People who argue that microwaves has/had no clear use have clearly not worshiped their microwave for sterilizing baby bottles in no time at 2am with a screaming baby at hand.
Therein lies the interesting fact: The new, "in the middle" device may trigger new approaches and ways of life that may indispensable. The baby bottle sterilizer is an unexpected but vital byproduct of the microwave.
The very best gifts are the ones that you didn't know you wanted until you received one, and thereafter you discover that you can no longer live without them. My first microwave was a gift from my sister, and it followed this pattern. I scoffed at them as being convenient but taking up counter space for a function that my stove could accomplish already. Soon after she gave me one, I started wondering how I lived without it.
Great products fit this mold exactly. People scoff until they try it, then they become attached to it, and finally dependent upon it.
Great point! I feel like smartphones were like this too. When the iPhone first came out I scoffed at my buddy for paying $600 for a phone (in an age when a large variety of phones were available for free with contract). Now I can't live without my smartphone.
I realize the frustration in receiving any parenting advice at all, but please bear in mind that being too strict in what germs the baby comes in contact with early on can have negative long term effects.
I'm sure you know this already, just a thing to keep in mind.
The issue with sterilizing bottles isn't to protect the kid from germs as much as it is to make sure that if mom has to pump into a bottle and store the milk for extended periods of time (often frozen eventually) it doesn't spoil. It's not any different than making something like freezer jam and sterilizing the jars. In general, pump parts themselves also can be sterilized this way in a special bag with a bit of water.
Actually, I had a microwave and didn't like it, hardly used it, eventually got rid of it. Even for your use case above. I instead have a standalone steam sterliser that's as quick as the microwave and a better user experience because it's much less fiddly and therefore quicker to load the bottles.
Great points. As a funny side point, for a time my parents didn't have a microwave after moving once when I was a kid. The killer use of microwaves that got us to get one? Reheating baby food. There's just no efficient way to do it on a stove, other than putting it in a small jar in a pot of boiling water :)
Solution: Stir it. (And check it, and also microwave less; small amounts of food may require single-digit seconds, so don't just smash the minute button.)
There's actually a number of ways to make your parenting life a bit easier if you dig past why you're getting certain bits of advice, then take action based on the underlying facts rather than the resulting "official advice" suitable for parents with an IQ of 90 (and I do not mean that as a joke in the slightest, they are real, and I don't really begrudge the official "advice givers" for the resulting advice). Cough medicine in particular was a real life-saver for us one week when I dug into why we couldn't use it. It turns out that just about the only reason not to give it to your two-year-old is that somebody else ignored the clear directions on the label and either gave them too much or used it on purpose for the sleep-inducing side effect. Solution: Don't do that.
The problem with parenting is sleep deprivation. And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food. I know it sounds dumb, but I know prominent physics professor personally who had made a cake without eggs... and even when it came out looking funny served it and wasn't until people started eating it did they realize, "Wait... I didn't use the eggs on the counter!"
Regarding cough medicine, the issue appears to be effectiveness. Most doctors now recommend honey for babies (older than one) as it actually appears to be as effective. See: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799
There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect. Unless there are allergies or other conditions, honey just seems like the better choice.
"And honestly, having a high IQ isn't sufficient for attention to detail, like stirring food."
Part of the problem here is that if you type it all out it sounds horrible. In reality, the world is not as dangerous as an Internet debate can make it sound. Type out the full description of what's involved in walking down the stairs and you'll make an emotionally-appealing for banning them ("my god, any one muscle fails to work and you can fall to your death!"), but it has no correspondence to reality. In my judgment, I am not even remotely endangering my kids in the real world. You are welcome to your opinions, but in my opinion turning my judgment over to others is itself not a good judgment.
"There have also been studies that show that cough medicine may simple have the placebo effect."
Right. Kid goes from a hacking cough that kept him awake for three nights straight to fast asleep (and resumed coughing the next day & night, so "he just got better at the same time" isn't on the table either) and it was all placebo, for a kid who can't even talk yet. Sure.
