[NTLUG:Discuss] OT: What The IPad Is Good For

[Robert Pearson]

21 June 2010, 9:04 am
My replacement iPad arrived and works like a charm. It is remarkable
item. How to think of it? For someone like me, who lives by his
laptop, I think of it not as content creation, but as as content
consumption. Watch movies. Show family photos. Read newspapers. Surf
the web. Read books. Which brings me to its investment implications.
The iPad is a Kindle killer. Hence, Amazon at $126 with a P/E of 54 is
way overpriced. Check out the two charts.
<http://www.technologyinvestor.com/> for today only, June 21, 2010.

[The History of This iPad]
(Day 1)  11 June 2010, 9:06 am
Predictable and wonderfully sweet. Susan walks into my home office
early yesterday morning and gives me the family birthday present — a
handsome 32 GB WiFi iPad. It says it needs charging. I charge all day.
I feel virtuous.
By yesterday evening after the ballet, I do step 2 — plug into iTunes.
I register with Apple.  Step 3. I agree to receive promo material till
the day I die. Then it tried to transfer my good stuff — music,
movies, podcasts and photos — from my Windows PC  to my old iPad. That
was when I got this friendly popup:
The iPad ‘Harry Newton’s iPad” cannot be synced. An internal device
error has occurred.
That’s it. The message gives vagueness a whole new meaning.
Apple.com has “support.” But no mention of this message. I Google the
message. Nothing useful. Apparently no one in the entire world has
seen this error message.
Of the two million iPads sold worldwide, I got the only busted one!
And, to think, that yesterday I was ragging on Microsoft and its
Windows 7. To Microsoft’s credit, I can type a note on Windows 7. I
can’t type diddly on my new iPad.
<http://www.technologyinvestor.com/?p=2584>

(Day 2)  14 June 2010, 9:04 am
Now here’s a REAL reason to own Apple stock. After Friday’s “busted”
iPad story,   Apple people emailed, then called and the upshot is
they’re sending me a brand-new, fully tested  iPad.  My original
birthday one is going back to Cupertino for analysis.
In 35 years of writing about technology, Apple is among of handful of
companies who actually read a piece of mine and reached out.
Most tech companies don’t give two hoots about writers or what they say.
Apple cares. That’s to their enormous credit. Look at Apple’s stock.
Look at Microsoft’s. Look at all the nasty things I’ve written about
Microsoft in recent years. Not a peep out of them.
Apple runs its company the way I would — caring for its customers (and
poor, suffering technology writers.)
Apple stock. $300, here we come.
<http://www.technologyinvestor.com/?p=2613>

[rdpcomment] - a Kindle replacement with benefits (more features and functions)?

[rdpcomment]
I saw something similar to the iPad phenomenon with the Commodore 64.
First gamers and then a bunch of developers. Then even more "Big Time"
with the Amiga. If anyone except Commodore had owned the Amiga we
would never have heard of PC's and Microsoft. I know people who went
through "separation anxiety" when their Amiga had to finally be put to
rest. Same thing for OS/2. IBM did that to us. Didn't fit the market
Strategy. Linux on the Amiga?