Yesterday my friend Leanne posted about how happy she has been with her purchase of a new iPad. I myself have been on the fence about buying one, and have been curious for what things people find the iPad valuable. I have heard many many different responses. Even this past week while at a business conference I had a conversation with one of the companies lead VP’s about the possibility of getting everyone iPads, and the business advantages it would bring us.

Now during this conversation with Leanne another friend of ours posted the following…

“Not all of these apply to the iPad, of course, but check out this link and multiply all of the hefty resource and human rights issues related to the iPhone by 4 (the approximate multiple of the iPad’s size to its smaller cousin.) You should also definitely think of the impacts–social, environmental–of your high-tech purchase BEYOND your mere personal enjoyment of it.
In this day and age, it’s pretty easy to disengage from connecting all of the dots… everything is just made SO far away. http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/03/scary-truth-about-your-iphone”

When you go to the website it talks a great deal about some of the disadvantages of the iPhone and iPad. Things like….
1. The origin of where the parts are made.
2. The amount of waste that it creates to make an iPhone or ipad
3. Illegal mine operations
4. Desecration of land in the harvest of minerals
5. Padding arms dealers pockets
6. Labor and sweat shops
7. Bad safety record
8. Monopoly

Now before all of you Apple loving people go nuts out there, lets remember that I am an Apple snob myself. However I am always willing to listen to other peoples opinion. Doing a little research into this and I have found some (not all) but some credibility to the accusations.

My question to Hudson was this…

“Holy guilt trip BatMan….Hudson while I think you environmental attitude is well worth while I have a few questions?

1. What is your solution? I see you have brought a problem to the table but I see no solution to the issue. While I guess your solution could be to stop buying cell phones, ipads, etc, in todays world that is an unrealistic solution.
2. What did you use to make this comment? A computer? I believe that if I did deep enough about any electronics store, with maybe a few exceptions, I think I would find similar things to what you have posted. So again I see you bringing a problem to us, but using the very thing you abhor.

Im not saying your wrong. Truly I am not, and I am listening to you that there is a need for more awareness and understanding, but what is the solution. There are a lot of people in this world who want to bitch about problems but I see very little problem solving.”

So my question to the world is….Do you think that this is really a problem? If so what is the solution? How do we change this? Do we need to change it? Is it out of our control?