“You can spend $299 on a Windows 7 netbook and do all that AND have a camera,” he said (or words pretty much to that effect).

“So,” I said. “That’s Windows and crappy netbook hardware.”

“Well, I guess they’re selling the ‘Apple Experience,’” he said, finally making sense.

The iPad is not, in a feature-wise sense, the be-all, end-all computer for everyone. It DOESN’T have a camera for video conferencing, etc. That’s not a big issue to me, as I don’t do that much, and I have a camera on my desktop if I need to. But, for people like Jack who do video chats, it’s a deal. I wonder if we’ll be able to get a webcam that will attach to the iPad for people like him?

But Jack is a geek (me, too). On the MacBreak Weekly podcast, they talked about whether it’ll appeal to the mainstream, with mixed opinions. But, I got a good taste of how it’ll appeal to the mainstream last night.

As soon as I got home, I pulled up the iPad video on the Apple website and cajoled my wife into watching it. The Wife isn’t a Luddite, but she’s not far off. She reads the newspaper every morning to get her news, she doesn’t read blogs or even know what an RSS feed is. She doesn’t Twitter or, if you can believe, even use Facebook. Her cellphone makes phone calls. It can send and receive text messages, but she won’t send them because it “takes too long to type them out on that keypad.” So, if I want to text her from my iPhone, I have to pretty much send messages that don’t require a response or can be answered with “yes” or “no” (usually typed as “y” or “n”).

But, when watching the iPad video, she said “wow!” no less than six times. More importantly, when it was over, she said, “That’s exactly how I use the laptop now, only it’s more comfortable.” Then I told her about the iWork apps for the iPad and she said, “That would be the perfect computer for me.”

So, selling her on eBaying the MacBook to get an iPad was easy-peasy (as she would say).

I think the only question now is how I’m going to afford a second one, since it’s going to be difficult to get the first one away from her.

So far, I have to say that it’s beautiful and fast and super-badass. I haven’t really had much time to spend with it seeing as how I’m at work. More once some impressions have formed.

Oh, I need to say more?

Here are the things about the Mighty Mouse:

1. They surprised the hell out of everybody. It’s fun to see Apple occasionally staying one step ahead of the rumor sites. I mean, sure, everyone knew Apple had to be working on some sort of advanced mouse device.
2. In typical Apple fashion, they took the concept (two-button scroll mouse) and completely Apple-ized it: touch sensitive “buttons”, “squeeze buttons”, and “scroll ball” thingy. Plus, completely programmable.
3. Great price: $49
4. I wonder why no Bluetooth. Of course, being an owner of an Apple Bluetooth Mouse, I know that they suck batteries down like Homer on cheap beer. A Bluetooth Mighty Mouse would likely be ten times worse.

Plus, I’m a total slut for Apple.

UPDATE 2005.08.15

Got the Mighty Mouse on Friday. Still tweaking it and my mousing style. I know, I know. If a mouse makes you re-examine and/or change how you mouse, it’s probably not a good thing. But, I have sort of a freaky mousing style (left-handed, but use the right-handed left/right click mapping). If I DIDN’T do that, I’d LOVE LOVE LOVE the Mighty Mouse. But, because of how the click detection works and how the Primary click overrides the Secondary click, I sometimes left click (primary) when I mean to right click (Secondary). So, I’m still working out the kinks. Otherwise, I really like the scroll ball and the general feel of the mouse.

“What’s so cool about GarageBand is that it exemplifies the market that Apple is going after. People who want to use their computers to make cool things. People who want to be producers, not just consumers. If it’s possible to distill into a single thought what it is that makes Apple Apple, and what has made the Macintosh so enduringly popular, that’s it.”

That’s what I’ve been trying for years to say about why I love Macs. I’m a producer on a pretty small scale, but that’s how I view myself.

I’ve already ordered my copy of GarageBand (along with the swank upgrades to the other iLife components). I can’t wait to get back to recording some of my music.

UPDATE: Well, as cool as GB seemed, it’s not really the right app for me on my machine. I was looking for a more robust app for recording a number of audio tracks, and GB ain’t it (at least, not on my 1GHz G4 iMac). It’s a great looping app, and it’s exactly right for the target market: creative folks who aren’t musicians (necessarily) but want to make some cool music for their iMovies or iPhoto slideshows or whatnot.

For a great (and really cheap) DAW app for OS X, try Tracktion, which is also available for Windows (and soon Linux, they say). It’s the bees knees.