Sorry, just need to vent (in the same way that an active volcano needs to vent).
I've just had to buy an iPad today for DS2 because his school requires it. They came up with some bollocks about why it had to be an iPad.
We are an Android household. I've spent well over two hours doing basic setup to fit in (roughly) with the way I do things (I'm quite tech savvy and have a particular way of doing things for very good reasons). And there are several things to do with parental controls and access to the Apps store that I simply cannot do without a second Apple device and there is no fucking way I am spending several hundred pounds simply to be able to approve things that need to be done (install the apps the school wants, for one thing).
I am usually quite calm and reserved but this evening I used a large number of words (in his presence) that I'm sure my son thought that I didn't know. And he described me as jumping up and down like a monkey as I repeatedly stabbed an innocent cardboard box with a screwdriver to release the tension.
I will not be going to the Parents' evening where they deliver a patronising lecture on the dangers of the Internet partly because I will find it very hard not to disgrace myself and partly because I've somehow managed to bring my kids up in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect.
I used to think that both Apple and Google had their place, and it was mainly a matter of choice but after today's experience I am now firmly in the camp of Apple haters.