Why I Hate My iPad

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutes

I bought an iPad in September.

I was not really excited. There is no question that Apple products are sleek and good-looking.  Beautiful even.

For some of us though, functionality is a bigger part of the user experience than how it looks, or how good I look when I’m using it in a public space. I’ve been in computer science for nearly 35 years. I feel no need to impress people with my tech savvy.

I bought this iPad because I do work in education and new media and I need to be able to see what people are making, doing, and talking about. Many apps for the ipad are available ONLY on the ipad. So I bought one.

It has a nice screen. The touch interface works well – most of the time (though it is certainly not as responsive or reliable as iPad junkies would have you believe).

There are some fun games available.

It’s pretty good – most of the time – for reading mail. It’s very slow and often requires you to re-start the app in order to move things along.

It’s mediocre at surfing the web – again: it’s slow, frequently hangs, and of course, there’s the whole “can’t do anything that requires flash of Java” thing (see later, under why I hate my iPad).

The sound is OK.

It’s fairly light; easy to carry around and the batteries last a pretty long time.

 

That’s about where my accolades end.

The list of reasons I hate my iPad is long and grows almost daily.

Why I Hate my iPad

Here are the first ten that pop into my head:

  1. You can’t initialize your iPad unless you have a computer.
  2. AND an iTunes account.
  3. My ability to personalize the device (it is MINE, right?) is extremely limited.
  4. Many of the apps can’t be personalized (what if don’t LIKE brown for my calendar)?
  5. It does not support flash.
  6. It does not support Java.
  7. It has no USB ports.
  8. Memory is limited.
  9. It can only do one thing at a time.
  10. There is no BACK button.
  11. There is only one way to do most things.
  12. You can’t put anything on it, except through iTunes.
  13. You can’t take anything off, except through iTunes.
  14. There are many things you can’t readily save elsewhere AT ALL.

Oh, yeah, and the camera SUCKS. (My DS takes better pictures.)

It also doesn’t record image information in the same way as other devices, like, my DS, my phone, and EVERY digital camera I have ever owned.

There are many more but these are the ones that popped into my head in the first 30 seconds. I’ll add more as they occur to me…..

Stay tuned.

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Comments

Why I Hate My iPad — 15 Comments

  1. I hate my IPAD. Having to always log in all time to my apps and doesn’t allow me to at times. The process to do so can be arduous to say the least. Voice over is so sub-par when using voice command. Never gets the spelling right and having to correct constantly what I said. It hears what it wants to. It’s not at all cracked up to be other than the label. Android is by far the best.

  2. I hate the fact that games eat up data on the IPad and it causes the IPad Apps to crash!
    The Hard Drive is not big enough to hold data and the processor is slower than The PC!
    Why did I have to buy you Apple, rather than use Bluestacks on The PC?
    You were supposed to be used for notes, and research, rather than heavy gaming!

  3. I’ll never buy another apple product after owning my iPad mini. The retina screen is about the only thing I don’t hate about it. It’s pretty much a useless toy. Why in the world did I spend so much money for something that does so little? You can’t even do something as simple as adding music without the mega hassle of iTunes. I hate this thing!

  4. Pingback: Wholesale Adoption of iPads by Schools a Mistake | Educational Technology and Change Journal | The Becker Blog

  5. Oh I hate this IPad. Was a gift from my business partner. Really preferred Android. I have Droid phone. love it!!! Lots of free or inexpensive apps. I can print easily with cheap app. Can organize files and photos easily. Can edit office files sufficiently. Can customize most stuff. Can sync perfectly with all my Google calendars, yahoo contacts, etc.
    Apple is a tyrant that treats consumers as small minded idiots. Biggest scam of a product. Shameful how expensive the apps are and how poorly the app store works. The damn thing refuses to make something simple like printing work without buying a new printer. Isnt that what “Bluetooth” was for? Did Apple try their darndist to keep us from printing?
    Please get the word out to reject these useless hyped up pieces of trash.
    Bought the kindle for my little one. Much better product.

