iPad 2 and why it's a Great Time to be Alive!

So the iPad 2 was made official today. A5 processer, 9X faster GPU, 2X faster CPU, camera, HDMI, lighter and slimmer with the same great battery life. Amazing! All for the same price as iPad 1! Fantastic! 

I admit I love my gadgets. iPhone, laptops, iPods, DSLR’s, TV’s. The most amazing part is I have such capable devices today for the same or LESS cost than in years gone by. 30 years ago I spent $600 (in 1981 dollars) on a simple TI “computer”. It was interesting but didn’t do much. Today for $600 (in 2011 dollars) I can pick up a middle of the road iPad. Progress is great!

Many folks on twitter, facebook and message boards today are saying things like; “too bad for the people who bought an iPad at launch last year”… What? I have derived great benefit from enjoying mine for year. It gets used every day in this house. It has cost me $1.75 per day to have this amazing tool at my disposal. Cheap! Especially considering a newspaper is about a dollar these days. Oh and BTW, I’m not going to throw it away, I have many uses for it. Much like my 1st generation iPod Touch that i still use every day as my MP3 player and bathroom news reader. (No more Readers Digest in the magazine rack!)

Let’s do some math:

Grande cup of Strabucks coffee (not a mocha latte fru-fru, just coffee) every day for a year $737.30… (need the mocha latte fru-fru? price goes up to $1,820.45)

Heart-Attack-in-a-Sack lunch at McDonalds (Big Mac Value Meal, Large please!) at 6.84 each x 225 working days $1,539

USA Today Newspaper home delivery $284.00 per year

If I replaced all my gadgets, phone, DSLR, TV, laptop, iPod and iPad ONCE A YEAR it would cost around $4,000. Or $10.95/day. Same price as the Cobb salad at the local restaurant (at lunch prices)! Now I don’t replace most of these things that often, my TV has a few years on it and my iPod is still more than adequate for me. So my real cost is even lower than this. When I look back at my closet of old gadgets (gaming consoles, cell phones, desktop computers, cameras, etc…) and I look a the newest things on the market and how capable they are I’m happy to have paid this very small price to get to enjoy each of them. Well maybe that Sony Mavica 3.5 in disc digital camera in 1998 for $1000 bucks wasn’t the best deal ever but it would be great for a museum someday!