Last weekend, a friend of mine (we'll call her "Tiffany," because her name is Tiffany) posted on Facebook that she was off to buy an iPad. "Finally getting one!" she wrote, and her choice was affirmed by dozens of Likes on her status and comments like "!!!!!" and "wooooooo." One of Tiffany's pals, in fact, was so excited that he could only manage an "OMGGGGGG," being so shocked that he was apparently transformed into a polytheist.
Well, I hate to be the bear of bad news here, so to speak, but Tiffany: There is no worse time than right now to buy an iPad.
This goes for the rest of you, too, and not just friends of mine who happen to be named Tiffany: Unless you really, really need one, you should NOT buy an iPad this month. Don't do it. There will almost certainly be a new iPad announced on March 7, and you are going to feel somewhere between silly and stupid if you spend $500 on an iPad 2 when you could have gotten a superior iPad 3 (or iPad 4G, or iPad 2S, or whatever it's called) for the same price or less if you had waited a few weeks.
At this point, we know enough about the release timeframe of the next iPad that paying full price for an iPad 2 is just a foolish way to part with your money. Unless you're also buying a $131,000 smartphone this February, wait until March rolls in to get your iPad.
Here's why:
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Posted: 02/16/12 06:08 PM ET | Updated: 02/16/12 06:08 PM ET