Article: How My $499 iPad Purchase Became a $1,170 Credit Card Bill

[vta]

Apple has been the media darling for a long time. Considering how many BAD and REALLY DUMB decisions they made over the years you would never know it by listening to the media. Much of what apple has is incredibly over rated.

Apples products are fine. The computers are great but their monitors suck. The toys I don't have much of, so I can't say. My iPod is fine, it plays music and that's all I expect of it. Their video editing software is great. Even Final Cut Express is a great piece of software.

They were doing a very good job of unifying products that work well together. All things shift, Microsoft was the darling 10-15 years ago and their star has faded. Apples will fade and maybe the celebrity status of 'products' will die down and we'll just get what we need.

As for price R2A, it is over the top. A good quad i7 PC, stocked with memory and two drives will cost half of what the Apple equivalent will cost - $7000. Thank God this crap is a tax write off for me.

 

[CowboyWay]

Apple has been the media darling for a long time. Considering how many BAD and REALLY DUMB decisions they made over the years you would never know it by listening to the media. Much of what apple has is incredibly over rated.

How many apple products do you own, burm?

 

[theogt]

With the videos and the reviews I'm seeing, I may not wait until the 2nd gen.

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

Given the whole argument about how little of the market Apple really holds, it's surprising the Courier is getting damn near no attention, despite it looking a much more useful device.

Courier

Dang. That actually looks like something I might use.

 

[TheCount]

Given the whole argument about how little of the market Apple really holds, it's surprising the Courier is getting damn near no attention, despite it looking a much more useful device.

Courier

The iPad itself isn't a big deal just like putting two screens next to each other isn't a big deal. The Apple hype machine and the ecosystem (for better or worse) is why some people are going gaga over the iPad.

It also helps that when Apple announces something, they give you a price and a date and they actually deliver. I can't even mention how many times I've seen a cool gadget only to find out it's a prototype with no specific launch date or price point.

This thing isn't even a prototype. There's no actual interface. No hardware. No demo. No price. And they expect to deliver by the end of the year? Yeah right.

I'm a designer so I love this thing, have since I heard about it, but I really have my doubts we'll actually see it come to fruition.

 

[Hoofbite]

and overpriced.

You just paid $1100+ for a laptop without a ****ing optical drive.

 

[CanadianCowboysFan]

Hmmm.

Sounds a lot like everything in life.

Kind of like how a 49K car can turn into a 60K car.

if you can afford the 49k car, you really shouldn't care it cost 60k

kind of like going to Disneyland and then yapping about the cost of souvenirs

 

[Hoofbite]

if you can afford the 49k car, you really shouldn't care it cost 60k

kind of like going to Disneyland and then yapping about the cost of souvenirs

I was just using the analogy to say that everything purchased can get insanely more expensive if you opt for all the bells, whistles and accessories.

 

[vta]

This thing isn't even a prototype. There's no actual interface. No hardware. No demo. No price. And they expect to deliver by the end of the year? Yeah right.

I'm a designer so I love this thing, have since I heard about it, but I really have my doubts we'll actually see it come to fruition.

It kind of reminds of the table top thing Microsoft was showing off a few years ago, which worked similar to this. You could lay your camera down and wirelessly transfer your photos to the device and it was all touch screen controlled. It never came to fruition, at least not that I've seen, but it looked spectacular.

I'd think the Courier will be a lot more feasible to bring about and I hope it does happen. I'll stick with my Mac tower, but if I need something portable, I'd rather have this than the iPad or a laptop. It reminds me of a portable Wacom tablet.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Thats the Apple Tax!

 

[kapolani]

I'm going to pick one up for the wife soon. She really wants one. I was going to wait until it can be jailbroken.

I just read where someone already jailbroke it.

I have a few desktops. We have a couple of laptops. I also have a netbook. We both have iPhones.

The iPad will be nothing more than an entertainment device to us. A slick entertainment device.

 

[TheCount]

I'm going to pick one up for the wife soon. She really wants one. I was going to wait until it can be jailbroken.

I just read where someone already jailbroke it.

I have a few desktops. We have a couple of laptops. I also have a netbook. We both have iPhones.

The iPad will be nothing more than an entertainment device to us. A slick entertainment device.

That's pretty much how you have to look at it. Giant iTouch. I would consider the cheapest, most basic, version of it if I was looking for a portable media player.

 

[dcdallaschick]

Apples products are fine. The computers are great but their monitors suck.

Gotta totally disagree there. I bought the original 22" Apple Cinema Display when it came out. It was crazy expensive, but worth every penny over the years--and it's still going strong--sold it to a photographer a couple of months ago, and replaced w/a new 24" Apple display. I looked at a ton of other monitors, and nothing held a candle to it. I get that different kinds of LCDs are considered better for lots of motion/gaming stuff (which is also debatable), but for my design/web work, there's nothing out there with better gamut and fidelity.

I was disappointed they stopped making laser printers years ago. Those were quality machines.

 

[kapolani]

That's pretty much how you have to look at it. Giant iTouch. I would consider the cheapest, most basic, version of it if I was looking for a portable media player.

