Finances 101: Debit, Credit, and Financial Management

2
682 days
by in Finance

Here’s a question you might not have considered: “Do you use or even carry a debit card?”

If the answer is “yes”, then by all means keep reading. (Of course, keep reading anyway, even if you answered “no.” You just might discover some valuable information!)

Most Americans used to carry checkbooks everywhere they went. It was the primary “currency” for large purchases like groceries, computers, TVs, appliances, furniture, and so on. Most likely, you or your parents wrote checks “back in the day” for just about everything over $25. That was just the way of life–how else could you make a large purchase?! Then came the advent of plastic cards–first credit cards, then debit or check cards–both basically intending to replace the paper checkbook of old. Credit was “awesome” because you could spend someone else’s money at first, and then pay it off later. Debit cards were cool as well because you could “write a check” without ever pulling out a pen. They were both super convenient forms of payment, but what you probably don’t realize is that debit cards are incredibly insecure and there are plenty of reasons why you should never, ever carry one, much less use it. Here’s why…

Debit Cards: The Plastic Check

Identity theft is a big deal these days. Crooks are everywhere, both online and offline, always at the ready to pick your virtual or real pockets. This is precisely the reason you don’t (or shouldn’t) carry around detailed personal identification documents beyond the essentials like your drivers license. You never want to carry a social security card or passport unless absolutely necessary. In fact, carrying a checkbook isn’t good since it generally contains your address, phone number, drivers license number, and bank account information. The risk of theft of these items is extremely great, especially in crowded areas.

The same goes for your debit card. It’s linked directly to your bank account. What’s that mean? Basically, if I swipe your debit card, I can use it wherever I please and it’ll just start pulling funds straight out of your bank account. I could drain it dry in a matter of minutes.

Think I need your PIN?

Think again.

Pull out your debit card and examine the front of it. See a VISA or MasterCard logo? If so, I can walk up to any cashier, swipe the card and choose “credit.” The money still comes out of your account, my purchase goes through, and I walk off with that shiny new 52″ HDTV without dropping a penny of my own cash. Meanwhile, you’re about to spend the next three months attempting to convince your bank that you didn’t really buy a new TV. Who wins? Well, it certainly isn’t you…

Consider another issue: Overdraft Protection.

Overdraft Protection is a nifty little feature on most bank accounts that allows you to automatically pull money from your Savings into your Checking account in the event that you attempt to draw too much money from Checking. So, in the scenario above, if I decide to buy 20 HDTVs with your card, I essentially have access to every penny in your Savings account in addition to whatever is sitting in your Checking. Big Oops.

Can you recover from something like this? Absolutely! But why go through all that headache when you can use the simple (and much safer) alternative: Credit Cards.

Credit Cards: The Smart Choice

I’ve had this particular debate with various people over the past few years. They insist that using their debit card is the best idea since it’s spending real money out of a real account. The money comes out of their account at the time of purchase, so it helps them stick to their budget. Maybe you’re even one of those people who would make such an argument. It’s not a bad idea–in theory. Studies have generally shown that people spending cash tend to better “realize” what they’re doing. Hand the cashier your $100 bill for a $50 purchase and it’s pretty clear you just spent half your money. People tell me this is how they think of spending money with a debit card. But why must this be limited to debit cards? I propose that this is more a question of self control and good budgeting practice than it is anything else. We’ll come back to this in a second.

Credit Cards are much better on the whole because they generally offer $0 liability protection. Essentially, if someone steals your card or makes an unauthorized purchase on your account, you’re liable for nothing. Period. Not only that, you’ve spent no money because that purchase came straight out of the credit card company’s coffers–not yours. You never have to be reimbursed because you didn’t pay out any money. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty sweet deal.

