Good Grief, dhs12345, there are thousands of places that will replace your iPod, iPhone, iPad batteries for as low as under $10, or you can do it yourself. A removable battery requires 60% more space (battery case, access port, connection, latching). 30% more weight (see previous parenthetical comment). Replace your batteries and move on!
Apple bad experience #2: My (wife's) ipad. Although it still works I am having trouble getting apps for it. Another $600. BTW, it was a b-day present for my wife and my wife is not happy. Guess where I put it? In the drawer in with the pile of dead iPods.
So you gave up. What iOS version is running on your iPad? I would bet there are tens of thousands of apps that still run. But you seem to want to do things out side of the norm. . . You don't want to let the iOS handle your mail, contacts, or other integrated things iOS is famed for doing... you want an APP to do it for you. . . because you want it done YOUR way. You want to tweak and twonk the operating system. You think that hardware and software don't advance in four years? So sad to disabuse you of that. . . but both more on. Apple does the best it can to bring its older hardware forward but when it no longer can, that product has reached its end of practical life. That doesn't mean its obsolete. If it still works, it still works. But YOU stuck it in a drawer. Why not sell it. Buy your wife what you want. Move on.
Apple bad experience #3: My dads Power Mac G5 and Canvas. The darn thing was released in 2003 and retired in 2006! AFTER ONLY 3 YEARS!!! Anyway, my dad created a bunch of family tree documents in Canvas and we are no longer able to read them and convert them to a more modern format where we can use them. Guess what, software and hardware support is gone.
OH, that's got you upset has it. Apple did not write Canvas. Why do you hold Apple responsible for the decisions of a third party publisher? They chose to not bother to do the easy conversion to the later conversion to OSX beyond Panther. It took just two weeks to convert Illustrator to OSX for Intel but Canvas elected against doing it. Apple would even help those developers who asked. Canvas didn't ask.
That said, Canvas was a powerful program that could output its files in a myriad (i exaggerate only slightly) of file formats. What format did your dad have his files stored in? The files should still be readable on the HD. Does he still have his PowerMac? If so, boot into Panther, run Canvas and save the files out in a modern file format. I'd suggest JPEG. If you have the software, but the PowerMac is not bootable, there are still ways to perhaps get at your files. Let me know and perhaps I can give you some pointers at what we can try.
>>> Hey, we upgraded our phones over the weekend. We came VERY close to getting Iphones (based on your input) and very seriously considered Apple but ended up with Samsung G5s androids. The bang for the buck for Iphones just isn't there.
For the same price, we were able to buy VERY SMART phones. My son is still learning all of the capabilities. For example, the voice recog software is excellent, the gui is superb with multiple windows like a desktop, files can be copied from one phone to the other by placing them back to back, BATTERIES ARE REPLACEABLE, the screen is much bigger, tons of cool apps and apps that cost $ from Apple are FREE on android, etc. etc.
>>>Summary: Android is an open platform whereas Apple is closed. It is interesting that Android has taken over Microsoft as the “open” competitor to Apple. BTW, we gave the Microsoft phones a two second consideration.