By Greg Mills

Craig Mundie, the chief research and strategy vice president at Microsoft lowered the boom recently and caused Apple management and Steve Jobs himself to reconsider the folly of manufacturing and selling iPads. The Apple iPad has no keyboard and Mr. Mundie thinks touch screen tablet computers are just a fad that won't last.  

Shaken to the core at that sage revelation, Apple hastily pulled the plug on the faulty iPad device, worldwide. Apple stock went into a tail spin and long, rowdy lines formed swiftly for people trying to return their iPad 2 at Apple stores around the world. The frantic rush was to get their money back before the refund reserve is gone and Apple goes stone broke.  

Since Apple also decided to abandon the Apple iOS in favor of Windows 7 Mobile, all iPads are now junk and iPhones are reportedly no longer working on the AT&T network. (Did the iPhone ever really work on AT&T?)

Mr. Mundie stated in a newspaper article, recently published in Australia, that; "As virtually the entire consumer electronics industry throws its weight behind tablet computers", he said he "didn't know if the booming new category was here to stay." (Microsoft wisely decided to wait the tablet fad out on the sidelines just as they did on smart phones.) 

Considering Mr. Mundie's  great stature in the the industry and the deep wellspring of wisdom always flowing from Redmond, one certainly has to take stock of the situation. Personally, I never noticed how flawed my iPad was until Mr. Mundie mentioned it. Apple, where is my keyboard on this iPad thing? 

I was living in the famous Steve Jobs "distortion zone," I guess. I thought the iPad was pretty cool before I knew better.  Mundie mentioned that Steve Ballmer has personally stated that the iPad was just a new type of PC form factor. Well, that says it all; now I can see clearly. I suspect Jobs is using mass hypnosis or the evil eye or some electronic mind warp device cooked up in the Apple labs. I hate to admit it, I was tricked!  

This is emotionally very hard for me to write, as a former Apple fan boy, but perhaps some sort of third party kit can be developed that will allow those flawed junk iPads to have a keyboard wired in and glued to them and improved internally to run Windows. Then hopefully, Ballmer will like them. It worries me a lot that he doesn't like my iPad.  I just feel cheated.

Mr. Mundie proudly touted the new Acer tablet computer, just launched, that have overcome the serious defects he sees in Apple's iPad. The new Acer tablet runs Windows and has a keyboard.  Oh, how I want one.  

The foolishness of key-boardless tablet computers has also been confirmed by Bill Gates himself.  Gates attempted to kick-start the tablet revolution over a decade ago when the company (Microsoft) supported a wide range of laptop-like devices with screens that could swivel to become tablets, operated by a stylus.  The "been there, done that" wisdom from Microsoft is hard to discount.  Gate must be right, he is one of the riches men in the world and has a lot more money than that looser Steve Jobs.

Microsoft has reportedly spend 80 billion dollars to bring us great products known as Windows Vista, Kin, Zune, Bing and the Windows 7 mobile OS. Apple has wasted about 10 billion in the same period of time and brought out flops like the iPod, iPad and iPhone. Has it already been a year? The fabulous Windows 7 Mobile platform now has 11,500 apps according to Microsoft.  

That's Greg's Bite for April Fool's Day.

(Greg Mills is currently a graphic and Faux Wall Artist in Kansas City. Formerly a new product R&D man for the paint sundry market, he holds 11 US patents. Greg is an Extra Class Ham Radio Operator, AB6SF, iOS developer and web site designer. He's also working on a solar energy startup using a patent pending process for turning waste dual pane glass window units into thermal solar panels used to heat water see: www.CottageIndustySolar.com Married, with one daughter, Greg writes for intellectual property web sites and on Mac/Tech related issues. See Greg's art web site at http://www.gregmills.info He can be emailed at gregmills@mac.com)