Hi guys. I ended up on this forum thinking "i wonder if others hate my ipad as much as i do". It seems you don't. Let me list why I hate it...
1) too many webpages dont work well. Flash or java webpages simply have issues or dont work at all. Same thing happens with many websites meant to play videos. It is just not the same as surfing them on a pc.
2) many games are too simple, i guess due to the interaction issue. Controls are mainly tap or use an on-screen joystick. At least this is true for "traditional" games. It would seem like the only games worth playing are those meant to tilt the ipad.
3) many built in apps are horrible. Like mail app, it shows the last 20 emails instead of accesing your complete mailbox.
4) you cant customize what you do in ipad. I'm used to walking around folders in my pc. I'm used to installing a program from pen drive. These concepts do not exist in ipads.
5) you need itunes to plug it in to a pc or have it join a network. Why???? People like devices which can hook up to pcs through usb, like my android cell phone.
6) apps seem to be built and customized for silly people, i'm a pc user and i miss being a power user.
Maybe i hate my ipad because i feel it doesn't replace a pc. Most of the things i do at home require a pc, so i end up thinking i got a tablet just to read the news sitting on a couch.
Please help me love my ipad or i'll sell it. And i've had it for 4 months, and i think i should have spent bucks upgrading my desktop instead 🙁
Honestly it's just a mindset thing. I used to feel the same way as you, thinking that if I couldn't have control over every little detail of the software/hardware then it was built for "idiots" or was "dumbed down." As long as you have the mindset that it's a handheld PC then you won't enjoy it - get a MS Surface tablet and it'll work the way you're hoping.
However, if you use a Mac for awhile, I'd wager you'd begin to appreciate the "ease of use" thing more, and realize that those things you thought you *had* to be able to do, weren't actually necessary to begin with. Why do you want to walk around the iPad's file system? How will that help you do anything that you can't already do?
Some of the other things you mention just sound like you haven't fully explored how to use it properly. For example, in the mail app you can pull as many messages off the server as you want, or search the server for a particular message. If that doesn't do it for you, Google makes a native Gmail app that a lot of iPad users use (if you happen to use gmail).
As far as feeling like web sites don't load properly - be honest, were you scouring the web trying to find sites that wouldn't work? To be completely honest, I can't remember the last time I was browsing the web and came upon something that had a major issue - people thought Flash was the end-all, be-all of interactive web content and more and more, it's shifting to HTML5.
This right here says it all:
6) apps seem to be built and customized for silly people, i'm a pc user and i miss being a power user.
You see the interface and everything about the iPad being "dumbed down." Until you start to see it as "simplified," or "extraneous and unnecessary BS removed," then you will continue to have a superiority complex, and dislike Apple's products. Please don't take offense to that - I used to be the same way.
Think of it this way, do you use Linux? Why not? It's much more customizable than Windows and anyone who thinks of themselves as a "Power User" and doesn't use Linux must be deluding themselves, right? One major reason you probably use Windows instead of Linux is out of convenience. With some recent exceptions, Linux is a pain in the arse to set up, so you trust Microsoft to do some of the dirty work and make things work properly for you.
Well, Mac is to Windows as Windows is to Linux,... if that analogy makes any sense. It's a trade-off. You're trading off some customizability for ease of use. People complain that Apple fences off its ecosystem and has control over everything, but that's the biggest advantage - someone is screening out the crap and making sure that everything works properly so that you don't have to.
