The Horror of Aspiration

Apparently Apple have just launched some new gadget for idiots. Tablet computers (which have been around for over a decade) are the new hot shit on the block and as always, Apple have to rebrand them for a market ready to wet itself with excitement at something glossy. The media have widely reported the major shortcomings in the device itself (inability to multi-task, no support for Flash, fragile touch screen that will look awful after three months) and as always all the content available to the device is tied in to Apple's cash whore vending machine iTunes, but for a change, something else is irritating me...

You see, regularly spending a lot of my time in a major city centre is something which is becoming a more regular occurrence for me and the marketing campaign for the iPad has reached saturation. You can't pass a bus shelter without seeing some tedious activity being pictured, accompanied by some legs (in the obligatorily trendy Gap trousers or leggings) and feet (again, fashionable but bland ballet pumps or shitty daps you'd have laughed at eight years ago). One of these adverts in particular has jumped out at me - it contains a collection of photo albums with painfully aspirational covers - New York, Woodland Walk, Skiing, The Dog, yadda yadda. The pictures featured on the covers of these albums mostly feature children (presumably intended to be those of the user, and all painfully cutesy), with some featuring landmarks or landscapes. None of them feature the apparent user of the iPad. Perhaps they hate themselves too much for being sucked in by vacuous marketing.

So what conclusions can we draw from these observations? The Apple sanctioned, ideal iPad user is somebody who wears bland fashions, has a comfortable home life, takes lots of holidays and is probably spiritually completely unfulfilled and left empty by their existence. Meanwhile, i'm sat here writing this on my Samsung netbook which cost me about half of what an iPad would and does considerably more with no discernable disadvantage, but i'm obviously not aspirational enough to own one.