Black Monday for the millions of iPad (first generation users)

Many people I know own an original iPad. The device might only be 2 1/2 years old or younger and it will most probably live on for another 3 to 5 years. The quality of the device is superb, it is even better at handling drops due to the rubber in between the frame and the glass. Just in our family most original iPads have suffered this and sport a bump in the side or at the corner and are still fully functional.

My iPad 2 died within 3 weeks due to the smart cover, which I was able to hold on to while my iPad2 slipped to the ground and the glass shattered. This would not have happened with the original cover and now Apple has introduced the new case that will prevent this from happening again.

Why is it such a bad day for millions of iPad owners? Schools, families etc. will not afford to upgrade just now to a newer version. Most of us run some computers at home that are 5 to 7 years old, even my geek companions that have all the latest gear still have some computers that is still used for some reason and is of old age. Now we won't benefit from the new safari browser, the new maps, the clock, iMessage improvements ...... It does not sound to bad to start with, but on almost all computers you can upgrade the applications to a certain level, i.e. chrome 19 on a windows xp machine that is 10 years old. Most problematic will be that Safari will not be updated and expose us to all sorts of issues and incompatibilities within one or 2 years. This is only one of the applications that will need continuous support for at least 3 years.

Maybe it will be the same as for the Dell Axim V61 and all other PDAs of the past, where some hackers have kept us up to date, so that we could use the devices long past their reasonable usage time.

And Jailbreak will be new way to go forward most likely, enabling us to enjoy some of the benefits and maybe more (app switching, user profiles, file access etc.).

Let's wait and see.

In the past this has happened with our old iMacs and iBooks and it will happen now with the MacBook (black), but the big difference was that most of the applications were continuously updated and could be installed and now some of the most critical features will be integrated into the basis which will not be updated separately.

The best will be if someone like GeoHot will provide us with an easy install of the official release on the iPad, since I really don't like to jailbreak.