Honey's an interesting thought which I may consider, except that there's no evidence that cough syrup is a problem, except vague nervousness because there haven't been any "scientific studies" on the topic. However I consider the abundant real-world experience that preceded the hand-wringing about it not being "properly" studied to trump it; on the scale of evidence scientific studies are not the highest good, the real world trumps it (which is actually a core tenant of any decent theory of science, any theory of science missing that isn't worth anything), and it was extremely widely deployed for a long time before some people got nannyish about it. If it were noticably bad, we wouldn't have to theorize, we'd know. (At best it can have a small below-the-noise-floor effect; widespread experience can't prove 0 bad effect but it can and does put a rather low upper bound on it.)
(In fact I'm rather strongly of the opinion that there are numerous real-world examples in the field of medicine and nutrition in which science has "studied" itself into wildly wrong beliefs that nobody would have taken seriously but for the failures in the scientific process and the misapplication of its authority, and as much as I love science and wish I didn't have to do this, I've really deprioritized science in this area.)
Right. Kid goes from a hacking cough that kept him awake for three nights straight to fast asleep (and resumed coughing the next day & night, so "he just got better at the same time" isn't on the table either) and it was all placebo, for a kid who can't even talk yet. Sure.
That is the exact logic people use to say that vaccines cause autism.
There's several problems with the statement made by Jerf. First, there's no control group. Second, there's breakdown of what actually helped the child feel better. Was it the active ingredient or something else? Lastly, w/o looking at a larger group its unclear how widely applicable it is.
Again, let me reiterate, if it works for you, that's great. There are people who appear to be largely immune to HIV. For them unprotected sex carries little risk of AIDS. But an isolated statement about a single person is only an isolated statement about a single person. That one person has great advice, but its not generalizable w/o more information.
"There's several problems with the statement made by Jerf. First, there's no control group."
Ah, you're making a critical error, which is frequently made by people. There can't be a control group. This is real life, not a science experiment. It is not possible to life your life in the realm strictly covered by science.
By far the dominant theory from a Bayesian perspective is that the kid had a cough (abundantly demonstrated from evidence), that the thing called "cough syrup" worked as designed, and that once it wore off the cough returned. There is no science here. We can no go back and "rerun" the experiment. The use of science terminology to attack my experience is actually a deep, deep perversion of the principles of science. The tools are completely inapplicable.
Unfortunately, it has become abundantly clear that again from a Bayesian perspective, reading a medical paper about something like cough syrup in toddlers and expecting it to contain Unvarnished Truth is not justified.
The use of science terminology to attack my experience is actually a deep, deep perversion of the principles of science. The tools are completely inapplicable.
I'm not using science to attack your experience. I've tried to say several times, and in many different ways, if it works for you great.
BUT I am using science to say that you haven't made a scientific statement. You've made a statement about your son in a specific instance. That's it. And that's fine. As you say, that's your experience. But that's about all you can say.
I just went back really quickly and checked. The only scientific statement I made is that there's no particular scientific evidence that cough syrup in normal doses is bad, which is true to the best of my knowledge. It was shut down due to a lack of scientific evidence of safety, but I'm perfectly satisfied with the decades of safe use (at correct doses) prior to that decision. Had the Feds stopped usage because at normal doses they encountered some problems in some children, I'd have come to different conclusions, but to the best of my problems this case has not occurred (beyond possibly low allergy levels, which you just can't paralyze yourself over, just about everything has someone allergic/reactive to it). And an encouragement to find out what the real reasons are behind the opaque advice and think for yourself. I never claimed that the fact that it worked once (or, actually, twice, but I didn't mention that; we actually do not reach straight for the medicine in general but when the child is on their third day of sleep deprivation the balances change, and again note that when I say the child here I mean it; we were trading off and actually we were well-rested overall) proved anything "scientifically".
