I made the assumption that the chips were designed by very smart people with the aid of computers, the construction of each component was done by sophisticated machines, and the human workers along the process were largely limited to final assembly and testing. I was quite wrong.

By now you’ve surely heard of (and hopefully read) the New York Times article Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China. Another good source for information about the topic is Mike Daisey and the Apple Factory. Both of these tell of the horrendous factory conditions in China.

Although Foxconn is the most common manufacturer that we see complaints about, it’s not the only one with problems and Apple isn’t the only company that uses Foxconn (both Motorola and Samsung employ Foxconn for some of their work). Regardless, Foxconn has had the most major, publicized problems, including deadly accidents and worker suicides, and many of those have been tied to Apple’s iOS products in particular. As outraged as I was after learning more about these conditions, I figured Apple’s users would be even more upset, so I browsed some sites looking at forums and comments and was rather disheartened.

AppleInsider published an article called Former executives accuse Apple of ignoring supplier labor abuses that outlined a few of the points from the NYT article. Here are some example responses:

So cowards are willing to make accusations without providing evidence or their manes[sic].
What a joke.

Give us name and dates…. — Patranus

Apparently anonymity means the info is invalid (well, except in the latest iDevice rumors, of course).

….what’s even more pitiful is to blame Apple for a Chinese Corporations[sic] bylaws and worker right conditions–China is responsible for them. — mdriftmeyer

In other words, humanity doesn’t cross borders.

The truth is 99.9999% of those workers are thankful of Apple for their jobs. Their standard of living has increased tremendously since having worked in the rice paddies for a third of the pay. — Dickprinter

I doubt this, but even if it were true, it doesn’t validate the terrible conditions for these workers.

Why? Is Apple guilty of everything they are accused of until we prove them innocent?
Or is it the job the shadowy accusers to bring the proof? — Suddenly Newton

No, they’re not guilty of everything unless there is proof, which has already surfaced and is continuing to be revealed. There’s at least enough evidence to warrant an investigation, and not just of the production lines that develop Apple’s devices. I doubt if Apple is guilty of violating any laws, but laws and morals aren’t always aligned.

To be fair, AppleInsider tends to be extremely pro-Apple and highly focused on the value of Apple as a company (as opposed to Apple’s values). Comments there often focus on stocks and profits as the only measurements of success for a company. So I checked MacRumors article Former Apple Executives Address Working Conditions in Suppliers’ Factories

The sad truth is that we want cheaper products so they use countries with lower wages and worse working/living environments. If we’d all accept a 300% jump in the cost of electronics we could manufacturer everything locally. — AppleDroid

Finally, a reasonable post! The thing is, we don’t need to manufacture electronics locally. Apple has about $100,000,000,000.00 ($100 billion) in the bank, so they can clearly afford to pay manufacturers extra and build in clauses to their contracts with these manufacturers requiring that extra amount is used to improve workers’ conditions.

…news like this sheds light on corporate responsibility being more of a marketing term than a way of doing business. As a company currently sitting with $97.6 BILLION dollars in CASH ON HAND, they should dramatically improve the working conditions and lives of people who make their products, not have an attitude of “well everyone else does it.” While their position is popular on this forum, it’s not right. — theheadguy

Well said!

Looks like the Times is aiming for a Pulitzer. No coincidence that they released the story after Apple announced earnings.

While this is a huge problem, it is not an Apple problem; it’s a worldwide one. The media likes to attach Apple’s name to these stories because Apple stories = eyeballs. — rdowns

I’m sure it isn’t a coincidence. Apple pulling in $13 billion dollars in profit and workers dying, being subject to neurotoxins, etc. makes for a harse contrast. The extra eyeballs can help bring change, and Apple is in the best position of any tech company to make changes.

Americans may not be so inclined to complain about conditions elsewhere when they realize how much more they would have to pay for the crap they buy if everything was like conditions in America. — Undecided

In other words, Americans might care more about money than human lives. Sure, some will, but I think that’s a very tiny portion of people when the real situation is brought to light. We’re talking about the cost of making manufacturing conditions safe instead of working people >60 hours per week in hazardous environments.

All-in-all the Mac Rumors comments were far more informed and intelligent responses than the AppleInsider comments; further, most of the heartless comments were downvoted to some extent. 9to5mac had comments fairly similar to those of Mac Rumors.

