The $20K iPad
Diamonds are a fanboi's best friend
If you're an Apple fanboi with $19,999 burning a hole in your pocket, why not spend it on The World's First Diamond iPad?
Doing so would greatly please John Mervis, Digital Strategist for Mervis Diamond Importers, a third-generation family business in the Washington DC area. As Mervis told The Reg: "We've always been trying to get into the celebrity market, so we wanted to create something that's really spectacular and unique" - such as an iPad encrusted with 11.43 carats of South African diamonds.

It's a safe bet that Steve Jobs won't be gifting Eric Schmidt with one of these come the holidays
The opulently decadent device was inspired, Mervis told us, by the diamond-encrusted HP iPod that Sean "P.Diddy" Combs famously flashed at the MTV Video Music awards back in 2004. A diamond-encrusted iPad is the logical next step: "It's just a matter of time before someone creates it, so I wanted to be the first to do it," Mervis told us.
For the gemstone-literate among you, the diamonds are graded G/H in color and VS2/SI1 in clarity, and are hand-set in what Mervis Diamond Importers describes as "micro-pave styling".
The $20K iPad doesn't yet exist, of course - Apple's more-plebeian offering isn't slated for release until April 3. But, as Mervis explained, "If anyone buys it, we'll make it".
Which is an upmarket twist on the famous dictum whispered to Kevin Costner in 1989's Field of Dreams: If you come - or call Mervis at 703-287-1615 - they will build it. ®
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COMMENTS
$19,999
Funny, but I thought the obscenely rich did not need to be "fooled" by this traditionally stupid practice of trying to make the price look lower. You know, why the hell does something cost $9.99 instead of $10?
Or even worse, my favorite pet peeve the gas station: are they going to give me $0.002 of change if the gas cost $10.998 and I pay with $11 (yup, ride a motorbike, isn't that grand)? OK, so they don't even display that third number on the price you pay at the pump anymore, but the stupid thing is there in the advertised price, e.g. $2.659 per gallon.
Anyway, how will they do if the iPad's battery croaks and they have to send the thing back to Apple, just to pay $99 and get a different unit?
Oh FFS....
...The arrival of a bling-ed up apple product is even more predictable than my bowel movements.
Instead of reporting this, we - as reg readers - should be able to safely assume that tatty tasteless expensive shite that only appeals to rappers and other various 'talents' will be on sale approximately one week after the general release to the hoi-polloi, thus freing up your journalists to write about something proper.

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