(Incidentally, the same appears to be true of Benedryl, for what it's worth.)
I think your detectors for anti-scientific crackpot triggered, which I understand because someone who actually deeply understands science and its limits can accidentally trigger them sometimes where the science is particularly iffy or thinner than advertised.
The fear I have is that it seems like I'm being critical, and I certainly don't intend that. You clearly have thought about this, frankly probably more than I have. We just disagree, and honestly its fairly minor for the most part.
In any case, lets not be these ladies if our kids ever do have a party together:
>on the scale of evidence scientific studies are not the highest good,
Hear, hear. There's a highly effective headache medicine called Midrin which has been pulled from the market because the FDA demanded proof that it was effective, and it wasn't profitable enough to be worth doing the studies. It predates the law that required medicines be proven effective (as opposed to just safe), so it was grandfathered...for about four decades. Four decades of patient experience (plus however long it was on the market before that) ought to be enough to say, yes, this stuff does work.
>the real world trumps it (which is actually a core tenant of any decent theory of science,
Part of the problem here is that if you type it all out it sounds horrible. In reality, the world is not as dangerous as an Internet debate can make it sound. Type out the full description of what's involved in walking down the stairs and you'll make an emotionally-appealing for banning them ("my god, any one muscle fails to work and you can fall to your death!"), but it has no correspondence to reality. In my judgment, I am not even remotely endangering my kids in the real world. You are welcome to your opinions, but in my opinion turning my judgment over to others is itself not a good judgment.
Stairs are fairly dangerous for some people. Our neighbors child has fallen down their stairs three times, and only on the last one did he even need a trip to the hospital. He'll be fine. And probably between the age of three to 85 he's not in any serious danger of falling again. But that's an aside.
The real point is that many of the recommendations may not apply to you. That's fine, don't follow them (especially when it comes to your child... that's one place where you have extreme flexibility). But they are meant to apply to a large population, and I don't think IQ is the best metric to apply to determine if you're in that population.
"The US National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance program reported that OTC CCM preparations were responsible for 7091 visits to emergency departments (EDs) during 2004 and 2005 in children younger than 12 years old. This represented almost 6% of total ED visits related to medication. Of these cases, 66% were due to unsupervised ingestion. A quarter of cases were due to properly administered medications with undesired outcomes. Eight times more children presented with effects of medication errors related to OTC CCMs compared with other medications. While children aged 2 to 5 years represented the largest group in this study, children younger than age 2 had the highest rate of adverse reactions.8 Providing further evidence of the ED burden related to OTC CCMs, the Centers for Disease Control reported that 1519 patients younger than the age of 2 were treated in American EDs in 2005 for problems related to OTC CCMs.
The true prevalence of OTC CCMs in pediatric illness might be underreported. Physicians might not consider the role of such medications in various presentations, such as apparent life-threatening events (ALTEs). Pitetti et al reported 13 out of 274 (5%) patients presenting with ALTEs had evidence of OTC CCM use on toxicology testing.10 This raised concern about the potential role of OTC CCMs in ALTEs and led the authors to conclude that toxicology screening should be performed in all cases of ALTEs. "
In fact I'm rather strongly of the opinion that there are numerous real-world examples in the field of medicine and nutrition in which science has "studied" itself into wildly wrong beliefs that nobody would have taken seriously but for the failures in the scientific process and the misapplication of its authority, and as much as I love science and wish I didn't have to do this, I've really deprioritized science in this area.
Science doesn't have the truth. It has the best theory for the data at the time. But I do think in general that I trust "scientists" more than the mom trying to convince me that SIDS doesn't exist from first principles.
"I don't think IQ is the best metric to apply to determine if you're in that population."
Me neither, but I've found that taking fifteen minutes to clearly specify the exact thing I mean has a pretty bad payoff. As shorthand goes, it's fine. This is HN, not a medical journal.
