A few weeks ago now, I went to Optical Express in the Metrocentre for my three month check up, after having laser eye surgery in October. All was well. I had my iPad with me and, as so often happens, I got into a conversation about Apple products, with the guy checking my eyes. He said that he thought the iPad was very good, and that his wife wanted one, but that he was not going to buy one. I asked him why not. He said that Apple was a big greedy corporation and that he was not prepared to boost their profits.

I can’t argue with that, well perhaps a bit. Apple are a large corporation, their products are not cheap, but they are value for money.

Having read the Walter Issacson biography of Steve Jobs, I can comment a little on this. Steve was unique, he genuinely did change the world, he was a difficult person to work with, apparently, but he was not driven by profit. He had a genuine desire to make, as he called them, ‘insanely great’ products, and he succeeded.

Steve reinvented the way we listen to music, reinvented the way music is sold, reinvented the way computers are sold, reinvented the way cartoons are made, and was the motivating force behind the company that has brought us so may innovative products such as the iPad, the iPhone and of course, the iPod.

So I said to the eye specialist, it will make no real difference to Apple if they sell one more iPad, or one less, but why deprive yourself of a great product, that you would love and use, for a genuinely held, but rather pointless, principle?

He said I had a point.  I’m going back in in about two months time, I’m keen to know if his household is now the proud owner of one or more iPads.