Finally, responses from a couple of big Apple fans. The first comes from MG Siegler’s This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things post; the second is from John Gruber’s site (he doesn’t appear to make direct links available).

The post focuses on Apple because Apple is now arguably the most successful company on the planet. If they were, say, the 8th largest computer manufacturer, they probably wouldn’t have even been mentioned….

Does that excuse Apple’s behavior in some situations? Not at all. But there also isn’t enough background here to know if Apple is even the worst enabler of these poor working conditions.

…The fact of the matter is that we live in a world that demands amazing technology delivered to us at low costs and at great speed. That world leads to Foxconn. — MG Siegler

I felt like Siegler’s post tries to satisfy both parties, the pro-Apple side and the let’s-do-something-about-it side. His comments boil down to “Well, it sounds bad, but we can’t fully trust NYT and plus there are probably some other companies that are worse. Also, we want cheap electronics.” I disagree that this has to lead to Foxconn, and I also think it’s likely that Apple is among the worst offenders because they have more clout than a smaller company and a few of the quotes indicate as much. Regardless of who is the worst, Apple is making more than enough money to do something without raising the cost of their electronics, so it’s not a matter of “Is Apple the worst” but rather “What can we do about it?”

Tim Cook responded in a company-wide email. — John Gruber

Either Gruber simply doesn’t care about the NYT story or he fully supports Tim Cook’s (Apple’s) position. He tends to be a man of few words when it comes to commenting on many stories, but he will write more than a sentence when it’s important to him (such as like how he thinks the Android buttons are “broken”).

Cook basically said, “We do a lot and anyone who says otherwise is lying.” He points to the Apple supplier responsibility site, which (even if 100% accurate) still shows only 38% of the companies Apple audited meet the working hours requirements established in Apple’s Code of Conduct. In 2011 it was 32%. In 2010 it was 46%. In 2009 it was 41%. Not great numbers.

The simple fact of the matter is that Apple has been pointed out as they’ve got more than enough money to do something about it and many of the major articles related to deaths and injuries at these manufacturing companies have been tied to Apple. Is that fair? Probably not. Does it matter if it’s fair? No. The point is, awareness of the issue needs to be raised in order to make something happen. After all, when enough people compained about the iPhone 4 dropping calls, Apple gave in and offered free bumper cases. If enough people complain about the dangerous conditions at manufacturers, Apple will be willing to do more about the conditions. Hopefully Apple won’t have to lead the way for technology companies to expect more from their suppliers, but it’s better than ignoring the issue.

There are three types of patents (this applies to the United States; my knowledge of patent laws in other countries is minimal): utility, design, and plants. Utility patents cover what you’d typically think of as an invention, everything from Velcro to turbines. Design patents cover “a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture,” essentially, the appearance of a manufactured product. Finally, plant patents actually cover plants… invent a new and distinct plant that can reproduce on its own and you can patent it.

Unfortunately, applying patents to software is a difficult practice and has significant repercussions. This is the very reason that there is no standardized way to play video on the web. Proponents largely fall into two camps: ones that support the well-known, highly efficient H.264 codec and ones those who support an open, freely-available codec such as VP8. The H.264 codec is heavily patented and can prove to cost millions for a non-profit company like Mozilla; however, the patents are known and so the expense is clear. Codecs such as VP8 and Theora are freely available, so they are excellent options for companies that have limited funds and/or choose to promote open software; the alternate argument is that these codecs are less efficient because they had to be specifically written to not do things similarly to H.264 but they still might infringe on a patent. When you consider that H.264 is covered by 70 pages worth of patents (70 pages listing the patent numbers and corresponding owners, not counting the actual patents themselves), it’s not hard to imagine that other codecs could infringe somewhere without knowing it. The very process of patenting that’s supposed to help innovation is scaring people away from using (and even creating) inventions.

Apple has filed multiple suits against Samsung for their phones and tablets. Now, an injunction is in place that prevents Samsung from offering the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and in Europe (well, they can’t sell their tablets in Germany and have to seek a new import strategy for the rest of Europe) while the lawsuits continue. I don’t see how anyone could use a Galaxy Tab and then an iPad and consider the user experience to be the same, so how valid can the patents be? And as far as design patents go, that graphic I have included shows a digital picture frame that Samsung made in 2006, then the iPad (from 2010), and then the new Galaxy Tab 10.1 (2011). The user experiences are different, Samsung came up with the design first (and didn’t sue Apple), so let both the products go to market and create a benefit for all consumers.

