Confession: Mary Jo Bought An iPad And Loves It

Microsoft shill Mary Jo Foley bought her first Apple product. An iPad. What was wrong with Apple products before the iPad?

I never wanted to be part of the Apple community because I have had so many negative, hostile and condescending interactions with not just Apple fanboys, but regular Apple users. If that’s what “thinking different” was, I wanted no parts.

Why would anyone take Mary Jo’s Apple rants seriously if she’s never owned an Apple product? Why buy an iPad now?

I have not been able to find a PC that offered what an iPad does. Windows laptops are powerful, versatile and relatively inexpensive compared to Apple’s counter-offerings.

What does the iPad do that Windows offerings cannot?

Like many people, I spend most of my day consuming, not creating — reading tweets, surfing Web sites, reading books, creating recipe lists (via the iPad Epicurious app, and then cooking with the iPad on my counter with the instructions). I can read my Office documents by accessing them from my SkyDrive . I can use other apps I’m accustomed to, like Live Messenger, Hotmail, Google Docs, just fine on the iPad.

What’s the experience so far?

I have to say, after a week, I am loving the iPad. But I’m not loving that AT&T is the only approved 3G provider for the device.

For that we have some common ground, girl.

Nor am I loving Safari or iTunes. I’d love to see Internet Explorer, Firefox and the Zune software (Microsoft’s iTunes equivalent) be ported to the iPad. (I’m not holding my breath.)

Too bad. I’d like to see that on YouTube. Just a point of clarification, Zune software is not an iTunes equivalent. I’ve used both. Few people use Zune and there’s a reason why.

I’d also love to see someone write an “iPad for Windows dummies” book that doesn’t start with Apple’s seeming assumption that Apple products are intuitive for all. They aren’t intuitive for those of us who’ve spent our computing lives in Windows.

I consider that the first step in Mary Jo’s 12 Step Program to rid herself of Windows: Near admissions that she’s part of the Windows Dummies. Well said.

Given that I blog primarily about enterprise software and services here at ZDNet, it’s interesting to see that iPads are making inroads into businesses.(That’s got to be Microsoft’s worst nightmare.)

I have a few observations.

First, Mary Jo doesn’t really blog as much as pontificate on all things Microsoft. Second, she exhibits mixed emotions regarding Apple: antipathy and hatred. Mary Jo claims to have “covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts” and now admits to never having owned an Apple product.

Never? The credibility ice is pretty thin over at ZDNet. Any other considerations, Mary Jo?

Is there a Windows 7 or Windows Embedded Compact slate coming this year — or even early next — that can match the iPad?

Already she’s looking for a way to fall off the wagon.

It won’t matter. Windows 7 isn’t much of a touch screen OS. By the time Microsoft gets around to figuring out something, Apple will have sold another 10-million iPads. Advice to Mary Jo: If you want to write about technology, you need to know something about the technology, and why users buy and use what they do. Mary Jo doesn’t seem to know either. But after 25 years, she’s now on the right track.