My iPad woes

I have been an ardent fan of Microsoft for a long time. Don’t think for a second that I am writing this because I have switched sides or about to. I will continue my fandom to Microsoft despite some of their blunders during the past decade. They have made life easy for a lot of users and developers alike in the 90s, like me, with their innovative and often ridiculed UI rich operating system, applications and tools. I still happen to think that the tools provided by MS make life easy for the developers to build some of the slickest of applications with minimal effort. I know that is debatable but that is my opinion and I am sticking with it.

One of the biggest mistakes, I think, they committed in the last few years is not cashing in on their early entry into the mobile computing. While there are still a lot of handheld devices used across the world for business purposes, from a consumer stand point they missed the bus. Despite that I have been waiting for a long time to find a decent windows based gadget like the iPad, but in vain. So I eventually took the plunge and bought one iPad 2.0, despite having 2 laptops at home.

The primary reason I bought iPad was for it to be my reading and learning gadget. May be that’s two reasons :-). Basically for news, videos, virtual learning so on and so forth. While I knew that Apple has taken a stand not to run flash on their gadgets, I didn’t realize that it would be that big a deal. Fast forward a few months, now I can’t really view any websites that are done in flash. Not only that but I can’t run through some virtual learning classes that some of our vendors have made available for us to enhance our knowledge. This is becoming more and more of an annoying problem as I originally imagined I could lay down on my bed and go through these videos. Now, 50% of my primary purpose(s) is defeated.

If you think about it for a second, it appears really ridiculous how a vendor like Apple can take such a stand. Even more ridiculous is how they can get away with it. While they may have their reasons for it, the decision is hurting two parties the most. One, people like me who would love to use flash content. Two, Adobe. It not only prevents them from expanding their footprint but also brands their product lousy.

So now, I think iPad sucks, with out flash content. But for that, it is still an amazing gadget. While I would love to use it more often, this one big challenge is limiting me from enjoying it to the fullest. I am not sure if this is gonna ever be solved. So, I guess I have to live with it, just like many other decisions I might have made along the way.

Sony Reader – Is this the Amazon Kindle Killer?

You might know the gadget “Kindle” offered by Amazon. They have been trying really hard to push this and make it a popular “I want That” gadget. Soney has it’s own Kindle named Sony Reader.Google is offering 500,000 eBooks, Google eBooks, for free to read on Sony Reader. Now that’s what we can call Kindle Killer.  These eBooks are also downloadable to desktop by downloading the eBook Library Software. But, the question remains as to how many of these books are popular titles that people would want to read. You will have to find that out for yourself. 

Happy reading book worms!!!