God Awful Things

Nerds and dweebs around the world sat with baited breath in a way they hadn’t since Xmas in the 80’s.  Back then hoping upon hope that santa brought them Castle Greyskull or Snake Mountain, only now hoping Santa Jobs would bring them a tablet from on high.

Not an iPad

I too was looking forward to this (unfortunately I can’t find the picture of myself holding a cat in one hand with Castle Greyskull in the other).. my mind had wondered what piece of magic would be displayed that I would promptly leave work and go stand in line for two months.  When the iPhone was announced I remember being slack jawed knowing “This changes everything!”, and after I got one I showed it yo my grandfather who said “I never dreamt I’d see anything like this in my lifetime..”

“Me either” I said.

So yes, this morning, they descended to San Francisco for what many had hoped would be life changing.  But there it was.. a 10″ iPod Touch.

© Reuters

“Sweet! Just this morning I was thinking about how badly I needed an iPhone that didn’t fit in my pocket!” – (paraphrased from a Slashdot comment).

My predicted stiffy was only a chubby, and half-cocked at that.  Sure, it’s a reasonable price for what it is… not really an impulse buy for me, but I do see potential.  My prediction is that the version 2 of this will be amazing.  But to make it to version 2, we’re going to need to see some amazing applications, the iBooks (seriously, enough with the “i” stuff) looks nice, I’ve longed for a way to read again without using books, and was just grossed out by the kindle.  But when they demonstrated the iPad (blech) version of iWorks, I did see potential.. there was a really nice interface and intuitive and clever way to interact with data.. but it just so happened to be in a fashion I have no interest with, but I can easily see developers coming up with some really amazing apps that will make me want this.

I give myself a year before buying one.. we shall see.