But let’s not forget the argument about people not liking credit cards because, unlike checks or debit cards, it’s not “real money” or doesn’t deduct from their account in “real time” I don’t see this as a problem. First, each transaction is logged just like a debit transaction. At the end of the month, you get a statement showing the total accrued purchases for that billing period. Second, if you have a spending problem, it probably has more to do with a lack of setting up (and sticking to) a budget. You’ve got to live within your means regardless of the payment methods you use. Third, if you use good banking software, it will show the credit card purchases and deduct those amounts from your bottom line financial position. This is a great deterrent to overspending since you see the effects of your most recent purchases within 24 hours of making them. In fact, I think using this type of software is key to true financial success.

Spending Under Control

I have two absolute favorites when it comes to managing my own finances. One product I’ve used for years is Intuit’s Quicken financial software. It comes in several versions for both Windows and Mac OS and will set you back anywhere from $30 to $100 depending on the complexity of your financial portfolio. It’ll download all of your transactions from most major banks (and even quite a few smaller institutions), help you manage investments, get ready for tax season, and even assist in planning to sending your kids to college! It’s truly powerful software and will greatly increase your financial control. Budgeting, reporting, retirement planning, and online bill pay are just a few more of it’s many features.

The other software I find myself using again and again is actually completely free, accessible from anywhere, and requires you to download absolutely nothing. Mint.com (now another of Intuit’s products) is a completely online-based package that easily manages all your financial basics. Start off by connecting your bank accounts, investments, credit cards, and more. Next, you can set up simple (or even more complex) budgets that will help you track and maintain spending by month and year. You can compare months against prior years, the national averages, or other consumers in your income bracket. I’ve been testing the software for about 6 months by forgoing my traditional Quicken package and using Mint exclusively. It’s been a great experience so far, but eventually I feel like I’ll need to drop back into Quicken as my finances become more complex. I sincerely hope Intuit will marry and mesh the two packages together in order to provide a seamless experience across both. Grabbing the basics on the go is important.

Final Remarks

That’s a wrap! Dump the debit, grab the credit, and make sure you carefully track every penny you earn. You’ll be much more likely to notice suspicious activity that way. Required reading for finance novices are Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and The World’s Easiest Guide to Finances by Larry Burkett. Even for those who feel like they have a grasp on their financial position, these two resources are great for tips and reminders on how to live a debt-free and Christ-honoring financial life.

Best of luck!

Google Buzz, Privacy, and Copyrights

0
711 days
by in Social Networks

There’s quite a bit of controversy going around on the Internet these days regarding Google’s newly launched social “conversation” and aggregator dubbed “Buzz.” The biggest issue I see people raise is that of privacy, especially when Google was auto-following people within an individual’s contact list. But there’s also been some concern over copyright and the inherent re-posting of content and information from the likes of Twitter, blogs, and other social venues. But what I don’t understand is why so many people are making such a big deal about this.

First, Google doesn’t know about anything you haven’t told it. When the service activated, it automatically picked up this blog, my twitter feed, and my Picasa photo account. But Google hadn’t scoured the web beforehand looking for sites and services that I might be linked to. Instead, it just auto-pulled everything that I’d personally added to my Google Profile. A profile that, I might add, is viewable by anyone anywhere. Even if you have the profile privacy settings turned on, the people in your contact list will still be able to access it. Therefore, if those people wanted to look through your stuff, they could.

Second, Google Buzz’s aggregation of content isn’t breaking copyright laws any more than Google Search does (which, it doesn’t). It’s already been legally proven that search engines may scour the web and catalog the content they find. This includes web pages, images, videos, contact information, and more. The fact that Google already includes “real-time” content from the likes of Twitter in it’s search results goes to show that Google’s social revolution was in place long before Buzz launched.

