[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]if i saw my doctor useing an ipad i would get a different doctor, but same goes for any arm based tablet. i know a few people who use apple things in real life.they got an ipod, i got an archose (sp) mp4 player. and they wouldnt stfu about how much better apple wasi got a pc, they got a mac, and couldnt wait to try and convert me. apple people are f***ing religious about their support for their products, and over look glaring flaws~~[/citation]
You talk about apple users being religious, but then you say you would change doctors for even owning a tablet computer. Seeing the posts here from Apple haters (I've been there myself) is no better or worse Windows haters. Nobody put a gun to anyones head to buy $500~2000 toys. But yeah, as animals - we do have a monkey-see-monkey-do attitude.
I understand about the MP3 players. But looking at what is on the market... most MP3 players are crap. They don't even try to compete against Apple... and those that do, costs the about same. It was actually a bit of a pain to get my first MP3 player a month or so for the gym. I didn't want to spend $45 for the clip... which is quite a well made product.
I almost bought a $20 POS, but reviews from newegg from people saying they lasted a day or a week means I'll waste $20. I settled for a $30 SanDisk Clip... I wanted a display and it has a clip which I needed as well as tiny as the iPod Shuffle. Its not perfect, music sounds a tad slow. Otherwise I'm happy with it.
I have an iPad, I'm mostly happy with it... I don't like iTunes, but it does do many things well, some... ugh. But I understand what it does for most people, which is make using i-Devices easier to use. I use the iPad at home and for business, my son likes to play games on it - about as much as his Nintendo and desktop.
My Android Galaxy Phone... looks very nice, some bad design issues (some excellent ones as well) works... but both Android and Samsung does things makes me want an iPhone or WindowsPhone7 (the latter). The update software didn't/doesnt work... interface on many default Android apps are more difficult than they should be. Froyo made improvements and downgrades at the same time.
Your mother's issue with her new iPad is the fault of internet connection, the device itself - so why blame apple for that? Every month, computers are becoming internet ONLY... everything will need to be registered/activated. It was a good out of box experince with my iPad(1). I plugged it into my notebook, I had to DL the latest iTunes (ugh), which then upgraded the iOS on the iPad and within 5mins or so, the device was ready to use. Meanwhile, the crap software from Samsung to update my phone STILL doesn't work with Windows7 (many people have issues with this) but I got it to work on my son's OLD OLD XP notebook. Ugh.