lot money into: the Mac Pro. You can add up to 4 PCIe x16 cards into this machine, which is fine, but what if I want to use 3x big graphic cards inside? Want to use SLI for gaming? Or even using CUDA for crunching packages for Folding@Home, Seti@Home etc? No option on Macs. And that makes me sad. Not that I want to use anything of them (CUDA would be nice, I admit), but you simply don’t have to option. And that’s the point. The Mac Pro is a fantastic machine, but it’s like ALL Apple products so less expandable. See the HD drives. With some adapters, you can put it up to 6 HDs (if you say: Ok – I don’t want to use any optical drive inside the machine and for example use an USB drive for installations). But that’s it, and trying to install a REAL RAID card like the Adaptec controllers? No chance. You’re limited. And that’s the point. You’ve spend nearly as much money into a machine that is a great Workstation, but limits you. In the PC world, if you want to upgrade your system and/or CPU, say you’ve bought this custom designer Workstation with 1x Xeon CPU installed and you want to have 2 of them, you could get the mainboard out of it, get a new one with 2 Xeons and you’re done. In the Mac world you need to sell the WHOLE computer and buy a new one. I admit, I’m not sure if there’s a way to simply upgrade the CPU tray with a new one.

The product quality is what still annoys me. For the Mac Pro, the first one was a nearly DOA (Dead on Arrival), ok Apple switched it and delivered a new one. Maybe you’ve heard about the sound issue on Nehalem systems (Early 2009 edition). No? Playing back a MP3 file increase the workload of your system a lot and increase the CPUs temperature by up to 10°C additional. Apple has released a patch for this – 1 year after selling the first Mac Pros of this series. 1 year!

What really annoys is that Apple has the total control, and what they’d called Microsoft how they behave in the past, they are doing that in a more efficient way. I like OS X and I love to do my work on this system, but I feel that they are more and more trying to control me and what I am allowed to do, and I don’t know for how long I will accept this. Maybe it’s a personal feeling and it’s not that bad in reality, but I’m not the only one who has these ideas in mind.

Not saying that Windows is the better OS, it’s way more flexible – you can do MUCH more with this and it’s today easier to manipulate to work the way you want. Take a look at Stefan Didaks website and see what he does with his PCs. That’s something what I think you cannot do in that ease on Macs. Speaking about software like WILMA, speaking about high performing systems with loads loads of TBytes INSIDE a single machine and speaking about a working NUMA

So again, after some months using Macs, I’m on this splitted way and while one part inside me says: accept the barriers that Apple has created because you can do your work with an ease and you don’t NEED such machines for YOUR work, another part keeps telling me louder and louder: What comes next? You need to login with you fingerprint which is stored in Apples database? Maybe overdrawn at the moment, but you’ve no idea what Steve Jobs will introduce at the WWDC in 2 weeks

I’ve time. My work is not bound to Mac OR Windows. Sure, I can’t use Linux because of the lack of Photoshop, but between these 2 major systems I can switch withing less hours. So – let’s just see what Apple will tell us how and what to do next and select again and again which way we will follow. And believe me, I’m happily switching between Macs & PCs since 2001, but I would love to find my final system, but it looks like everything is too much in motion to say: I’ll stick with this for the rest of my work life.

I never thought the day will come that I say that Apple limits more than Microsoft, but more and more it seems like Microsoft becomes the good guy and Apple the very bad boy in this game. I mean, even Google has stopped working with them, Google! Which is knows for being a bit “evil” while collecting all the data about you, and they are saying that Apple is on the wrong way (I interpretate that they think so, based on watching hours of their IO2010 keynotes).

I’m a happy user of… a computer.

So far! Enjoy the free Monday guys from Germany and the great weather! For the others: Have a nice and not too stressful day

Ciao
Dennis