I was going to write a lot more on this subject, but I think the message is clear: software patents don’t work. They stifle innovation and harm the consumer. The only people who truly like software patents seem to be major corporations that can use them to kill competition and lawyers. The system needs to be fixed.

Wait a minute! That’s a ridiculously small number! Yes, Justin decided to use a very scientific process of finding tablet apps via “market descriptions, youtube searches, google searches” and he decided to exclude “games or existing Android apps that are just upconverted to take advantage of the existing screen real estate.” In fact, Justin (indirectly) admits to not even owning a Xoom: “Short of buying a Xoom, I am unable to find a decent way to scour the Android marketplace other than browsing it.” People on Twitter have offered suggestions (me included) for the list that haven’t been added. In other words, Apple Insider (among other sites) has taken an inaccurate listing of Android tablet apps that was written by someone with an artificial criteria and who doesn’t even own a Xoom…. and treated it like fact. Oh internet…

Here’s the problem (or at least one of them) with that: Android doesn’t just have two device types like iOS (iPod/iPhone vs. iPad). It has multiple physical sizes (small, medium, large, x-large), multiple densities (ldpi, mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi), and other attributes developers can use to customize an app for different devices. Android automatically selects the correct assets (layouts, images, etc.) based on the device and even scales as needed (a medium-density drawable is scaled up 50% for hdpi devices). Therefore, all apps targeting Android 1.6 and above are inherently “universal binaries” rather than being the complete pixel-by-pixel phone-app-on-a-tablet experience that most iOS apps are. In fact, just 8% of iOS apps were universal binaries as of December.

I think it’s fair to say there are more iOS apps designed specifically for iPad than Android apps designed specifically for Android tablets. It’s also fair to say that the average Android app makes better use of the space on a tablet than the average iPhone app on an iPad. I am guessing that no Android tablet in the near future will sell more than the iPad, but it’s likely that several will come to market and their combined numbers will soon challenge the iPad. That growth will fuel better tablet experiences and the initial limited number of apps will grow exponentially.

In other words, Justin’s article is not just inaccurate and misleading; it will be irrelevant soon.

I see tablets as potentially fulfilling at least four primary purposes with many other specialized uses:

Communication is made easier by the tactile feel of browsing the web with the touch of a finger and responding to emails with an intuitive UI. Video calls are a reality for families and businesses alike and the technology will only continue to improve and become more affordable.

Art has so much potential when artists can interact with amazing technology, but it’s just not there yet. Although many artists have made excellent works using iPads and other tablets, there is just no comparison between a Cintiq and an iPad. I am excited to see what can be created when tablets reach even the sensitivity of a present-day Intuos, and I wouldn’t hesitate to spend more than what tablets cost right now for that kind of experience.

Productivity is also limited on tablets at this point. Sure, you can work on simple spreadsheets and even type on a word processor, but I don’t think many people would trade in a netbook or notebook and use a tablet to write the next great novel. Although there are always Bluetooth keyboards, they’re rarely convenient and definitely don’t help battery life.

Entertainment is impossible to ignore with a device that largely appears to be just a screen. Games and movies can be immersive but portable, personal but shareable. With HDMI ports and wireless video transfer, the entertainment of a tablet can be displayed on a larger screen to enjoy with friends (or to bask in the glory of your latest TV purchase alone).

Specialized Uses are easily found with new devices. Tablets can be excellent for presentations to small groups or for doctors to chart patient information (and imagine that tying in with an app like Google Body to allow doctors to give patients a clearer explanation of a particular health concern). They can be used as tools for communicating with those who have impairments. And they can certainly be used for thousands of purposes I haven’t even considered.

But tablets aren’t there yet. Of the fundamental four features (C.A.P.E.), tablets like the iPad and Xoom are off to a good start with communication and entertainment but have a long way to go with art and productivity. Because of this, I’ve decided to hold off for now. I think it will be a while before I’m satisfied with a tablet for artistic use, but productivity should come along quickly.

