That's a very common way to steal stuff from people. Girls in particular are very easy targets since they don't seem to acknowledge that a cell phone can be put in a handbag, and not constantly held in hand. When they have it in hand, playing with it or chatting with friends, they're not aware of their surroundings, and when someone exits the subway or the bus, it's so easy to snatch it, they don't even have the time to raise their heads and get a glimpse of the thief's face. It's actually so prevalent that, even given a description, police will only take the recording, thank the citizen for its time, and wish him good luck for next time. In the meantime, one could relatively easily spot the guy who's selling stolen iPhones for $50 apiece.I don't know where you live, but grabbing anything out of your hands on the subway and then trying to run away is a very foolish way to try and steal something. Does that ever happen? I've never heard of such a thing. Pick pocketing, mugging, stick-up, all of those I've heard of. But grab and run? No. So basically I disagree that "It's more difficult and risky to snatch a bag from someone than an iPhone or iPad." Where are you?
Police just tells us to keep every belonging out of sight while in a public place.
Here, an iPad is worth a month's rent, sometimes a bit more. So, for many people, it's a status item, as is the 15" MacBook Pro, since they don't exist in a subsidized form. Admittedly, I don't really go in the wealthy neighborhoods too often.Hmmm... you might be right about cell phones. A few years ago (the last time I cared) there were various special edition phones that cost into the seven or eight hundred dollar range. And in Japan it was pretty common to pay that much for a phone. But I might be out-of-date for recent trends.
But my basic point holds. iPads just aren't expensive enough to be considered status items. iPads are mass consumer items. Luxury items are far more expensive. That doesn't make iPads cheap, but they're simply not expensive enough to demonstrate to anyone that you're wealthy--which is what a status item does.
How have you replaced your cell phone?