Apple ipad purchase

We bought an ipad this month. It is a very cool device and reinforces my desire to switch over to Mac. It is really a media consumption device and not a computer. You can browse, read books (but too heavy to be a good ereader), read mail, calendar, write simple docs, notes, mails, etc., listen to music, watch netflix and youtube, tweet or blog, use all the cool apps, play games, etc.

And you get to do all these in a very enjoyable and interactive way. That is what i like about ipad. You can do almost all of these on a PC but you will not enjoy doing any of these as much as doing them on ipad. Usability makes all the difference in using these devices.

For example, i felt that my PC became really usable only after i switched over to google chrome (firefox sucks and IE is horrible), itunes, latest version of thunderbird, picasa, etc.

What i dont like about ipad? The screen just has too much glare. The device is a bit too heavy. The screen gets too smudgy after a few minutes. You cannot search within the page in safari web browser.

Another major gripe, you cannot watch any flash content. I think Steve Jobs just picked a religious war and not a technology fight. His reasons for rejecting flash are not very convincing. However, i do agree about the poor quality of the current Adobe plugins. My chrome browser and firefox crashes too often in shockwave plugins.

Apple ipod and ipad are surely "walled gardens". But im not complaining too much because I think the "walled gardens" like the one that Apple built are pretty convenient, pleasant (not many virus infections or mcafee caused slowdowns to prevent them) and makes me very productive. If i want the freedom and anarchy of an open environment, i will go to my PC and Linux machines, but i am happy that i have a choice of going into beautiful but restricted "walled gardens" like what Apple provides.