At this point, I have my eye on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer–an Android tablet that can function largely as a Xoom but which has an optional keyboard/trackpad dock that it can mount into to act as a simple netbook and double the battery life from 8 hours to 16 hours. Asus makes some excellent products, so I hope the Transformer does not disappoint. Although most tablets aren’t sold tied to a cellular contract, their use of mobile operating systems makes it clear that they will evolve at an exceedingly fast pace as smartphones have in the past few years. Hopefully buying a tablet in a few weeks would get me through a couple of years before the next one; with any luck, the art side of tablets will have improved by then.

Offering the option for content providers to include payment through Apple’s system is great; forcing them to use it and attempting to control their pricing is terrible.

Consider a scenario where Company XYZ offers digital subscriptions to its content. XYZ has determined that it costs them $9 per issue¹, so they sell it at $10 for about 11% profit. Their iOS app now has to offer a subscription through Apple’s service merely because the subscription service exists. If they sell it at $10 in the app, they will only make $7, which causes them to lose money with every issue sold. Logically, they have to increase their pricing to maintain a profit, so they would increase the cost to $14.29 to still bring in $10 per issue after Apple’s cut, keeping their income flat per issue but decreasing the percentage made per unit.

That’s fine, but Apple’s terms require them to charge the same (or less) in the app as outside, so now XYZ has to increase the cost of their product by 43% for all subscribers. That’s great for Apple, but it’s not so great for any of the users. Is having an easy way to subscribe to a service and preventing content providers from making it easy to use the existing system in app worth 43% to end users?

What’s more, the developer agreement says that in-app purchases cannot be used outside the app. So, to be in compliance, XYZ must not link to their own store and must prevent users who get a subscription via the in-app process from using that content on another (non-iOS) device, via the web, etc. Apple is forcing content providers to charge more while providing less to iOS users. Considering that the Sony e-reader app was rejected, it’s likely that these same rules apply (or will apply) to books and other non-subscription-based digital content. Companies like Netflix (subscription service) and Amazon (non-subscription service) have benefited from the iOS platform. They pay their yearly developer fee and have access to a large number of users with expendable income, but they don’t directly generate other income for Apple. But Apple is, in fact, significantly benefiting from these companies. Take a look:

iPad display at an Apple store; credit: Obama Pacman

Clearly, Apple is taking advantage of having Netflix on its devices in a big way, not to mention these other books and content publishers. Is it fair for Apple to get so many content providers to develop specifically for the iPad so that Apple can have an excellent launch, selling 15 million iPads the first year, and then suddenly pull the old bait-and-switch? “Hey everyone, we appreciate you developing these apps specifically for our platform and paying us to do so, which gave us a great launch and a strong foothold in the tablet market, but we’d like you to also start paying us money for content that we don’t produce or distribute; otherwise we will kick you off our platform.”

I wouldn’t be surprised to see companies band together and agree to ditch iOS. Netflix wouldn’t see a huge drop in members for no longer being available on iPad (especially if they artfully place the blame on Apple in an open letter to the public), but offering Netflix only on competing products that don’t have mandatory 30% fees will hurt Apple in the future (the tablet market will only continue to grow and users who see Netflix, Kindle, Hulu, Rhapsody, Google Voice, Skype, etc. available on all except Apple’s platform will not be as likely to buy iPads).

The other likely option is for companies to skirt around the issue by filling their own banner ad space with links to their signup page or by offering products in a way that doesn’t directly work on an iPad (“Pay $XX to get access to our content on any device you own!”). Or perhaps we’ll just see Apple change their policy like they did in the past (“No, you can’t use any tools other than the ones we provide to create apps for our platform–oh wait, we’re being investigated for anti-competitive behavior… of course you can use other tools! We were just kidding about that.”).

Even if everyone caves and pays Apple the 30%, they’re going to see that they have better profit on other devices and eventually shift to focusing more on promoting products on other devices, whether that comes in the form of better apps or more advertisement. Apple is essentially hoping everyone will integrate with Apple’s system, pay Apple 30%, and never consider any alternative. I don’t think that’s going to work out so well for them.

Note(s)
1: Obviously pricing is more complicated than a flat figure. It’s more likely a combination of fixed cost (employees, equipment, etc.) plus costs that depend on the number of users (storage, bandwidth, account management, etc.). But, to be fair, I also didn’t include the cost of the app on iOS or the cost of integrating with Apple’s system (other than Apple’s percentage).

