{"id":5701,"date":"2011-04-03T16:57:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T12:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=5701"},"modified":"2011-04-03T17:01:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T13:01:16","slug":"my-name-is-shelina-and-i-want-an-ipad2-and-a-handbag-and-make-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/technology-in-the-middle-east\/my-name-is-shelina-and-i-want-an-ipad2-and-a-handbag-and-make-up\/","title":{"rendered":"My name is Shelina and I Want an IPad 2 (and bag, and…)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My name is Shelina and I want an iPad 2.<\/p>\n

All morning on March 25, the day of the global launch, I wondered if I should go and queue up outside my nearest Apple Store. Should I be one of the anointed legion of iPad 2 pioneers?<\/p>\n

I had to restrain myself from lining up to receive the sacrament of Mr Jobs\u2019s latest offering. I pictured myself in the queue: woman in a headscarf, big pram, breastfeeding my newborn baby whilst waiting for the 5pm launch. Would I have traded in my baby to get to the front? No comment.<\/p>\n

I used to mock the Apple zombies, with their illogical dedication to gadgets that are never quite the best available pieces of technology. I\u2019ve concluded that Apple-worship is like being a Trekkie \u2013 either you get it or you don\u2019t, and there\u2019s no middle ground. And with the launch of the iPad 2 I\u2019ve crossed over to the dark side. My computer screen is covered with drool as I gaze lustfully at its images online.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not to love about the slender curves of metal and glass? It\u2019s thin, it\u2019s light, it connects to your TV, and it has a slidey-foldy cover that comes in at least eight colours. We won\u2019t talk about the price tag. Or the fact that I don\u2019t really need one. Or that a newer version will probably be released just as I\u2019ve become accustomed to the sweepy-slidey finger movements that operate this gorgeous little beast.<\/p>\n

Or that it seems to be a slimmer version of the children\u2019s toy Speak & Spell that I had when I was six. Oh, that was a fabulous gadget, complete with liquid crystal display and a keyboard made of squiggly buttons. Perhaps that was the gateway drug to my current gadget craving.<\/p>\n

The smaller and slicker these gadgets become, the more appealing they are. Especially if you\u2019re a woman fighting the perennial problem of the overloaded handbag. And the new iPad 2 \u2013 like many other gadgets \u2013 is now teeny enough to slide into all but the smallest of purses.<\/p>\n

According to the UK shopping chain Debenhams, the weight of the average British woman\u2019s handbag was a staggering 3.3kgs in 2008, the equivalent of carrying three and a half bags of sugar (and the same as my newborn baby). But, as paper organisers have been replaced by multipurpose phones and laptops that themselves have become lighter, this figure is now a much more manageable 1.5kg.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the weight of the handbag \u2013 nor the gadgets that reside within it \u2013 that are fascinating; it\u2019s the cost of the contents of the typical handbag. This comes in at more than \u00a3250 (Dh1,471). And that doesn\u2019t include those luscious gadgets; it is just the cost of all the make-up that women carry with them wherever they go. According to Debenhams, a woman\u2019s supply of warpaint alone is worth as much as \u00a3256 on average. In fact, nine out of 10 women said that they wouldn\u2019t step out of the house without their mascara.<\/p>\n

With the entry-level iPad 2 coming in at \u00a3399, it doesn\u2019t feel that different in price to all the make-up in the handbag, and probably a whole lot less heavy to carry.<\/p>\n

So now I have to decide: gadget or face goo? Both are about good looks and sleek finishes. The marketing hype for each tells me that I can\u2019t live without them. The solution might be an iPad application to replace the make-up the average woman needs. It could be called iWorthit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SHELINA ZAHRA JANMOHAMED: So now I have to decide: gadget or face goo? Both are about good looks and sleek finishes. The marketing hype for each tells me that I can\u2019t live without either. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,90,9],"tags":[855,1248,2219,275,18337,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}