I'll probably get the 3G version. Actually since it's jailbroken it's probably incredibly easy to tether an iPhone to it to get data service.

What I like about the iPad is that it's lightning fast compared to a typically bloated netbook. As a dedicated bookreader/music/video player the iPad will offer a quicker more streamlined experience.

Although I don't have a problem watching movies on my iPhone a bigger screen will make it even better.

 

[TheCount]

Gotta totally disagree there. I bought the original 22" Apple Cinema Display when it came out. It was crazy expensive, but worth every penny over the years--and it's still going strong--sold it to a photographer a couple of months ago, and replaced w/a new 24" Apple display. I looked at a ton of other monitors, and nothing held a candle to it. I get that different kinds of LCDs are considered better for lots of motion/gaming stuff (which is also debatable), but for my design/web work, there's nothing out there with better gamut and fidelity.

I was disappointed they stopped making laser printers years ago. Those were quality machines.

Apple doesn't make their own panels or anything, so you can bet that whoever provides their panels, also provides it to other companies. In fact, I remember reading that several Dell monitors share the same panel as Apple's Cinema displays.

I'm a designer as well and I've used both and haven't had problems with either, really.

Dell's UltraSharp series of monitors are great.

 

[vta]

Gotta totally disagree there. I bought the original 22" Apple Cinema Display when it came out. It was crazy expensive, but worth every penny over the years--and it's still going strong--sold it to a photographer a couple of months ago, and replaced w/a new 24" Apple display. I looked at a ton of other monitors, and nothing held a candle to it. I get that different kinds of LCDs are considered better for lots of motion/gaming stuff (which is also debatable), but for my design/web work, there's nothing out there with better gamut and fidelity.

I was disappointed they stopped making laser printers years ago. Those were quality machines.

The old ones were good, I had one and it was fine. This one...

Where I'm at now we had this.

And it quickly became garbage. Now, I just use it as 2nd, for palettes and secondary windows, because it's color is ridiculously bad and has burn marks all over it. It's pretty much across the board at work and we replaced them with high end Lacies that are much more accurate with color and no burns.

A buddy of mine was just complaining the other day about his relatively new iMac with a burn in the screen.

I don't know who is providing Apple with the hardware or if it was a bad batch, but I'm not bothering with them anymore. The Lacie is outstanding.

 

[YosemiteSam]

I don't know who is providing Apple with the hardware or if it was a bad batch, but I'm not bothering with them anymore. The Lacie is outstanding.

Apple's stock price is at an all time high because of their enormous margins they get on their products. (which basically says, people are willing to WAY over pay for what they actually get from Apple)

To get their stock price to it's all time high, they have to increase their already gigantic margins. Well, part of that is skimping on hardware just like all the other PC manufacturers do. PCs aren't super cheap (starting around $400) because they are using high end hardware, it's because they use super cheap hardware. Apple is starting to do the same thing. The only difference is they aren't lowering their price, their only strengthening their bottom line.

Expect it to continue. Greed is a powerful thing. When you're talking about investors, they have an extreme sway over how things happen. Android is going to force one of two things on Apple. Lower their iPhone margins or lower their prices. Both will effects margins unless you make that money up somewhere else. Like cheaper hardware. Guess what the investors are going to be screaming when their stock price starts to fall?

 

[TheCount]

Apple's stock price is at an all time high because of their enormous margins they get on their products. (which basically says, people are willing to WAY over pay for what they actually get from Apple)

To get their stock price to it's all time high, they have to increase their already gigantic margins. Well, part of that is skimping on hardware just like all the other PC manufacturers do. PCs aren't super cheap (starting around $400) because they are using high end hardware, it's because they use super cheap hardware. Apple is starting to do the same thing. The only difference is they aren't lowering their price, their only strengthening their bottom line.

Expect it to continue. Greed is a powerful thing. When you're talking about investors, they have an extreme sway over how things happen. Android is going to force one of two things on Apple. Lower their iPhone margins or lower their prices. Both will effects margins unless you make that money up somewhere else. Like cheaper hardware. Guess what the investors are going to be screaming when their stock price starts to fall?

Apple's stock isn't high because of the hardware, in my opinion. It's high because of the ecosystem they've cultivated. I don't think they'll make a mint on the iPad, they will make a mint on all the apps, movies, music, books, etc. that they sell on the devices.

I'm glad I bought some stock, that's for sure.

You'll notice Apple has pretty much abandoned advertising their hardware, all you see are App and Music ads now.

 

[theogt]

Apple's stock isn't high because of the hardware, in my opinion. It's high because of the ecosystem they've cultivated. I don't think they'll make a mint on the iPad, they will make a mint on all the apps, movies, music, books, etc. that they sell on the devices.

I'm glad I bought some stock, that's for sure.

You'll notice Apple has pretty much abandoned advertising their hardware, all you see are App and Music ads now.

And it's genius. I'd probably rather have an HD2, but I won't ever give up my iPhone because of the apps.

 

[bbgun]

So in addition to the $500 base price, do you have to pay a monthly wireless fee to access the Net?