Its iPad day, what to do?

For those of you reading my blog for some time you know my opinions. It’s complicated! During the next weeks we will have ‘euphoria – of some kind; the iPad will be released in Norway. The dilemma is that we all “love” the:  The ipod, the iphone and now the iPad. On the other hand we don’t. Nobody wants to be situated inside the pocket of someone, being without control.

This is happening on many levels now, for the end user and for unwilling ‘partners’ of the ‘Apple Empire’. Look Here for an article of the journalists “dilemma” when the iPad is on its way to Norway.

Apple has become too much, for those of us watching what they do. The Brand of being an underdog, a fighting power – is lost. This is not what  people seem to think of Apple anymore. What we see of Apple now is too much wealth, too much arrogance, and that they are acting out of what is reckoned to be accepted behavior.

Norwegians still loves the product, despite the fact that we have been neglected for more than a half year; Norwegians have bought their iPads abroad (50.000  purchased items is a guess – and the total population of the whole of Norway is only 5 mill people). It’s not only the product, the reading list, it’s the concept we love. We love the freedom, to be on the move, the simplicity, the ability to read, listen, watch and act, write, communicate in the one and same device. Norwegians loves Apple, Apple might not show the same affection toward Norwegians?

This creates a dilemma; should we embrace Apple once more, or should we react on the fact that Apple controls the freedom of speech? – by controlling whom, what, and how an editorial product should look, and what it may contain. Should we become angry of the cost of the device, the profit Apple have decided that it will collect from the content providers of the world?( Apple demand 30% of the brto. Sales price, hardly without any costs.)

You and I, as citizens, want freedom, content producers want to be capable of living from their trade, and media houses want to continue playing their role. The acts of Apple over the last years shows me just one thing; They want to become even more filthy rich (it seems), and shows no interests for the world at all, beside enriching their stock holders even more. This is not a sustainable business model into the future. Providing consumers and partners with nothing thing else than what will end up being seen as a rip off, aren’t. This is not what the people of the world wanted from Apple in the first place. This is not what the people in the world would like Apple to be – for the world.

Nevertheless, under the Christmas trees in the western world, and in Norway, there will be a huge amount of iPads, for fathers, for mothers and for teenagers. The content we can purchase, there will be a bitter ( but still) purchased order put to the Apple system. I just don’t think it will last for long. Very soon the boomerang will hit Apple. My hope is that the structure of the free Internet didn’t die along the route of greed. (take a look on this related blog posting of the possible death of the free Internet )