iKaput!

It was the shortest love affair of my life! And all it did was leave me iSad, iAnnoyed and iDisappointed! With countless occasions of hair pulling, yelling and cursing! And all this within 24 hrs of the purchase of my brand new, state of the art, 64GB, wi-fi and 3G enabled iPad! There is a moral here that Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink would love to write another book about; which is that if you take 2 months to deign to accept a free gift, you might as well not accept it in the first place! 

Okay here I must admit, I am not one of those who embrace technology with open arms! And being a hardcore Taurean, I don’t take to change too well either. So when out of the blue, Vj offered to buy me an iPad as a gift, I didn’t jump up with joy! Instead I first asked for an iPhone or a Macbook Pro. When both were shot down as options, I hemmed and hawed for a whole 2months before agreeing to have one!

A part of me said that the iPad was not the answer to my needs – which are mainly editing photos from my DSLR and watching online TV or playing online games. And the fact that it didn't have an USB port was a big deterrent. I mean why do all the syncing when you can transfer with one simple click? But then there was another nagging little part that kept saying “Oh you’ve got to be kidding! Who their right mind says No to a free gift??? Only an abject moron or a saint would. And me being neither, decided to take the plunge and get myself one.

Then an entire evening was spent in anticipation, downloading Apps and adding my photos, videos and music to it. Things moved smoothly for the first couple of hours till we reached night time. Now every night, I have this ritual of staying up and watching an episode or two of my favourite TV dramas online till the Vs wake up for a round of milk. And suddenly that’s when the honeymoon turned sour when I discovered that none of my favourite sites were opening on the iPad. 

The next morning was then spent trying to figure out what went wrong! The help desk wasn’t much help and the 2 other people at home are about as tech savvy as me; and that is not a compliment! Finally a call to the US to a more tech aware friend happened, only to be left with a broken heart! Apparently the iPad doesn’t support anything with Flash – which means most of the free online TV I watch and the free online games I play, take a hike out of the nearest window! And then came the last nail in the iCoffin - it didn't even support the one thing I have been addicted to for the past 2 years - tending to my virtual farm on Farmville!!! So what was I effectively left with? A very expensive but useless toy to surf the net with, stare at some pictures and listen to some music with! 

So, after some screaming & yelling, am doing the next best thing – giving it away to the man who kept insisting for 2 whole months that he wanted to gift me an iPad! Let the more tech experimentative enjoy the specialised niches that modern technology offers while I go back to my broken & old but very reliable & efficient dinosaur of a Hp notebook which does all in one rundown little machine! 

My tech savvy 1 yr olds enjoying the iPad, while I stay happy with my old HP Notebook! 

And in the background, I can hear the sniggers of the more tech savvy mixed with the countless “I told you so” s of the few well meaning people who categorically told me the iPad was a waste of money!