On Friday, for the first time ever in my life I waited in line to buy something on launch day. Yes, I was one of the losers in line for the iPad 2. The iPad went on sale at 5 pm. I didn't get off work until 5:30, but I decided to stop by Best Buy on my way home. I went in and was surprised to see there weren't that many people there. I went back to the "Apple area"... just a few workers standing around, no iPad 2's in sight. I asked them if they had sold out and he said I had to go to the front of the store and check if they had any tickets left. I had totally missed this magic ticket man when I walked in before. I got up there and asked if they had any tickets left for the 16gb black wifi only. He had 2 tickets left. Whoh! I took one. As I turned toward the check-out only then did I notice the line that was snaking around the permitter of the store. It only went back as far as appliances, it wasn't even to car stereos yet, so I jumped in line. It actually went pretty quickly. The thing that took the longest was the Best Buy workers trying to sell all the add-on protection plans and over-priced invisible shields. The girl selling the shields actually said that you could scratch the screen with your fingernail if a shield isn't installed. Does Apple know they are telling people this? The guy selling the protection plan tried to get personal on me. He asked if I had any kids. He then proceeded to tell me an anecdote from his life. He had bought an iPad 1 last year and his 3 year old daughter put the corner in her mouth. The entire thing was ruined! Water damaged beyond repair! Did I want to suffer the same fate?
I skipped all the add-ons except for the Apple smart cover. I mean, you have to get one of those right? So far the iPad 2 is pretty awesome. It is incredibly thin. It feels strange to hold such a heavy thin piece of glass, but it feels awesome too. The hardware is nice, but I am really excited about what they are going to do with the software. There are already some really sweet apps for it. Flipboard will change how I read the news. It is great. I am confident that over the next several months there will tons of new apps coming out from the iPad. The interface allows for a lot of cool things to be created that wouldn't be possible on the smaller iPhone.
Of course, right at first I had buyers remorse. I never get anything on the day it comes out. That is so out of my nature. I was ready to take it back. Now I have accepted the fact that I am one of the Apple sheep and I will forever follow Steve Jobs blindly. I think I will get a ton of use out of the iPad. It is definitely an unnecessary device, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome. I didn't own a laptop, so it will be a pseudo replacement for that. In fact I am typing this blog post on my iPad using the Apple bluetooth keyboard. It works extremely well.
I had an exciting Friday evening. When I got home from Best Buy my sister-in-law and her husband had already arrived. They are visiting for a few days from Indiana. Unfortunately yesterday morning I woke up feeling pretty horrible. I guess that is what I get for wasting my money on unnecessary luxury products. The weather was amazing yesterday so we went out and hit golf balls and got some sunshine. I felt better in the afternoon, but by night time I was whipped. I slept good last night despite losing that hour of sleep, but this morning I woke up feeling worse. I'm gonna start stacking meds and see if I can't knock this out. In the mean time I will be relaxing in the recliner with my iPad.
