Jason Abrahamson

I remember when IE 6 came out. It was a great web browser, arguably the best of its time. It was fast, sleek, and did everything you’d ever need it to do. Microsoft introduced the corny “GO” button which has sense been replaced by a green arrow – though I’m not sure anybody ever actually clicked the button or the arrow.

Today IE 6 exists out of Microsoft’s own doing. Including IE 6 into Windows XP was a smart business decision on their part. Especially since the average computer user at the time at best had limited knowledge of the Internet, little desire to learn more, and no patience to scour for installing a web browser. The anxiety of wanting to use the internet as quickly as possible superseded everything else.

The other thing Windows XP lacked was real encouragement to run Windows Updates. I remember a time before Windows XP when nobody ran Windows updates. They were viewed down upon generally breaking more than they fixed. It wouldn’t be till Windows ME and 98 were a thing of the past that updates would widely grow as necessities. The significant increase in viruses and spyware and lacking of good virus scanners had a lot to do with it too.

IE 6 was still the browser of standard though until IE 7 came out. A lot of people didn’t like IE 7 nearly as much as IE 6, and by this point a vast majority of computer users were much savvier and downloaded alternative browsers. Personally I switched to Firefox at version 2.0. I used both in the early days, but made a full transition at version 2.0 and haven’t looked back.

Well it was this same business decision Microsoft is now probably regretting. At the time it was widely expected that everybody would migrate to the next version of Windows and eventually IE 6 would meet the same fate as others before it ride quietly into the sunset. The only thing nobody anticipated was that Windows Vista – Microsoft’s operating system that took over 6 years to develop – was a flop. Most IT managers stayed the course with Windows XP, and when they could, home users opted for XP over Vista.

Computer manufactures were shipping Windows XP with SP3, but, IE 6 was still stuck in there. Manufactures weren’t upgrading the computers to IE 7 so droves of computers were (and still are) being shipped with the infamous IE 6.

Hopefully that will change in the coming months as Windows 7 was met with a much warmer reception. Businesses are now planning for Windows 7 roll-outs and aren’t as gun shy as they were to Vista.

With IE 6 still controlling an estimated 16% of the browser market it is hard to ignore it. Some say its small, but Apple’s market share of computer sales is smaller than that and we don’t ignore them. A lot of companies dismiss the old but not dead platform. It’s certainly very frustrating for web and application developers as they have to make something compatible with 9 year old technology. Keep mind 9 years old is like 90 years old in computer years.

Had Windows Vista been met with a warmer and more widely accepted reception, IE 6 would have likely died peacefully of old age. Unfortunately it didn’t, and until Windows XP is eradicated it will live to fight on.

If the iPad wasn’t bad enough all by itself, these guys decided to put 11.43 carats worth of diamonds on one. That’s good, just what we need, one more over paid rapper walking around with a diamond studded iPad – as if they didn’t have enough bling already.

Truthfully I don’t see the point of the iPad let alone one covered in diamonds. What is even more troubling to me is they wouldn’t make it if there wasn’t a demand for it. Though I’ll never grasp the gold plated mac book, or the diamond studded iPhone at least I can see the novelty in it – this I don’t see at all.

Let’s talk about that too though; what is the point of the iPad? Somebody asked me what I thought of it, and I told them if Zack Morris had an iPhone on Saved by the Bell it would be the size of the iPad. The argument is it’s the device in between a laptop and an iPhone.

Now, I don’t have an iPhone, never cared much for it, but it’s a useful tool. It’s a smart phone, and a rather good one at that, even revolutionary. I have a laptop, most of us do nowadays, and it does everything my smart phone doesn’t. Thus leaving me to ask WHY do I need an iPad? To me the iPad looks like a glorified e-reader or something similar to that. Sort of reminds me of those gizmos In-N-Out uses to take your order to avoid using the intercom.

The really shocking part, or not, is that Apple has pre-sold hundreds of thousands of these things. Again, why? My feeling is a lot of these people are cult followers who will literally buy everything Apple makes. Apple could make calculator watches and these people would wait outside the store for 3 days in the pouring rain just to be featured on the Today show and be the first one to get one.

News Anchor: “So you just waited in line for 3 days to get the first calculator watch produced by Apple, how do you feel?”

Apple Fan: “No I haven’t, but I played with the demo in the store for 13 seconds immediately after buying the very first one ever sold in this store, and it’s just, ya, it’s amazing. It’s entirely in Latin though, you know Apple, thinking different”

The iPad might change the e-reader business, but I hardly think it will make the impact that the iPhone and iPod respectively made. These were both revolutionary devices that before they even shipped, you knew you wanted. The iPad isn’t that. You have to give credit where credit is due though…Apple has one heck of a propaganda machine and marketing down to a science.

Digressing, the Diamond iPad DEFINITELY makes the “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” segment.