Dan Morill of Google said this:

Because it means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on “fragmentation” are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits’ blogs, but they have little to do with reality. “Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers.

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica said this:

[R]estrictions effectively ensure that all Android devices that are intended to run third-party applications are basically the same with respect to application compatibility. In addition to mandating some consistent hardware specifications, Google has also taken steps to make the Android software more resilient to fragmentation.

And yet, we get people like Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDnet saying things like

[T]here’s already fragmentation of the platform… For Joe Average, this created an ultra-confusing marketplace where operating system versions changed every few months. It also meant that compatibility issues were inevitable.

Apparently “Joe Average” has a tough time tapping on the Android Market icon and then downloading any visible app in the entire market. Google filters out apps that aren’t compatible with your device (due to both OS requirements and hardware requirements). That doesn’t sound ultra-confusing to me.

The reality is that developers will choose the lowest level of the Android SDK that they can build their apps against to target the largest possible audience. If a developer makes a live wallpaper, it will only show up in the market for people whose devices support live wallpapers. So the only real issue is the question of whether manufacturers and carriers will push out the latest version of the OS for their phones.

OS Updates
Undoubtedly, there will be older devices that aren’t able to handle the latest version, but those aren’t the high-end smartphones, and they will have prices which reflect that. As far as the phones that are capable of running the latest version, if consumers see that X manufacturer’s phones always have the latest Android version within two months, those phones will be popular, especially through word of mouth. If consumers see that Y manufacturer never upgrades its phones, those phones will be decidedly less popular. The same is true of carriers. And, fortunately for Android, the number of carriers and manufacturers behind these devices is not limited, so simple economics will put enough pressure on these companies that they’ll be eager to upgrade. We’re already seeing all the latest Android-based phones coming out with Android 2.1 (even ones that were slated for 1.6), and they’re all capable of running 2.2. With the huge performance improvement that Froyo brings, there is a large incentive for manufacturers and carriers to ensure they get Android 2.2 on their devices as soon as possible.

iOS Fragmentation
Anyway, people’s minds are pretty set on whether fragmentation is an issue or a scare tactic. I thought it would be useful to point out how this issue affects (or doesn’t affect) the popular iPhone because you really don’t hear much about it.

First, the iPhone has some advantages in avoiding fragmentation. It is made by one company. The OS is made by the same company. The phone is limited to a single carrier (in the US). The phone has very incremental improvements at one year intervals rather than spurtive, frequent improvements.

Despite these steady improvements, there are hardware differences that are further affected by the OS running on the iPad and iPod as well. Some devices don’t have a camera, some have a 2mp camera, some have a 3mp camera, some have a 5mp camera, some have two cameras, some have autofocus, and some have flash. Some support 3G and some only support WiFi. Some have 412MHz processors, some have 532MHz processors, some have 600MHz processors, some have 1GHz processors, and some we don’t know. Some have 128MB of RAM and some have twice that. Some have a magnetic compass. Some have a gyroscope. Some can lock orientation. Some are 480px wide, some are 960px wide, and some are 1024px wide. So there is hardware variation because devices must improve, or they will be left behind.

There is software variation too. Most devices are running a 3.x version, but that will change soon as some devices are able to upgrade to iOS 4 and some aren’t. Of those that upgrade, the features supported will differ. The iPhone 3G devices purchased for $100 a few weeks ago will never officially get multitasking. Hopefully the poor souls who bought those are able to wait out a two-year contract before realizing how essential multitasking is.

With all these differences, would you call iOS fragmented? I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t call Android fragmented either. They’re both evolving platforms. Android had some catching up to do when the G1 came out, so it has evolved significantly faster than iOS, but evolution is not fragmentation.

The majority of the added features are already available in other mobile operating systems, but Steve does an excellent job of getting crowds excited about features they should have had long ago. Let’s take a look at the announcements (credit to Engadget’s coverage).

1 – Multitasking
Steve at least acknowledges that this has been available for other phones for years, but it looks like the multitasking will be pretty limited. The majority of apps will just do state-saving, similar to the current experience. Applications can be modified to have specific background services, such as Pandora playing in the background. I love this quote: “It’s no exaggeration to say that the iPhone has changed the future of Pandora.” I’d say iPhone has been holding back Pandora by not allowing it to run while you check email or whatever else. Finally, this will change for iPhone 3GS and the newest iPod Touch devices this summer (and iPads in the fall). iPhone 3G… sorry.

