I’ve been guilty of the moniker “tech fanboy” for most of my adult life and a greater part of my childhood. In the last decade I could even have proudly worn the title of “Mac fanboy”. However, there comes a time when, in spite of my own desire for technology, I have to draw a line.

Not my pad!

The iPad is a truly remarkable device – thank you to Paul Watson for letting me have a quick experience of his – I could see it replacing about 90% of my home online requirements and bizarrely, I could see it encouraging me to read more books (don’t ask). It would consume less power than my iMac, I could wander freely with it on WiFi, it’s form factor is amazing. So why doesn’t my phone have a text message with a code similar to W83xxxxxx giving me a warm fuzzy feeling? By all accounts I should be considerably out of pocket yet strutting about like a turkey on December 26th.

The reasons are many:

1. It costs a whopping €499 for the basic model with WiFi only and a miserly 16GB of storage.
2. An update to the 64GB model would cost me €699 and if I wanted 3G on top of that it would be €799.
3. For the love of <insert your deity here> can somebody explain why it doesn’t have a USB port or SD card slot?
4. Mobile data is still backward. I already have home broadband and a data plan for my smart phone, I don’t want yet another contract for data on the move. It’s not Apple’s fault that this is the case but we need operators to start issuing SIM-1 SIM-2, SIM-x cards under the one download limit plan rather than 2/3 contracts for different SIMs before this becomes a feasible option in my book.
5. Apple are just getting tighter than a duck’s arse under water by not shipping this premium product with a dock and that annoys me. Apple always cost that little bit more but you could always appreciate where the extra money went, that seems to be slipping now.
6. The website quotes operating temperatures of 0ºC to 35ºC and non-operating temperatures of -20ºC to 45ºC. So, when exactly does it work? Okay that’s just a semantic issue with the blurb but it annoys me – Apple isn’t supposed to annoy me, it’s supposed to be perfect and enrich my life, giving me a toothy smile.
7. It’ll cost me 2¢ should I wish Apple to ship me a free micro-SIM from an operator of my choice. WTF?
8. The Steve will invariably announce a brand new one in 3/4 months with built-in camera (and everything else that’s on the iPhone 4) at a slightly increased price and a wave of depression would sweep over me if I had an original device.
9. I’ll show you 9!!
10. Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh!

So, there you have it. The iPad; I lust for its pleasing design and function but there are just too many things about it that cause me inner turmoil and anger. I’ve never had an Apple product do that before – even the iPhone, if I’m honest, reserves a certain space in my techie heart despite the fact that I will never buy one. The way I feel about the iPad right now, I couldn’t even accept one as a gift because there are too many fundamental things wrong to ignore by allowing the exchange a very large quantity of hard earned cash for penny pinching production and an unsuitable market environment.

Perhaps if the price point dropped to a sensible €349 and operators got their game together and offered a multi-SIM plan with one limit but several devices then, maybe then, I could see myself dropping some more cash in Apple’s direction.

Today I turned a day older; I’ve decided to celebrate each day of life from now on rather than waiting 365 days in between birthday celebrations but yes, they do happen to be one of the same on this occasion.

Anyhow, Siân is always surprising me with some thoughtful present that I don’t know how she manages to figure out but always gets it bang on. Today upon returning home for lunch was certainly the biggest surprise of all. I had no idea what to expect but I was knocked for six – a brand new iMac 24″ with a copy of Final Cut Express to indulge my movie editing hobby. While words have preceded this point in the text I can assure you that I was and still am, mostly speechless.

Thanks honey, it’s absolutely fabulous! I’ll have to put my thinking hat on now for her birthday in December – I might just have to tie a bow around the car and handover the keys.