But even beyond that, I still fail to understand why some people are so concerned about their “stuff” being posted through Buzz. Content including text, pictures, videos, and so on can be posted including excerpts to content and thumbnails of photos and videos. Is this a big deal? Absolutely not! If you’ve posted something on the web, I have every right to point someone to it via a link. That’s how the web works! In Google’s case, that would include thumbnails that point at photos. If Google was actually republishing the full-size image via their own servers, then that would be a problem. But since Buzz doesn’t do this, you can’t call it copyright infringement. Also, consider traditional plagiarism rules–you may quote someone as long as it’s properly documented. Happens all the time in the academic and journalistic worlds. So what if you want to quote a picture or a video? The logical method of doing so would be to post some form of thumbnail that links back to the original source. This seems like the natural evolution of content.

Take this a step further and look at Facebook. If I post a link that points to an article on CNN, Facebook automatically scrapes the page for a description of it’s content in addition to capturing a screenshot of the linked page. They didn’t ask permission beforehand; they don’t own the content; I certainly don’t own the content even though I posted it; so does CNN have the right to contact Facebook and demand that the screenshot be removed? Maybe. But even assuming that they have every right to do so, they absolutely definitely could not sue Facebook for copyright infringement. The DMCA protects Facebook from prosecution in cases like this. Just like it protects ISPs who’s network has been used to pirate music or movies by a 3rd party. Just like it protects me from legal action if I were to show a clip from this year’s Superbowl in an academic setting. The DMCA is a big deal.

Jumping back to Google Buzz, the questions must be asked: a) is Google legally allowed to publish content from a user, and b) if that content is published, does the DMCA protect Google from prosecution of Title 17–the Copyright Act. I’m certainly not a lawyer and I don’t make any claims to knowing the ins and outs of the legal system, but due to my expertise in the professional computing world, I run into issues with copyrights and DMCA all the time. Fair use is a big deal and figuring out exactly what’s okay and what’s not can be difficult. Consulting a lawyer is almost a must these days as seemingly innocent people get sued for innocuous things. Hopefully most people don’t have to worry about that when it comes to posting things to Buzz.

So, I guess some of this is a matter of opinion, but if you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any number of other social networks, chances are you’ve already discarded much more privacy than Buzz could ever dream of taking from you. My advice is to embrace the social revolution and realize that even things you aren’t posting online about yourself might still be readily available. Just Google your name and see what comes up. You’ll almost certainly be surprised.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering–yes, this blog is published via RSS and yes, it will show up in my Buzz feed. In fact, maybe you’re reading it there right now!

Android vs. iPhone

0
713 days
by in Microsoft, smartphones

I just got my first Android-powered smartphone last week and have been transitioning my life away from my Palm Centro and iPod Touch–the two devices that kept track of my music, calendar, contacts, email, and so on. Yes, the Centro can do most of those things by itself, but I didn’t have a data plan at the time and could never get it to sync properly with Windows 64-bit. It didn’t have Wifi either, so I needed the iPod in order to get email, web, and more on the go. Annoying to carry multiple devices, but so worth it–especially on trips.

iPhone OS is good. It provides a smooth and intuitive interface, things are easy to use, generally easy to find, and it’s a powerful platform with some excellent multimedia capabilities built in. It really was almost an iPhone–just without the phone and on-the-go data portions, so it’s a pretty accurate comparison. I’ve now explored both types of devices in depth and here’s what I’ve found.

Hardware

This comparison is more about software than hardware, but I just wanted to take a minute to examine the iPhone hardware vs. my Droid Eris.

As far as specs go, the iPhone hasn’t changed a whole lot over it’s three iterations so far. Sure, there have been some additions like a faster CPU, more ram, better sensors, and a radio allowing for faster data transmission (although AT&T’s network doesn’t yet support the new HSDPA+ 7.2 standard). We have yet to see what the next iteration holds, but the differences probably won’t be earth shattering.

My Eris’s screen is a tad smaller than the iPhone’s, but it is far sharper and more vibrant. There’s almost no comparison–even at it’s highest brightness setting, the iPhone just can’t match the beauty of the Droid’s screen. Match it up against the Motorola Droid or the Nexus One, and there really is no comparison. The Android phones blow the iPhone away in resolution and clarity. The Eris has a 528mhz processor and some say it’s a little sluggish. I’ve noticed a slight delay from time to time, but it’s not bad and the Android 2.1 update coming in the next few days may resolve that completely. The Eris has more RAM than the iPhone.

