Reid’s story of iPad frustration isn’t worthy of an Executive Email Carpet Bomb, but it’s pertinent for those who expect to rip the device out of the box and start iPadding. He says the device requires you to hook it up to iTunes for activation. Because Reid couldn’t get to a computer with iTunes, he had to wait longer to get rolling. This is the kind of user-unfriendliness that has landed Apple in the Worst Company in America Sweet 16.

He writes:

Soon after I pre ordered the iPad I we taking a trip during the launch date, i promptly called apple and changed the address on my order.

Launch day comes around, I get the package from the desk at my hotel, go back up to my room and open it….. Only to see the infamous “connect to iTunes” icon flash on the screen….. Realizing i didn’t bring my laptop, I go down to the business center to attempt to install iTunes and activate my iPad….. Of course the business center computers have limited privileges and I’m unable to, i ask the desk if they could contact IT and provide temporary admin access to install and immediately uninstall iTunes …. As I thought this wasn’t a possibility…. So i then proceeded to sit in the hotel lobby waiting for anyone with a backpack to walk by and immediately asking if I could possibly use their laptop for 5 minutes to activate my iPad…. I did this for 45 minutes….. I found one person with a PowerBook g4 and got all the way past downloading iTunes and it wouldn’t install because he had an older version of OSX…… So… I continued in my quest … Finally 10 minutes later I found one person with a net book with only 5% battery life remaining and he was more than willing to help, surprisingly, even though it took 4~ minutes to boot up and a long time for iTunes to install … We got it done….

I’m sorry, a wifi only iPad shouldn’t need to be activated, I shouldn’t of had to bring my laptop with me in order to assure I would be able to use my iPad on launch day…. Come on apple… I shouldn’t need to activate my laptop like device with a laptop in order to use it….

If you know of a workaround, please share. And if you’ve got an iPad, has buyer’s remorse set in or are you happy with the purchase?

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