It doesn’t sound to me like there will be support for background tasks that aren’t initiated by the user (e.g., having a news app download the latest news in the background based on a time interval). Widgets would have also been a nice announcement, but they’re absent as well.

2 – Folders (and Wallpapers)
Now you can create folders and change your background image.

3 – Enhanced Mail
Unified inboxes, multiple Exchange accounts, and thread-based organization… I didn’t realize they didn’t have thread-based organization, so that’s a nice change for Apple users.

4 – iBooks
This app is now included in the OS.

5 – Enterprise
This point included re-mentioning of multiple exchange accounts, so that’s clearly important to some people. Better data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution … minimal details on this. Hopefully the wireless app distribution means you don’t have to deal with any of the certificate hassle, but I doubt it.

6 – Game Center
Basically this is Xbox Live/PSN, which isn’t innovative, but it definitely has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

7 – iAd
Apparently Steve thinks that current advertising in applications sucks, so they’ve created iAd. This adds potential for interaction (sweet, “punch the monkey” can finally come to iPhone!). iAd actually has the potential to be really effective; unfortunately Apple is being extremely greedy and taking 40% of the revenue. In theory, that leaves 60% to the developer, but there are many cases when ad revenue is shared. Say a developer earns 50% of ad revenue and 50% goes to company XYZ. That 50% is now really 30%, so the developer earns less than 1/3 of the profit of the app, pre-taxes.

Play with the numbers some more: a developer who would have earned 33% will drop to 20% (from 1/3 revenue to 1/5). Apple is going to make more money for their shareholders and developers are going to have a bigger challenge (when they’re already facing an over-saturated market).

Conclusion
Uh, that’s it. For most people (well, people who have an Apple device that is less than a year old), this boils down to multitasking and some minor improvements (e.g., folders). As far as innovation, that is pretty much just iAd. Other devices have had multitasking, folders, custom wallpapers, thread-based mail organization, book readers, wireless distribution, etc. If nothing else, this shows that competition is good. Even if you’re an Apple fan who dislikes Android, WebOS, etc., you can still acknowledge that their presence is forcing Apple to finally make some improvements, and you don’t have to make as many excuses as to why your phone doesn’t have X feature.

Also, some additional (very limited) details are available on Apple’s site.

Shower Power
Although Apple hasn’t outright said so, the iPad is probably very water resistant. That means you can take it in the shower with you and have it play music, so you can bless the world with your wonderful shower voice as you sing along in perfect tune. Have no idea what tune means? That’s okay! Just use the T-Pain auto-tune app!

Fat Chat
The rates of obesity in the US seem to have begun plateauing. That means we need a new way to burn even fewer calories. If you thought walking to your computer desk was hard work, fret no more! You can use the iPad from your couch (or kitchen)! Perhaps more important is that you no longer have to expend all that energy pressing down physical keys, so you can cut that calorie-burning typing from 30 calories an hour to 15!

Shopper Stopper
Being very “green” is an important part of feeling better than everyone around you, so avoid harming a recyclable piece of paper and instead bring your iPad charged with power from a coal power plant. It can feature your shopping list and pictures of what items look like (in case you can’t remember what an apple looks like when it doesn’t have a bite already taken out). As a bonus, you can use it to explain to other shoppers how they are pissing you off by blocking your ability to shop quickly.

Crime Time
Ever walk through a sketchy part of town at night and feel like you’d be much safer if you had one of those big, black police flashlights? No worries! Just download one of the many “flashlight” apps on your iPad and hold it out in front of you. Why would a criminal risk robbing you when you’re clearly lighting the way with a $500-$830 flashlight?

Camper Pamper
Ever go camping and wish you weren’t camping? Well, now you can almost pretend you aren’t by watching pre-recorded videos that you’ve re-encoded and synced on your 4:3 device. It’s just like watching TV at home! If a bear attacks you, just download a picture of a forest fire and hold it out in front of you. You’re guaranteed to be safe. As an added bonus, the iPad doubles as a Frisbee when the battery dies!

Now that you’re thinking positively, feel free to add your own suggestions!