Have an iPhone and Buying an iPad? You Should Expect Some Huge Surprises!

What you can’t help but admire about Apple – even if you are a loyal Microsoft or Google supporter – is how they turn their fans into loyal consumers who keep buying new gadgets even before those that they currently own get morally outdated or (very unlikely) broken.

Only last year you were enjoying having your iPhone 3GS and thought this was the coolest phone ever but now you keep noticing some strange behaviour about it that makes you think you probably already need to upgrade to iPhone 4. Similarly, only last year you thought you were perfectly happy with your assortment of gadgets and did not really think much about tablet computers – but then Apple introduced iPad and it immediately turned into the most desired device. Now it really seems that everyone suddenly actually needs a tablet computer without really understanding how we used to live without them!

I myself decided not to follow the trend, thought about an iPad for a while and decided I did not need it at all. Seriously, I was unable to find any uses for it that could make me want to buy one, especially after I won a proper E Ink based reader in a local drawing – the only thing that made me want to have something with a larger screen than an iPhone was my habit of reading tons of books in Kindle and iBooks apps.

But somehow my husband was of another opinion as he thought that I was supposed to crave for an iPad and my claims that I did not need it were all fake. So since he happened to be in Moscow on the first day of iPhone officially debuting in Russia, he grabbed one of those devices and brought it back home beaming proudly and actually believing that I would be exceptionally happy.

You may not believe me but the first thing that I told him was that it would be better to return the device because I really meant it when I claimed I did not want one. But since he disagreed to do that, I had to at least try to find a few things to use it for – and quickly found myself doing a ton of things on the iPad that I could probably not do at all but that definitely made my life a little nicer. So I admit it, I can’t live without my iPad now.

But here comes the first huge surprise: the device itself is only the initial investment and if you consider getting one in addition to your iPhone, you should also expect quite a number of extra expenses in the future. I don’t even care to know exactly how much I have already spent on the apps intended exclusively for iPad over the last few months because I know chances are I will not like the amount.

For some reason I thought that if I already have an iPhone and a whole range of paid apps in my iTunes account, they will all be equally useful on my iPad and I will not have to buy anything else. What a delusion it was! In fact, I remember perfectly well that we were told that almost all the existing iPhone apps will work on iPad – but I don’t remember anyone explaining how poorly they will do that. The problem with iPad apps is that only those that are free will be intended for iPhone/iPod touch/iPad all at once (if or when their developers choose to update current version to include iPad support). And those that already have a price tag will have a different price tag for iPad because their app for iPad will be totally different and will probably be accompanied by HD in the name.

So the fact that I have already paid $2 for All-in Yoga app for iPhone (liked it and frequently used) did not prevent me from paying another $5 for All-in Yoga HD for iPad as soon as I realized that the app existed. And such examples are numerous! Besides, even some of the apps that are free for iPhone turn into paid ones for iPad.

My understanding is that developers somehow think that iPad owners are better off compared to those that only have an iPhone – so they will charge for things that they are willing to offer for free for iPhone and charge a higher price for those things that already make them money from iPhone users. I don’t know if there’s any special politics in Apple regarding how iPad apps should be priced but it is difficult not to notice these extra expenses once you get your hands on an iPad of your own.

Another surprise is that absence of Flash support that I only noticed once on my iPhone over the year (when I could not get some free Wi-Fi in Moscow airport of Domodedovo where I was supposed to click some button after watching an ad in Flash) turns into something of a serious problem with iPad. The thing is that iPad can easily lure you into watching more online videos than you ever imagined you’d want to – and this is where you will frequently need Flash. So after only a week I got two browsers that promised to deliver Flash to me (all explained in rather verisimilar manner).

But unfortunately the first one only claimed to work on iPad and actually was iPhone-sized app only (which means that I will be able to get some free Wi-Fi in Domodedovo next time but that was not what I paid my $2 for) while the other one only worked for users in the US – or I was invited to buy a subscription which I would have gladly done if there was any trial that could persuade me it would actually work because by then I did not believe any such claims.

By the way, ‘trial’ is the word that comes to my mind more and more frequently now that I have iPad. Honestly, with Apple’s policy for App Store one starts to dream about those trial versions of software products that we take for granted on our desktop computers – we just don’t realize how easily one can get into buying some apps that will just not work as expected without any chance of trying them out first and paying only if they do what they should.

True, while many users don’t even realize that, it is actually possible to get a refund for an application you purchase – you only need to provide a clear explanation and hope it will work for you. But I don’t want to deal with a refund for that browser because it’s only $2 and who knows, it could start working in the future after some update.

Besides, when one tries to return an item, it is invariably more hassle than not buying it from the start. When you get a trial, you try and see if you need it enough to pay money for. And while I understand that some apps might just have their sales drop while others will never get any sales at all, it is probably better in the long run for those developers who work hard on something actually good and have a hard time competing in the App Store with less expensive apps in the same field.

And should they offer a trial (not a limited free version but a full-featured trial that you can actually use for a few days and that would become unavailable if you don’t pay after those few days), users would have easily noticed the real winner and paid higher instead of paying $.99 five times only to realize those competitors just did not have the right features. Availability of trial versions could have definitely prevented me from having three (!!!) office suites on iPad that I paid different amounts for instead of just choosing the right one from the very beginning – and paying for that one only.

Now I don’t want to spoil anything to any prospective iPad user but you should remember that all your purchases in the App Store will most certainly be worth nothing for your iPad, you will probably badly need Flash support and you will make quite a number of purchase decisions that you will regret later (the only advice here is to be particularly careful about your research online and reading full descriptions of the apps you are considering buying). But the worst part is that all of these disappointments will not make you regret that you chose to have an iPad at first place – not in my experience, at least.