And there's a world of relevant difference between SIDS doesn't exist vs. cough syrup does what it says on the tin. This is another thing that's damned easy to do on the Internet, blur lines between various fuzzy things, but also has no relationship to reality. No, I am in fact not denying the Holocaust by thinking that the evidence suggests that cough syrup actually does work.
I'm all for free range kids, but your neighbors seriously have a toddler and no gate at the top of their stairs? On the third fall he went to the hospital? My god... what's wrong with those people.
I lived a rough and tumble childhood, and I'm better for it... but that's just lunacy.
"Most doctors now recommend honey for babies (older than one) as it actually appears to be as effective. "
Here's something I don't understand. In some cultures, honey is the _first_ thing they give to a newborn. Out of the womb, into the doctor's hand, and the first thing they give the newborn is honey. I don't know why in the US they prohibit honey.
Because unpasteurized honey can contain botulism spores. It's a small enough quantity not to bother an older stomach, but infants can die from it. I guess pasteurized honey is safe, but doesn't taste very good.
My question is: why in the world would you give a newborn infant honey? I can't imagine the logic that says, "hey, a baby just popped out of a vagina, let's get some honey into that sucker, stat!"
In India, it's the done thing. It's done to get the newborn swallowing. Typically, a relative who's in the delivery room dips a finger in honey and applies a little bit to the roof of the mouth (of the newborn). In fact, there's a saying, "I gave you honey" (said by an older person to a young 'un), which means, "I gave you life", which comes from this procedure.
Look at the population of India. Do you think the "botulism spores" have caused any damage?
Compare the rates of allergy in the US (for instance) and India. When I was in India, I hadn't even heard of something called "allergy". And in the US, it's all around.
India is not the US. And while that seems snarky I mean that botulism is complex. While honey may be the carrier to infants in the US, honey in India, due to several other factors, may not have the same incidence of spores. That is a recommendation in the US or Argentina, may not apply to India or Africa.
Look at the population of India. Do you think the "botulism spores" have caused any damage?
Besides the obvious, "YES!", what effect does your statement have on the fact that American babies have died from botulism spores found in raw honey?
Have you verified that, of Indian infants who died, all were tested for botulism?
I suspect you haven't, and it sounds like maybe you're just ranting about the tangential subject of cleanliness and allergy. But hey, maybe a few dead babies and some hookworm (42.8% infection rate) is better than popping a Claratin.
Honey is also the best cough medicine for adults, especially mixed with lemon juice and decongestant essential oils. Cough medicine is generally to be avoided unless you're trying to get high.
suitable for parents with an IQ of 90 (and I do not mean that as a joke in the slightest, they are real, and I don't really begrudge the official "advice givers" for the resulting advice).
In fact, some 25% of the population is 89 or below. No reason to treat that as a joke, really.
That's a good warning. My wife always did a quick spoon-to-her-lips check on the food temperature as precaution. Similar idea to squirting the milk on your wrist.
As always, pay attention to how the child reacts, too.
Stretching the metaphor even farther off-topic, Mummy's boob has proven itself an even more impressive invention for this particular problem in our house. :)
No (extra) sterilization, no manual refilling, no going to the store to get formula, etc.
I don't expect we'll evolve an embedded display that can run Flipboard anytime soon, however.
I don't think we ever sterilized bottles other than picking out a fresh one that had been through a hot cycle on the dishwasher (i.e. the same as every other pot, pan, plate, fork, knife etc.).
Great article. It really explains to me the success of the iPad, which from my geeky, feature-centered, cheapskate perspective made little sense. I bought a netbook one year after the iPad came out, which seemed to correspond more to my use of a lightweight computer.
Incidentally, I stopped using microwaves a few years ago. I wonder what that means my future relationship with tablets will be.
I personally had the iPad grew on me more and more to the point I rarely pull my MacBookPro when at home now. As a nerd it really helps me cut off steam and saves me from burning out. Using the iPad triggers some kind of zen moment in my day where I can contemplate, learn and create (I draw) stresslessly.