The iPhone has one main button. I know Steve Jobs likes simplicity, but seriously? Sure, the one button does what it needs to do, but I really feel like navigation on the device could be more intuitive with dedicated call buttons or a quick way to jump to MMS or the Phone function itself. I like my Android-device because it has a dedicated “back” button that sends you back to the last place you were. So even if I jump from one app to another, I can immediately go back to the previous app. Pretty slick.

As far as battery life goes, it differs from device to device. Google’s Nexus One has some of the most amazing battery life I’ve seen to date. Comparing my Eris to the iPhone, Apple’s device edges it out just slightly according to specs from their website. The Eris can go 8-10 hours with the standard battery and light-moderate usage.

All in all, I can’t say one device is better than the other. They both work well and provide good feature-sets.

The OS

According to some, the iPhone OS is the gold-standard by which all other phone and OS makers must match, but I tend to disagree. The iPhone OS is one way of interacting, but there are other good ways of using the feature-set of an OS. On a side note, it’ll be interesting to see how Windows Phone 7 stands up against everyone else with it’s completely different interaction philosophy and UI design.

App Navigation

So the iPhone OS looks good and is easy to use, but I see serious oversights by the designers and architects of the system. First, navigating from one app to another is cumbersome. Let’s say I’m reading through a meeting request I just received via email. I’m not sure if I’m free, so I hit home, find the Calendar app, open it, check my schedule, and then hit home again, find Mail, and re-open it. That’s a lot of steps.

With Android, if I’ve recently had my calendar open, I can just switch to it and immediately switch back with maybe two taps. Even if I had to go locate my calendar in the apps menu, it’s incredibly easy to flip back to my email since I just came from there. Perfect example? No, but there have been plenty of times using the iPhone where it’s just driven me nuts how ridiculous it is to have to hit the home screen every time I need to switch apps.

Winner: Android

Notifications

That’s a good workflow example, but here’s another one. On the iPhone, the only way you can tell if you have new emails is if you locate the Mail app and check to see if the “new items” indicator is attached to the icon. If you were reading a book, surfing the web, or updating Facebook, you’d never know unless you exit the app and manually check. The only way to bypass this requirement is to jailbreak your iPhone–something I’d recommend that every iPhone owner should do. It’s completely worth it.

Android makes this process so easy you don’t even have to think. The top section of the screen contains a status bar just like the iPhone, but this bar also updates it’s left-hand corner to show all kinds of notifications. Facebook updates, new emails, new text/pix messages, calendar appointments, and more are all possibilities that might show up. I can then expand the status bar to reveal additional details about the alerts, and if I deem one of them important enough to interrupt whatever I’m doing, I can tap it and open the corresponding app. If I don’t need to see it, I can clear it away just as easily. All without ever leaving the app I’m currently using. This is 2010 and Android knows it. It’s so easy.

Winner: Android

Apps

The iPhone has somewhere around 120,000+ apps these days. I doubt if more than 20,000 of those are actually used on a regular basis, but it’s clear that users have a great selection for the most part (except in those cases where Apple rejects perfectly legit apps–but that’s a separate issue). The Facebook app for iPhone is better and more evolved than it’s Android counterpart. Starbucks hasn’t even written an Android application yet. Most big-name banks have made iPhone apps, but not necessarily ones for Android. The iPhone comes out ahead here from this perspective–although I haven’t yet found an app that I absolutely cannot live without. Most of the mainstream iPhone apps have Android siblings and they generally work equally well except in cases similar to the ones noted. Then again, the iPhone app store has been out at least 12 months longer than the Android Marketplace and with 25,000+ applications, Android is quickly catching up.

