iPad 2, eh?

...oh dang, I really need three!

I know, I know, I'm a grumpy old man for disliking Apple products. But seriously. Check this crap out.
I know it's filled with all the latest doodads, but aside from the cheapest iPad 2 going for over $150 more than the parts it is made from (which is fine, it's how profits are made,) they have the nerve to let those who actually intend to use it for their music pay an extra $200 for the additional 48GB of flash memory storage.

Despite this not being the most expensive component by a long shot.

Of course, what counts is that it is a MEASURABLE component. To the consumer. And one that does not inflict on the capabilities of device. You could live without, but it is blatantly obvious why you wouldn't want to. It is a bit like the Starter version of Windows 7 not allowing you to change the desktop image.
Why would Microsoft do this? Certainly not becaues it is a difficult or expensive feature to include. Rather, its absense is highly noticable to the casual user. They might get bothered into upgrading just because of that.

Yuppies, snobs, and also a lot of people I don't need to insult will pay for the big iPad 2. Because, let's be real, they NEED it. Right? And they can afford it, so why shouldn't they?
I realize it is excellent marketing. But it is also EXACTELY the kind of thing that makes me stroll in a big half-circle around Apple.

I don't want my electronics treated the same way as food products in the supermarket, where the cheap stuff often comes out of the same machine as the expensive stuff, the difference being that you pay for a the flashy, familiar logo, on that practical, easy-to-reseal packaging.

You pay for convenience. Convenience, and one other thing;

Like many others today, Apple has the people consume vast amounts of largely unnecessary electronics, made from a long list of increasingly rarer minerals.
And people feel good about it, because either they feel smugly superior getting the best deal when buying the cheap versions, or they feel smugly superior in their wealth and productivity buying the expensive ones.


Smug superiority, of course, being the only thing in the world that sells better than sex.



UPDATE: Solid state memory is more expensive than I remembered! I found this. The thing you really (might get bothered into thinking you) need, is also the one you will pay the most for. Namely the 3G compatibility, the chips enabling which suffer from more than a 600% mark-up when put inside the iPad. Convenient!