It happens that my use case of the iPad is actually the opposite of my iPhone where I'm constantly diverted by various events and notifications. It's not that the iPad is disconnected but it's more of the flowing kind and less of the pinging kind.
I don't know how far the analogy holds up. After all, microwave is not very programmable(in the computing sense) nor so restrictive.
Did the microwave only cook food that was specially labeled microwaveable(and food grocers had to pay 30% of the price of food to the microwave manufacturer to get that special label) ? Isn't that what happens with the iPad?
Eg. The free Sony e-reader app was rejected, Readability was rejected. Kindle and Netflix are on the chopping block if they don't pay up by June 30th, same with any apps for magazine or content subscriptions. Microwaves never had these restrictions.
My concern is actually in a different direction: that people will enjoy the restricting tool too much. In the microwave analogy it would be that people enjoy the convenience of microwaves so much that they abandon reguarly cooked food for packaged microwave-ready food completely.
Not that that happened with microwaves, but it seems like the danger's greater with the iPad.
The iPad is designed for consumption (yes, I know there are instances of people creating awesome stuff with the iPad, but I think it's generally true that its basic purpose is consumption) and the interaction bandwidth is so low that it discourages content production by users, which is what makes the internet so great. It degrades the great promise of all of the new technology we've been creating.
Actually, for many Americans, I'm afraid the microwave has replaced their oven, and average food quality has suffered as a result. In an odd twist, my family usually cooks fully homemade food since it's healthier, but the microwave oven is still useful.
Did the microwave only cook food that was specially labeled microwaveable
Yes. It's mostly mediocre at cooking traditional recipes, but great with foods that are specially designed for it, some of which wouldn't otherwise be feasible.
and food grocers had to pay 30% of the price of food to the microwave manufacturer to get that special label
If there were legal and technical means to license microwaveable food, I'm sure someone would do it.
>Did the microwave only cook food that was specially labeled microwaveable
No, but it's a bad idea to use dishes that aren't specially labeled microwaveable. And, with older microwaves, metal was right out. (Apparently things are better these days?)
Oddly enough, the microwave is the least used appliance in our kitchen. If it weren't for the fact that they are so cheap now as to be virtually free we probably wouldn't have one.
When the iPad gets to that same price point we'll probably get one as well.
I was in my previous apartment for 18 months and never turned on either the oven, or stove. I can't even tell you if it was plugged in.
The Microwave, on the other hand, was my magical baked potato maker and chinese-food/pasta reheater.
Of course, I've been in my current house for a little over a year, and don't believe I've ever heated up anything in the kitchen, so perhaps I'm an outlier.
That's why they call it a "casual computing device". Perhaps your use of the kitchen should be called "casual cooking" although even that might be over-stating it ;)
In yours maybe. In mine there's at microwave/regular oven combo which I use as an oven only when cooking cakes and pies or the odd dish requiring it. Electric stove for rumsteaks and pastas. The rest is microwave, microwave, microwave, cooking all sorts of liquids and vegetables. It is so much more energy and water efficient.
If you want to be energy-efficient, keep food hot by insulating it, not by continuing to heat it. Like in a hooikist. I can "soft-boil" a couple of eggs with a liter of nearly-boiling water from my hot-water heater, left in a thermos for half an hour.
Not unless you've sterilized it first. But putting food in an insulated container will only prolong its time in the zone between 40°F and 140°F if the temperature outside the insulated container is outside of that range. For example, if the insulated container is in a refrigerator, in an oven, on top of a cooking fire, or in a blizzard. So taken at face value, your advice is rarely applicable.
However, not all of that zone is equivalent! If your non-sterile food stays at 100°F for a long period of time, its decay rate will be much, much higher than if you keep it at 60°F. So a generalization of your advice is often applicable.
