Why I iPad

This year I bought an iPad. Some may say I'm a late convert to the iPad arena, and being a gadget geek they would probably right. I think though, that I had some pretty good reasons for not jumping on board when Gen 1 was released. When the iPad was announced as the long awaited next release buy Apple, my initial thoughts were that it was brilliant, and it was. The entire first year of seeing the revolutionary new iPad, I would've loved to own one, however it seemed a bit big, it didn't do flash and there wasn't a huge amount of apps that could utilise the larger screen real estate it delivered. So I gave it a miss. When iPad Gen 2 was released, I thought wow, this is getting closer to what I'm after, but not quite. I'd recently picked up an iPhone 4, which had the retina screen, which truly was a huge leap up in technology and usability from iPhone 3G. There had been rumours of a retina screen on the iPad 2, but I felt a bit let down when it wasn't delivered upon. I swore though, that as soon as an iPad was released with a retina screen, I'd grab it. This year "the new iPad" was released, with a retina screen. I preordered it that morning and had it delivered to my desk on the Australian release day. I haven't looked back. I wasn't iLife sure what to expect with the iPad. I certainly didn't expect that I would stop using my laptop....completely. I didn't expect that I would take my iPad everywhere. I didn't expect that I would use my iPad as my university device to take notes, access eStudent lecture information and access university virtual labs. I expected to start reading ebooks, but I didn't think it would exceed my expectations. I expected to play a few games, but I didn't expect to be blown away by how good the games were....and looked. I've been blown away by the convenience of the device. It's been a game changer for me. So here's my top 10 reasons why I love the iPad. 1. It's always on and always there 2. Apps. The reason I don't use Android. There's an app for everything 3. Ease of use 4. The retina screen is stunning, ESP when watching a hd clip on YouTube 5. I can store so much info in the cloud from different providers and access it from my iPad 6. Finally, it's a superb ebook reader 7. Websites display as websites, not some crappy WAP style garbage like on Android 8. It's quick, especially on dual carrier hsdpa on Telstra's 3G network. 9. Battery life is great 10. It's an iPad!

Where's The New Stuff?

Is it just me, or has technology been a little bereft of excitement of late?

2012 has given us the release of the new iPad, the HTC One X and....hmmm, ummm, well not much else!

Although we're a quarter of the way through our year I'm still yet to see a technology arrive that really excites me (the Lytro camera I posted about in my last blog was SOOOO 2011!)

So we've had 3D come to televisions, retina screens to tablets, more megapixels to our cameras....yes that means you Nikon D800 and your 36.3mp! Nothing though is really getting me excited.

What do I mean by excited? I remember walking into an Apple Store in Stamford, Connecticut some time in 2007, where I first saw the iPhone. I was stunned, shocked, excited all at once. I knew straight away that this was a game changer. My Nokia N95 and Blackberry Pearl dated by years in one swoop by Apple. I was amazed.

I want to feel that again. So who's it going to be? Apple, Sony, Samsung? Someone put your hand up and give me something revolutionary to play with. That doesn't mean another folding tablet Sony....geez!

So has anyone got any thoughts on whats going to be the next big thing? Feel free to share your thoughts!