iPad, Built Apple Tough

I had just gotten to work and noticed that I already had a missed call on my work phone. Shortly after checking to see who called me, I received a text from my wife.

Call me when you can.

She had taken our son to her parents house for the day because he was running a fever, and daycare would have likely sent him home, so I of course thought something had happened on their travels, to them.

I immediately picked up the phone and called her and when she answered the phone I could hear that she was driving (hands free people, calm down), so I knew that there hadn't been an accident. She said, "So there has been a little bit of an accident with the iPad." She had successfully dropped my son off, got back into her car and drove off. On the main county road to her parents house she accelerated to about 45mph and then she heard a loud bang, like something had hit her car.

She looked in her rearview mirror and saw something shiny flying behind her, saw something else go in another direction and it was in that moment she realized what it was. When she went to get our son and all of his stuff that he needed for the day out of the car, she took the iPad that we usually let one of the kids use on the long ride to school, and set it on top of her vehicle. Had she had a car it probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but she has an SUV that is slightly taller than she is, and forgot all about it.

She pulled over and went back to retrieve what she thought were going to be pieces of a now unusable iPad. She noticed that the case was laying facedown in the middle of the road, of which a number of cars had already gone by. She saw two pieces in the rearview mirror but thought maybe the iPad was still in the case, facedown on the pavement, but it was not in the case and nowhere to be seen.

She walked quite a ways back towards the road that turns off the main road to her parents house and nothing. The ditches on the side of the road had stagnant water setting in them and feared that it had been thrown into the ditch and was submerged. After about fifteen minutes of looking she found it laying down off the shoulder of the road in the grass.

When I left in the morning with my daughter she said to me, "Daddy can I have the iPad?" I told her no, it was her brothers turn to have it because she had used it the day before. I guess I should have told her yes! My wife was heartbroken that it had happened and I was upset that it happened since the kids use it to learn their alphabet and learn how to write, along with just using it for pure entertainment such as watching movies on it, but I told it that things happen.

When I left the house this morning the iPad looked like it did the day it was purchased. Despite taking flight at 45mph and skidding across the road it didn't picked up one scratch on the screen let alone break the screen. I am amazed by that because the one corner is almost flattened from the impact. The back has all kinds of battle scars, and the camera has a crack through it, I mean who takes pictures with their iPad anyway, right? As long as I can still get a charger into the 30 pin port that is bent all to hell I can throw it back in it's wonderful case from iFrogz, now owned by Zagg and the kids can use it until they get an Air 2 as a hand me down and the iPad 3 can be put out to pasture.

Pictures of the aftermath:

Apple Rumor Mill: 128 GB iPad Updated

via 9to5Mac:*

We’ve gotten word from sources that Apple is preparing to release (in some fashion) a single, additional iPad model. This would be a new SKU for the current fourth-generation iPad with Retina display line. At this point, we do not have pricing information, so it is definitely difficult to pinpoint exactly what this new iPad model is.

Here is what we do know:

  • It is a fourth-generation iPad, not a new design.
  • It comes in both the current black and white color options.
  • It comes in both WiFi-only and WiFi + Cellular versions.
  • It is a more premium SKU that will join the current line of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB fourth-generation iPads.
  • 10-pack deals (in both colors) for educational institutions will be offered.

This would be a nice edition to the iPad family. If this does happen I am not sure how they would price a 128 GB model. They certainly could price it at $799 for the Wi-Fi iPad and $929 for the WiFi + Cellular iPad. They only thing that I see being an issue, is if they do price them that high they may have trouble selling them. They would be smarter to shift the current pricing downward and insert the 128GB model at the current 64GB pricing.

Ever since the iPod came out I personally have had the dilemma of, well I could get this iPod nano (or mini) for this price, but for another $50 I could buy the full size iPod and get so much more storage. I feel that if they were to introduce a 128GB iPad and take their pricing tier higher than it is, people are really going to make that choice to go to a MacBook Air rather than an iPad. Even at the $799 price of the Wi-Fi only I believe people would be willing to spend the extra $200 to get the Air and be able to do so much more with it. In Apple's opinion I am sure it doesn't matter, because whether you buy an iPad or an Air you have purchased an Apple product so it is a win for them either way.

Update:

9to5 has update their article with pricing for the new devices and as I guessed at what the prices might be they are reporting $799 for Wi-Fi only and $929 for Wi-Fi + Cellular...

We’ve received pricing information for this new iPad model. The pricing is in line with a higher storage capacity, coming in at around $799 for the WiFi-only model and $929 for the Cellular-compatible model in the United States. So, new capacity sounds even more likely.

This is all speculation, so we will see what happens.

Update 2: 

Well the rumor hit monday, and Apple issued a press release that confirms that it is true. As far as my thoughts on the pricing for a 128 GB iPad, the rumored price is what the actual price. $799 for Wi-Fi and $929 Wi-Fi + Cellular. So with that I will state that I was wrong. 

*This is the first rumor that I am posting to this site, so I will take the time to insert a disclaimer. I am not going to put up rumors and tell you that I have inside information and you should believe this to be true. I will link to various rumors here and there and let you know my opinion on that rumor.


Ordered one iPad, received five!

This is an interesting story involving the ordering of an iPad as a Christmas present, and receiving a box that held five iPads in it. What is really interesting about this is this line of the story. The Consumerist:

Eventually we found a document from the FTC that said if an incorrect package was shipped to you, you can consider it a gift. Is this true? Can we keep these five iPads?