Which is precisely my use case. Me and my wife often eat small meals, sometimes even different for each of us. Many a time only one of us is at home for lunch and sometimes even for dinner.
Even when we cook larger quantities the 'traditional way' we end up heating them again the next day. Besides it's just outrageous to boil half a teapot for a singe tea cup when just filling the cup and popping it into the microwave.
When cooking vegetables with steam in the microwave we use a (provided) accessory with which you lay vegetables on a grid, fill the bottom with one glass of water, cover with a metallic lid and throw in a few minutes of power. A pressure cooker requires more water, a longer heat up time and a longer cooking time. It is also extremely bulky. We have one but never use it.
The only times when I wish for a microwave are when I am staying in a hotel room without one. Maybe tablets will replace the hotel brochure, the room service menu and the bible in the hotel rooms at some point?
I wouldn't like to give mine up; it's handy for reheating and other miscellaneous tasks. But I likely don't find it as essential as a lot of people do.
Except for the user interface (again, like tablets). Some still lack "add minute" buttons, or require you to press "Timed cook" or some such before you start typing in the time.
Maybe, but the iPad is a microwave that will only heat Apple certified food.
And while Apple said it will only use their certification program to prevent the heating of cats, it took only a few days until Apple prohibited heating aluminium foil, then raw eggs, alcohol (bad for you anway!), and finally - any meat. Tofu and mineral water is fine by Steve, though...
I think the argument of the article applies not just to the iPad, but also to similar devices (I'm thinking the coming Android tablets), which provide the same combination of instant-on and touchscreen.
Waiting ages for your computer to boot? What are you - living in the 90s? There's this thing called sleep mode, and that's how the iPad works as well. Upgrade to a real OS, and then maybe your article won't sound like retarded drivel.
In my opinion, anything more than instant now feels like waiting for ages. Sure, my netbook comes out of sleep mode within 2 seconds, but it's sure more sluggish for the first several seconds after that. Even Macs aren't fully instant on, unless you perhaps have an SSD. Sorry, I'm running fairly modern PC hardware with Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but there's just no way it's going to feel as fast to grab and check email as my iPad.
Sure. So perhaps it's not a net win or lose either way. The iPad is quicker to get up and going with, perhaps like a car with higher octane fuel. Long haul, the computer's going to win out for sure. But that initial feel of faster, and the way you can just grab it and go instead of sitting down at a desk to check email or get online, will make most consumers prefer tablet computers to full comptuers. Same as oven vs. microwave. It's much faster to bring 10 gallons of water to boil on a stove, but your cold cup of coffee would be reheated much easier in the microwave. Complementary devices, some similar use cases, but for the most part the microwave let us warm food we otherwise would have just eaten cold. The iPad brings computing in an non-intrusive manner to areas we otherwise would have not used computers.
And it's not just the iPad; Android Tablets will play a big part, and HP/Microsoft/RIM/others will as well. But for now, the iPad is the 900 lb. gorilla in the room, pushing tablet computing forward.
I don't care for microwaves, except for heating up water for tea, which it is great for, but I like breads, and microwaves cook away the water inside the gluten making bread rather rubbery. I do like my Dell Mini 9 netbook, and my XDA-found custom ROM for my Nook Color! :D
I have a kettle, and it is just as quick, but is there a fundamental difference? Does the microwave "scorch" the water? Whatever that might be (ie, make it hotter than it needs to be, manipulate the minerals in the water in a way that affects taste?)
Water should be boiling, not just hot. When you say 'heat up water', it suggests it's not at the point of vigorous boil to really extract the flavour. Allow me to quote Douglas Adams:
"One or two Americans have asked me why it is that the English like tea so much, which never seems to them to be a very good drink. To understand, you have to know how to make it properly.