  6. Machead from day one, the first Mac, but when the iPod touch came out with iOS I saw the start of the end. I’ve given all of the latest Apple products a fair shake, including the iPad, I just said no. My sentiments are exactly the same and include a few more, the fact that Apple removed all MacBooks, a essential no-nonsense/glam educational line for these crap-pads, removing all the hardware features and then having the nerve to sell them back as accessories. The bean counters must have had a celebration as it only costs under $200 to make a iPad. $500-$1000 (retail for a iPad) buys a dam good regular computer with all the attributes, ports, memory, storage, real keyboard, monitor stand, flash, java etc. etc. Plus I can get under the hood and tweak things, no separate computer required. Also Apple intentionally keeps you wishing for more, a better screen, more storage, more performance so you will want to turn over that iPad every couple of years. Now Apple is applying the same game to their Mac OS X on Mac’s, yep, the MacAppStore and drastic changes in OS X Lion 10.7 all point to iOS taking over Mac computers as well. Apple isn’t even releasing security updates for a 4 year old 10.5 operating system, even Microsoft still supports 10 year old XP and 5 year old Visa! With spyware on iOS installed by Apple, caught red handed, now they aim to lock down and hide it in OS X as well, in the EFI firmware! The only way to reinstall the OS X is by a strong Internet connection and a AppleID. Sometimes the EFI doesn’t have a registration of the user, then you’ll have to “talk” to Apple and release personal information to reinstall the operating system. Not only that Solid State Storage devices CANNOT be thoroughly erased, everything on them is available for anyone to recover, unlike hard drives which can be erased 7x or more plus overwrite to remove sensitive data. Notice in most Apple devices the storage cannot be removed? One has to provide the Filevault password to Apple folks for them to work on your machine. All your activity on their devices are recorded, just like CarrierIQ is recording all your activity on cell phones, the carriers are tracking the GPS location of all cell phones 8 times a hour. TOMTOM’s and other GPS devices are also snitching your vehicle speed and saved data, OnStar also busted for tracking people even when not sub-scribed. There are more “cookies” from Evercookies, to Flash and Silverlight, to HMTL to regular browser cookies, to web bugs and even Facebook is tracking you even if your not logged in. History and other sniffing by websites means you need to turn Javascript and other scripts off by default using NoScript, only on Firefox and not on iPads. Why is this relevant? Because Apple is closing their computers like the iPad, so one won’t be able to custom tailor the security and privacy needs like one can on a OPEN computer. If Windows 8 is the same, then the only choice is Linux machine, because Apple and Microsoft are both working for Big Brother..

    • Very Big Brother-ish. I am very non-techy. But I understand enough to be concerned. Thanks for the heads up. I totally will not be getting an ipad. When I replace my operating system in the future, I will go to an open computer as you suggest — just out of protest of these heavy-handed, invasive tactics of Apple. How can a very non-techy person learn a bit more about this. What is a good starting place?

  7. I use iPhone. But scared to think how life would be without android existence as a competitor to iOs/tunes world of proprietary revenue model.
    In few years don be surprised if government has to jump into to regulate apples business model.

  8. Those are some pretty shitty complaints on the whole. Did you do no research at all into what an iPad is and what it can do before purchasing one?

    • I actually did quite a lot a research – I did NOT buy it because I thought I could do useful work on it (I’m a programmer – I already know it’s not for that). I already knew it was a device designed and targeted at people who have subscribed to the Apple Way (I never have approved of how Apple treats its customers).

      My phone runs Android and my MP3 player is a Zen.

      I already own a laptop, a netbook, a different tablet, and several XOs.

      I bought it because I am an expert in technology, education, and digital games.
      If you are going to assess something, you had better have some experience with it.
      If you are going to critique something then you REALLY better know something about it. Otherwise you are merely repeating what Harlan Allison calls ‘idiot hearsay’.

      I was however expecting it to be good at those things that people (and the ads) rave about. It’s not.

      • Yeah, I knew from the get go that I would not want something like an because it is meant for only CONSUMING (apple products). I use my netbook way too often to create things to replace it with a tablet. But I can see why you would get one- gotta stay on top of these things in your field.
        But you know what you just reminded me of? All these years later and I am still interested in XO laptops. I like the idea of instead of going faster with better graphics, take some out dated specs but make them super cheap and super durable- even things like the new PS Vita float my techy boat more than tablets.

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