A Twist of Citrus

Well, all you naysayers get your chuckles in now. Its a disaster! I patiently awaited for the delivery of my iPad for the last two weeks while people all around me told stories of their friend's lucky break, having picked one up in the store or from a friend looking to sell theirs. Well, it arrived this morning. I didn't even wait to get breakfast before I unwrapped it, pulling the protective plastic cover off as I rode down to the coffee shop in the elevator.

Of course, Apple being the scary big brother company* that they are, I am required to plug in my iPad to a computer with the latest version of iTunes in order to "Activate" it. Why they need to activate it on iTunes is completely beyond me except that I'm sure they gather all kinds of information the second you plug it in. Regardless, I had a bit of a situation on my hands since:

  1. I have a Linux box at work with no Windows to boot into.
  2. Those people that do have Windows don't have administrator access and so cannot upgrade from their truly ancient versions of iTunes currently installed.**

Luckily as I stood there relaying this distress to one of my coworkers he immediately stopped me and said something along the lines of, "mate, don't you use the Mac we have in the creative department,"

And I was in business.

Alien Josh 1Except I wasn't. Well, I was, but I was a deaf businessman. Or something. I don't know, I never really understood that analogy so let's just ignore me for a second. I thought when I was pealing back the smart cover I was hearing the sound of the cooling fan spinning up temporarily and then turning off. Oh no. It's not the cooling fan. There is no cooling fan. Sigh.

There must be something wrong with the sound card or the speaker connection, because not only does the speaker hiss something terrible whenever a sound plays, it increases pitch with every sound that plays. So now I have some sort of sick joke of a musical instrument ("It's a Feature!") instead of a magical multimedia "experience". I also have an appointment tomorrow at the Genius Bar in the city, so if I can't figure out how to fix it tonight, I'll go there and hopefully they'll sort me out. Eventually. I just hope I don't have to wait for a replacement to be shipped. Two weeks was already trying enough.

Alien Josh 2On the bright side, I didn't really buy this iPad because I wanted to spend hours of time consuming rich media, although that's definitely a draw. I bought it mainly because it's a great appliance to take while traveling, even during my daily commute. I can use it during those 5-10 minute down periods of which there are usually 2 or 3 on a given commute to or from work. I typed this blog up while I was on my way home from work tonight, for example. It'll also be an invaluable tool to keep me from going insane during flights to and from the US to visit with friends and family back home. Ok so not quite a disaster.

All of these activities pretty much require me to be wearing headphones if I want to hear any sound, so even though I refuse to have a gimpy iPad, it wouldn't be the absolute end of the world if I couldn't get it replaced or fixed.

For your edification, here are two shots of me looking like an alien taken with the built in Photobooth app that comes installed with all iPad 2s.

I think I'll save the requisite vanity shot with my new toy for when it's actually working,

—LL

*I know I'm not the only one who's dying from the irony that Apple is quickly ,marching towards becoming the MonSter they once advertised against in those "big brother is watching you "commercials.

**We're talking 3 or 4 major revisions old. It didn't even recognize the iPad was plugged in. And it couldn't even find the Apple update servers to find out how old it was. They probably blocked it's access out of pure pity. Poor thing.