The place where I find myself once again loving the Android experience is found in one area: multitasking. The Android platform does this so seamlessly it’s almost funny how obvious this feature is to today’s advanced devices. Even Palm’s webOS does superb multitasking at little expense to battery life. I don’t get why Steve Jobs is so resistant to this feature, but it’s definitely something the iPhone needs in order to keep pace with today’s mobile devices. You’re lookin’ a little old and decrepit there, iPhone…

One app (available only on Android) that deserves specific mention is Cnet’s Scan & Shop. This little jewel allows you to scan any barcode using the phone’s camera and immediately find reviews and price comparisons for that particular product. Now, you can price out that elusive LED TV in BestBuy and find expert reviews in addition to better prices. Everyone needs this app.

Winner: Tie, Android edge. The iPhone having 100,000 apps is somewhat irrelevant if I can’t use more than one at a time, but Android needs some more major players.

Network

Do I even need to mention this area? Everyone knows the AT&T network seriously limits the iPhone OS’s abilities. Android has devices across multiple networks making the devices more portable when moving from one network to another (if you are unhappy with your current provider). The multiple-carrier philosophy and openness of Android devices also means that as they continue to grow in popularity, I’ll meet more and more Android users every day. This can only mean good things for Android users.

Winner: Android

Multimedia

I mentioned the fact that my Eris has a much better screen than any iPhone, but it’s multimedia capabilities also one-up the iPhone’s. In addition to playing music and movies in tons of different formats, Android can also play music from services like Pandora, Last.fm, and Lala in the background while I do other things. This is excellent news since I can read ebooks, surf the net, send and receive texts, and comparison shop all without stopping the endless stream of music over Verizon’s robust 3G network. I streamed Pandora all the way home the other day without a hitch.

Winner: Android

Sync, PIM, and Backup

I’m free of iTunes and that alone makes me want to shout for joy. Regardless of my feelings from that angle, Android has some great syncing features. First, it supports push Gmail and DirectPush MS Exchange technology. In addition, it syncs up your Google Calendar, contacts, links your Facebook contacts and profiles (if you so desire), and natively supports many other Google services. Depending on the manufacturer, the phone will also sync to a PC running Outlook.

The iPhone has Exchange support, but for the most part, the honeymoon stops there. Mail is pull-only, although if you’re patient and determined enough, you can partially get some Google services to push to your device. This mechanism is unreliable at best. I had no end to problems with it. Basically, if you have an iPhone, you’d better be prepared to use iTunes or you won’t be able to back up your device or update your device. Major caveat. MobileMe offers a lot of services similar to Google’s, but who seriously wants to pay $99/yr for that?! Google services are free and I’m more than happy to let Android push my data into the cloud.

Winner: Android

Conclusion

The clear winner here is Android–by a wide margin no less. Pretty good for having been released long after the iPhone’s initial offering. Analysts see Android-powered devices taking over the #1 positioned smartphone by 2012 and I fully expect this to be the case. I wouldn’t be surprised if it surpasses all other U.S. smartphone offerings well in advance of this projection. Just as Apple is a niche product in the PC market, so the iPhone is quickly following in it’s footsteps. This really reminds me of the “battle” of old between MacOS and Windows. Apple released MacOS well in advance of Windows, yet Windows still controls 98% of the worldwide PC market. We may not see the exact same plot unfold in the smartphone market, but things are shaping up in that direction already.

iPhone with the early lead…Android closing fast. Better watch it Apple or your face is going to be rubbed in the mud once again…

Can Windows Mobile Survive 2010?

0
724 days
by in Microsoft, smartphones

I’ve almost never been a fan of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform. I’ve rarely defended it, been quick to judge it, and in recent years have been largely unimpressed. Just like you, most likely. I’ve been a Palm user since the Palm Pilot Personal/Professional of 1998 and up until last night (when my Palm Centro suddenly went kaput), I’ve used Palm PDAs and Smartphones across the board. I’ve owned the Palm Pilot Professional, a couple different m505′s, a Tungsten T|5, and finally the Centro. They’ve all been–for the most part–fantastic devices and I’ve defended Palm as a company even through their years of non-innovation–always touting PalmOS 6 as the game changer we’re all waiting for.