There is a very simple principle to the making of tea and it's this - to get the proper flavour of tea, the water has to be boiling (not boiled) when it hits the tea leaves. If it's merely hot then the tea will be insipid. That's why we English have these odd rituals, such as warming the teapot first (so as not to cause the boiling water to cool down too fast as it hits the pot). And that's why the American habit of bringing a teacup, a tea bag and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a thin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink. The Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans have never had a good cup of tea. That's why they don't understand. In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants. "
I was skeptical about this, but some years ago my wife got me to do a taste test, and I had to agree that tea from the teakettle tasted marginally better.
Accounting for inflation, I'm sure they were more than $600 2011USD when they became popular.
My family was a relatively late adopter of the microwave.. I think we got one around 1984. It was a used model that (IIRC) cost $300 which would be about $611 now. If you bought a new one in the 70s it would have been quite a bit more than that.
I enjoyed the article, but I just can't completely agree. The microwave is seen as essential because it gives us humans such a valuable asset - time. Our time is hugely valuable. I don't see tablets, iPad or other, having that same impact. Sure they have some great qualities and they can make some tasks easier and more convinient, but not significiantly quicker. That doesn't mean they're not going to successful of course, I just don't seem them becoming ubiquitous.
Good analogy. To add to the analogy - I don't have an iPad and I very rarely use a microwave, because freshly prepared food tastes better then microwaved food, movies look better on the HD projector, and it is much more convenient to read and type on a macbook pro then on an iPad (with or without a wireless keyboard). And yet, at some point everyone will have an iPad, when it is cheap enough to replace the magazine basket.
I still can't understand how to use the iPad. It doesn't do what my Mac Book can and I can do what it does on my iPhone. For eBooks I have my Kindle which is much better to read on. The only use I've seen so far that it excels in is in use in debates. The speaker can have more than one document up at a time. Other than that?????
I'm the opposite, I have an iPad, but no iPhone - am actually considering an iPhone now (might as well wait for the next tech refresh). But to quote my mate Dave, since I got my iPad, I just use my iPhone as a phone!
Everyone should have a mate called Dave, think I'll just stick to my nokia classic for telecoms.
i m not a apple fan, but this analogy really do justice with the iPad. though there is one major flaw with it - last time i checked, the iPad cant be activated without other computer. you need to connect it to some computer and activate it via itunes. so not really microwave. microwave with DRM maybe?
Your microwave doesn't need to be backed up or software updated on a regular basis. Syncing data between the iPad and a computer (photos, books, music, etc) is optional at this point. In the future I assume backups/software updates will not require a computer either but it is a challenge to backup 16/32/64GB to the cloud on a regular basis for most people with mediocre broadband connections and basically impossible over 3G due to data caps/throttling. I guess if we want to stick with the microwave analogy we could say the microwave cannot be activated before being plugged into an electrical socket. It's a practical consideration. We could have microwaves that ran on batteries but what's the point? If you own a microwave you probably have a spot to plug it in. If you own an iPad you probably have a computer of some kind. Worse case Apple will activate it for you.
For the larger issue of DRM I must say I've never used a microwave that was more open than an iPad. I can't load any third party software into my microwave. I can't even find any schematics for the internal designs to allow for my own modifications. I'm pretty sure companies like GE own patents for many of the components inside so I couldn't reproduce them and sell my own open source microwave.
I've read all the arguments against the iTunes activation step, not many for to be fair, but I believe I represent the silent majority that just doesn't mind that imposition. The iPad is book matched with it's sync software, ipad owner will then continue to use their sync software because it provides all the access to the music, movies, photos, apps, ...
As I remember, my US Robotics palm pilot did work without the initial sync, but I wouldn't have like to have trusted my data without sync and backup.
What's your particular problem with the initial sync stage?
If i can get an ipad w/o a having a mac, then I will agree it is akin to a microwave. I can't buy one for my parents, since they have no mac. how would they update it? activate it, etc?
Therein lies the interesting fact: The new, "in the middle" device may trigger new approaches and ways of life that may indispensable. The baby bottle sterilizer is an unexpected but vital byproduct of the microwave.