ipad review

I must be the only person on earth that does not understand Apple's new Ipad. The wireless card on my laptop crashed. After several hours to no avail my I.T guy said it was a lost cause. It just so happened that day I attended an awards conference coordinated by WEMAR (West Maricopa Regional Assoc. of Realtors). Low and behold I saw a familiar face. This familiar face had an Ipad. Everyone wanted to see it. I am not an Apple fan AND I wanted to see it. So for the duration of the conference I googled over his ipad.

Netbook or Ipad. Netbook $269, ipad $499. I justified the extra money as maybe I would not have to upgrade my computer in a couple years. Since I have never heard an Apple owner complain of their computer crashing over a driver failure or virus, I considered this foreign being. So I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find a store that had one. Best Buy, no. Apple store, yes! But....I was told to hurry because they were going quick. Never tell a women to hurry because they are going quick. You wonder who those crazy people are driving on the freeway. Its a women driving because someone told her something was on sale and they were going quick!

I was leaving the next morning on vacation and thought what an opportunity to learn this new technology. I drove the 45 minutes to the Apple store. It was packed. Everyone was playing on the demo ipads. The associate informed me they had one more left. Feeling kind of special, I paraded through the store with it. As he did his thing on the computer for me to purchase it I informed him I needed the wireless keyboard. He said sure. I asked him if the usb jack is in the box or do I need to buy it separately. I could tell this was going to be a nickel and dime thing. As he typed on the computer to ring me up he informed me that it is not in the box and it is not coming out for another 6 months. sigh of disappointment.

I admit. I did not do my research on this thing. I just figured since it was such a hot commodity, there had to be a reason. So as I looked at him very dumbfounded, I asked well how do I sync my blackberry? (you can laugh at my expense) He said I couldn't. I think the utter look of a deer in headlights must have been the expression on my face.

I started thinking of all the things I use a USB port for. My camera, magicjack, my printer, portable drives....
Again I asked him what about all of these things just in case I missed something again. It was not getting any better. He informed me that the ipad is not meant to be a computer. Huh?!?!?!? So I asked him what am I paying $500 for and what can I do with it. He took me to a demo and showed me a nifty calendar and all it could do. Wow, I was impressed now.................(not).

I told him I meet clients on the fly, I need them to sign docs electronically through the computer, I have to do analysis on the fly, cma's, write up offers, addendums, counters.......so how do I do all that on this? He said I can not download anything but Apple Apps. I can not download sharper agent (my flyer creator), toolkitcma (my cma and buyer presentation program), justsnooping (my virtual tour provider), or any of the other websites I use to advertise on that need a program download. I am a pdf creator/merger/extractor fanatic. The only pdf function I can do is open a pdf. I can not even dowload it. Seriously beyond confusion. I look around the other demo's to see what people are doing on them. Playing games. I had to ask. Are people paying $500 to play games on this?

So either I got a really bad Apple associate or this ipad is not for Real Estate agents. They promote their mobility. Who is more mobile then a Realtor? I did not see one function that could possible make my life more efficient or effective. I could not believe that something that is so marketed toward mobile business professionals and all it really was is another version of the iphone on steriods.

So with major disappointment (mad at myself for following the crowd and not researching it first) I handed the ipad back to the associate. He took it back with great pride. I went to Best Buy and purchased a netbook. Best part, Best buy gave me a $45 gift certificate so total was $230 and some change. I even got 3 usb ports!