Well, obviously PalmOS 6 never saw the light of day and has since been replaced by webOS, but that’s not what this article is about. There was a period in 2005/2006 where Microsoft really surged ahead with it’s Windows Mobile platform both in the PDA and Smartphone arenas. First with version 5, then 6, and then 6.1. They surpassed Palm in the PDA market by hitting over 50% and it was looking rather likely that Windows Mobile was the OS of the future. It really did look that way only 4-5 years ago and I remember thinking that perhaps it was time to give in and move to the Windows Mobile camp. Looking back, I’m glad I never did.

Back then, there was no iPhone, no Android, and RIM’s Blackberries were only beginning to gain traction in the corporate and enterprise markets. Most Smartphones ran either PalmOS or Windows–those were your choices. Symbian/Nokia were doing a lot of business overseas, but even today don’t hold much of a marketshare in the US. Nobody saw what smartphones would become. Nobody imagined that Microsoft would drop from almost 50% marketshare to a little under 20% in 2010. Nobody knew what direction things were headed or how quickly things would begin to change. Nobody.

At this point, I think we need to look at the iPhone and see it for what it really was–the reset button. I don’t feel like it “changed the game”–instead it really just threw out the current game and started over from scratch. A sort of “market reboot” if you will. Even though the most vocal of Apple’s fanbase had been begging them to create a smartphone for years, Apple just wouldn’t do it. Apparently, they just felt that the time wasn’t right–that is, until they finally launched the first iPhone iteration in 2007. That event really woke companies up to the fact that the Smartphone market had stagnated. It took other companies over a year to develop any sort of response to the iPhone, although the lack of application support really held things back at first. Without apps, the iPhone was really just another phone that also happened to have email and Internet support built-in to a nice touchscreen interface.

I look at this period in Windows Mobile’s history in the same light as most of us now see Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft had captured the marketshare majority and decided that they could just quit. Obviously, that never works. Someone will always be around to come back and take you out if you aren’t careful. Like Firefox did to IE, the iPhone did to the entire Smartphone market (excepting RIM). That’s not to say that it’s the best phone out there–it’s just to say that it helped restart the market and get things moving. Consequently, the market has sent Windows Mobile marketshare plunging because that particular OS still feels like it belongs in the early 2000′s. And for the most part, it probably does.

But the thing to remember is this: Android devices, Blackberries, and iPhones now dominate the US Smartphone market, but that really doesn’t mean a thing. (Well, not much of a thing, anyway.) Microsoft is gearing up to release Windows Mobile 7 and none of us really know what’s coming. We know bits and pieces, but until it’s officially unveiled, we won’t know what’s really happening. In the Microsoft arena, the number “7″ has a lot going for it at the moment. Windows 7 has been a huge success and when people think of Windows Mobile 7, they will associate it, consciously or not, with Windows 7. That could end up being a very powerful marketing technique if Microsoft plays things properly. Of course, the OS will have to stand on it’s own merits, but just as today’s most popular smartphones were once non-players, Microsoft could potentially take back a large percentage of it’s former marketshare.

I’ll be closely watching the announcements and press regarding Windows Mobile 7 over the next several months–if nothing else, just to see what’s coming down the line. I’ve just chosen an Android-powered phone to replace my dead Centro, but who knows what the market may look like 2 years from now when I’m ready to replace my phone once again. Competition is good, and we’ve certainly got plenty of it…

No, the iPad won't cook your breakfast!

