It's Just Abbey

When the news of the next God of War game broke I went nuts. I was dancing, drooling, dreaming of blood, you know, all the normal stuff. Then the demo came out and I got to see what the game was all about. My mind went numb from the amount of awesome it was fed. I haven’t been able to sit still since!

On the flip side, when there were rumors about Apple’s new tablet I shrugged and I actually sat down and made a sarcastic blog about it. Then when they unveiled it, I made a few small nods and then kept on living.

This should tell you a few things. Mostly that God of War 3 is going to kick ass and no one can do anything to stop it. But it should also tell you that I, along with a good portion of the world, could really care less about the iPad. It just is a yawn in a box. I’m sure it is shiny and wicked fun… for Apple lovers. But for the rest of the world, well, we will be computing on real computers, gaming on real consoles and reading books on our Kindles. Let me present to you the top 5 reasons I don’t care about the iPad.

1) I am not an Apple fangirl

I am no iJustine and I say that not only with a great sound of relief but also as a fact. My life is not about Apple. I am a PC and that’s the way I like it. Sure I may cave and get an iPod Touch or an elitist white laptop, but for now I am fine with my trusty HP laptop and my four year old iPod Nano. The only technology I have ever been exclusive with was Nintendo. As you can see from my first paragraph, I outgrew that exclusive relationship and became a gaming swinger. Also, as a loyal Verizon customer I still roll my eyes when someone says that next year the iPhone will come to Verizon. It has been “next year” for three years. I like Verizon way too much and I am so on the fence about Apple it isn’t even sort of worth it to move to AT&T.

2) It is an “inbetween” tech.

[enter Rick Moranis] Rick shouting with dismay: “Honey, I blew up the iPhone!”

So Steve Jobs it trying to sell me part of a laptop, part of television, part of a smart phone, and part of a Kindle in a giant iPhone casing. Okay, I like my stove, my treadmill and my car but I really don’t want them fused together. Not only would it have horrible gas mileage it just doesn’t make sense. The iPad is just a poor fusion of them all. No USB ports, no Adobe, no multitasking, and no GPS? Oh wait, but don’t worry there’s a compass! Why are they trying to get in on the eBook market? They have gone out of their way to say that there are no silly buttons to press like on the lame, old Kindle. The iPad has a touch screen to simulate reading! Hey Apple, if I wanted to pretend I was reading a book I would read a real book!

3) The name. Dear sweet baby Jesus the name.

Clearly there were no women on the naming committee. iTampon jokes aside, the iPad? Really? It sounds like something designed by Leapster to enhance learning skill for toddlers. How hard is your job, Naming Department? All you have to do is put an ‘i’ in front of real names and call it a day. The iTablet would have sufficed just fine! Hopefully the explosion of jokes on Twitter and throughout the blogging world will get them to change their minds. But this is Apple, so probably not.

4) Touch screen of doom

What is with Apple’s war on buttons? Call me old fashioned but I like buttons. I like working, moving parts. Touch screens make me feel out of control and child like. I am afraid I will anger it by being clumsy with it. I don’t know, I just am not warmed up to the idea yet so a whole “computer” with nothing but a touch screen makes me just roll my eyes and move on. Show me the touch screen technology from Avatar and then we’ll talk.

5) Lack luster gaming platform

This is probably the key reason. To save your eyes and my formatting, imagine this in bold, 72 point font. Sure, it has its little games and it has its kitschy little features but at the end of the day are you going to run home to play games that you could otherwise be playing on your phone? I don’t pretend to be a hardcore gamer, but I am a gaming enthusiast who enjoys a good challenge. I want a story, I want controls and I want fun. I don’t want to play a one dimensional game for the sake of doing it. There is such a slim chance that there will be anything other than strictly iPad games and that is boring. I want choices, and not just the ones that Apple chooses. The iPad is said to be the perfect fusion of my smart phone and my laptop. Can I make calls? No. Can I play World of Warcraft? No. Case closed.

For a company like Apple they are just fighting with themselves. They invented the wheel a thousand times over and are expected to do so over and over again. They cannot expect that these middle ground attempts, especially in this economy, will gain consumer confidence. They are trying to compete with several different mediums and coming up short at every turn. They want to sell us things that we already have and already work better. Even the Apple fans are scratching their heads because why would they buy a giant iPhone that doesn’t make calls? Why would they buy technology they already have? But that is the same question for those of us with laptops, smart phones and eReaders. Apple may have thought they were reinventing the wheel, but they seem to have merely designed a larger wheel and called it a horse.