Image via Wikipedia

I almost missed this article, but luckily I found out about it thanks to one of my favorite bloggers, Kashmir Hill.  Essentially, an estranged wife hired a private investigator to keep tabs on her husband.  Because the PI had problems finding the man, he suggested that she place a GPS device in the husband’s car.  Husband caught leaving driveway with another woman.  Husband sues for invasion of privacy.

Appellate Judge Joseph Lisa, Jack Sabatino and Carmen Alvarez said Villanova had no right to expect privacy because the GPS tracked his movements on public streets.

“There is no direct evidence in this record to establish that during the approximately 40 days the GPS was in the … glove compartment the device captured a movement of plaintiff into a secluded location that was not in public view, and, if so, that such information was passed along by Mrs. Villanova to (Leonard),” Lisa wrote.

So essentially this opinion came down to the now-ex husband being in public places.  Kash raised the question of whether the fact that there is no expectation of privacy in marriage should have been a part of the decision.  That’s a good question, which I haven’t given much though.

Source: NJ.com

I saw this yesterday and it cracked me up.  My fiancé has an iPad (which she won) and tries to justify its utility.  I’ve played with it and still think it’s dumb.  Why? Because it’s relatively dumb to have an iPad.  An iPad doesn’t do anything my iPhone doesn’t do; it isn’t as portable; and you actually need a computer to sync and otherwise update your iPad.  I make a decent living and don’t have $500+ laying around for one.

And yet, Apple has sold over 15 million units of the original iPad.  Why? Because Apple sells “apple pie.”  Apple pie is that warm feeling you get when you watch their commercials.  The video introducing the iPad 2 shows how teachers and families can use the product.  How sweet! Not once do people stop and remember that most grandparents can’t use FaceTime because they don’t have Wi-Fi at home.  Or people don’t think about how you can use Skype for free on your computer.  Or the fact that no one calls anymore, much less video calls.

I thought making people feel good was the cardinal rule in advertising.  Apparently, I’ve been watching too much Mad Men because that’s not the case at all.  For instance, the Motorola Xoom is the iPad’s chief rival.  It is the first tablet running on Android’s Honeycomb operating system for tablets.  It’s also 4G capable. I believe it’s the best tablet on the market.  You’d think Motorola would play that up in their advertisements.  But what do they do instead? Promote its gyroscope.  Really? A gyroscope.  Who cares if you can tilt the screen? All smartphones already have them built in (and the iPad 2 has a gyroscope as well).

Many people think that Android is going to steal Apple’s market share in the tablet market just like they’ve done in the smartphone market. I’m not so sure about that. You see, Apple lost ground in the smartphone market was because they were tied to AT&T and carriers were literally giving Droids away with a two-year contract. I doubt you’re going to see that in the tablet context because many people do not sign up for contracts and opt for the Wi-Fi only version. In fact, as it stands, the Xoom costs more than all but one model of the iPad 2.

More to the point, a phone is a necessity…a tablet is not. Thus, you’ve got to work hard to make people buy something that they really don’t need. Maybe it’s a drop in the price. I don’t know how much lower Android can go on an unsubsidized device though.

I think the only way to sell tablets is to sell apple pie. And as it stands, Apple is the only company that seems to be doing just that. In a world where sex sells (based on the comments from the Xoom commercial, women think he’s hot), it still seems like family values still carry the day in the world of advertising.