1
726 days
by in Apple

There are people in this world who tend to get hostile whenever I talk about an Apple product in a negative way. They call it “Apple Bashing.” Apparently they haven’t yet realized that I’m entitled to my own opinion and to make that opinion public. In fact, they are entitled to the exact same thing. Wow, who’d have thought?? So let me say this before you close the tab and turn me off: if you’re willing to read an article about how great the iPad is will be or how it has changed will change the world, you should be willing to take 5 minutes of your ever-so-busy life to read the following. You never know what you might be missing…

Anyway, I keep reading tweets, comments, news articles, blogs, and the like talking about how Apple’s iPad will be a revolutionary device. How it will open dead people’s minds to the idea of computing and make your grandparents computer programming prodigies. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but you can’t argue the fact that every time you turn around, someone is explaining why the iPad will revolutionize, reincarnate, revitalize, or generally reinvent certain industries. And, unfortunately, I have to ask: are you kidding me?? I mean, seriously! Let’s think this through…

Statement #1: The iPad will revolutionize photography.
Okay, right. Now, how is this going to happen again? The iPad lacks a camera. The iPad lacks photo editing or manipulation software. The iPad lacks a file system. The iPad lacks a high-resolution screen. In fact, the only thing the iPad does that has any connection to pictures, is that it can display the ones you sync from iTunes. So, what that means my friends, is that in order to put pictures on your iPad, you have too import them into iTunes and then sync them to your device. (Oh, I suppose you could email them to yourself as well, but that’s just slow and convoluted.) So, you’re telling me that this “yet to be approved by the FCC” Apple device is going to revolutionize photography. Well, you let me know when that happens. I have a feeling we’ll all be waiting awhile…

Statement #2: The iPad will revolutionize ebooks.
Okay, seriously–hold it right there! All you people who keep saying this just need to stop! Take a deep breath and look at the ebook market. Who do you see? Yup, that’s right. Amazon. The so-called revolution of ebooks has already happened, and trust me–it wasn’t started by Amazon either. In fact, I’d say we can trace this at least to the era of PalmOS-based PDAs. Suddenly, 3rd party developers were able to build apps that could read brand-new ebook formats. I read many ebooks back in the day via that method. In fact, half the time, I’d just send .txt files to my Palm and then open them in a reader that supported plain-text formats. Worked fine.

The Palm era of ebooks really wasn’t something that the masses could appreciate. Most average consumers didn’t have PDAs and the few who did probably weren’t interested in reading books on them. So, that’s why I ultimately look to Amazon and it’s incredibly popular Kindle device as the true ebook revolutionaries. Do you not remember the day the Kindle was first released? I mean, at first, most people were asking “what in the world is that!?” which was then followed by everyone and their mother buying one. In fact, Amazon sold out of Kindles nearly immediately, they were so popular. To me, that says “wow.” It says “I’m a revolutionary.” And ultimately means that Apple, in this case, is just a copycat. Face it, people. The only thing the iPad brings to ebooks is multi-touch. And I honestly can’t remember the last time I had the slightest urge to multi-touch my ebook…

Statement #3: The iPad will revolutionize digital media.
Sigh! Please not this again. If all reports were to be believed, the digital media industry has been revolutionized about 3 billion times by now. Don’t believe me? Well consider these: VHS, DVD, flat-screen monitors, flat-panel TVs, Bluray, iPods, HD radio, and now…the iPad? Yeah, I really don’t think the iPad fits in that list. Yes, the iPod does because it really did kickstart digital music, even if iTunes has been nothing but a pain in the neck. The iPad is not going to be nearly as “revolutionary.” Not even a small chance. None. ZERO. That’s partially because it lacks an open ecosystem coupled with it’s lack of support for industry standard file formats already in use by every other media device on the planet.

I’m not saying the iPad is going to be terrible, although I certainly do have a strong opinion regarding its success. All I’m saying, is that Apple’s marketing slogan, reading “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device…” is just that. Marketing jargon. There isn’t a shred of truth to it, guaranteed.

And no matter what anyone else tells you, it will most certainly not cook your breakfast…

« Previous
Next »
Go to Top