Oooh, Shiny!
Okay I've now had a chance to see the iPad (which, by the way, is not the name I was expecting at all - though I like it) on-line and I have to say, for the first time I'm going to get one and be one of those early adopters. You know the ones - they have scorch marks surrounding their pockets where thick wads of cash have spontaneously combusted. I am drawing the line at camping out or pretty much lining up at all. I'll put in my order on-line and go pick it up at my leisure when it arrives.
After spending a significant amount of time reading all the
comments about it and thereby avoiding doing any actual work, as Mary is quick
(too quick) to point out, I've come to a couple of conclusions
One, people are silly. This didn't come about all because of the iPad, but it helps to reiterate it frequently. Then you'll be less surprised when people do or say something silly. Like now. I remember when the iPhone came out, every one was all 'it'll be a failure, an epic disaster like New Coke' and all that. They were wrong. So very, very wrong. So wrong that it's actually something of a mystery for me that they have decided not to move out to some rural commune out in the middle of Nebraska far from the nearest wifi hotspot and taken up vows of technological abstinence. But as usual, there they are pontificating again, regardless of their inability to accurately forcast what they'll be having for dinner, much less predicting the success or failure of a consumer electronic device.
Second, now that I've seen the iPad, I like what I see. See?
Right now when I travel I carry the following:
Laptop 97 ounces
Laptop power supply 13 ounces
iPhone 5 ounces
Sony eReader 12
ounces
Notepad and pen 13
ounces
Digital camera 5 ounces
Yes, I weighed it all. I'm an engineer. I'll always be an engineer. And we weigh, measure, survey, analyze, poke, prod, and shake things. It's what we do.
So when I'm schlepping my way through an airport, like last week when my flight from Orlando got into Denver 40 minutes late and I had to jog, walk, stumble and crawl to the connecting flight 40 gates away, I was carrying along with the normal clothes, toiletries, Magic Kingdom snow globes, and such, a little over nine pounds of electronic miscellanea.
In my slightly fantastical but wonderfully peaceful world where I have an iPad, I can replace the laptop, the eReader, notebook, and in cases where I don't anticipate a great need for flash photography, the digital camera. This is a total of 8 ¾ pounds. Since the iPad weighs 1.5 pounds, I'm up 7 ¼ pounds. My spine will thank me and I'll have more capacity for snow globes. This also means I'm carrying 2 fewer power cables, and hopefully three if the iPad and iPhone power supply are interchangeable. Count me in, baby.
As to the objections to the device, well with only a couple of exceptions they seem to break down to minor quibbles, most of which don't impact me much. These objections include but are not limited to:
The bezel (or button to non-Apple initiates) is too big. News flash - here's only one button - who cares? Unless it's the size of a Buick hubcap I don't imagine it will have a significant impact.
The iPad has no cameras. I've seen this repeated a number of times elsewhere and as far as I'm concerned it's a largely baseless complaint. I'm not going to pull an iPad out to take a picture - I already have the iPhone or a digital camera for that and they're considerably smaller and easier to manage for that task. As far as videoconferencing - as Emerson Cod would say - oh, hell, no! . I personally have no desire now or in the foreseeable future to videoconference. We have a two person company and we are married to each other. I think we see quite enough of each other that video conferencing is not something we really need. And I certainly don't want to videoconference with other people since then I'd have to get out of my bathrobe and do something about the six day stubble. So no camera is actually a thumbs up in my case.
The iPad cannot multitask. This objection is one I can understand. I too want to listen to music, while reading a book, checking out lolcats, and grinding out air guitar riffs in Rock Godz! The ArenaRock Age! Game! But, as I understand it, I can multitask with Apple software components. This sounds like it deals with 90 percent of the issue right there.
It has a touch keyboard. Fine by me. And if I need a physical keyboard I can always get either the Apple dock or a Bluetooth portable keyboard. In this way I can avoid the frustration that comes about when I use ridiculously small keyboards like on Mary's Blackberry.
There is no HDMI output. Umm, newsflash. I'm not buying a tablet or a laptop to play movies on my TV - either at home or away. At home, I already have devices that do that very nicely, thanks. And they'd be jealous if I brought in something to do that task instead of them. It's important to keep one's electronic components happy and on your side - have you seen what happens in "Terminator"? On the road I've never streamed a movie to the TV in a hotel - ever. And even if I wanted to - that's just another cable to carry. Again, no thanks.
The name sounds like a feminine sanitary product. What - are you six years old? Sheesh!
No widescreen for viewing movies. Oh, My, Gawd. Call the movie police. If I want to watch a movie in comfort and in the wide screen format that the moviemaker intended, I'll do it in a theatre or at home. With popcorn. If I want to watch a few minutes of "Big Bang Theory" while waiting for my plane to board or to kill some time in the doctor's office, I'll now have a nice little device to do that. And the screen fits the function that I'll be using it for most - which is reading.
The iPad doesn't support Flash. Yup, this seems on the surface to be an issue. Except iPhones and iPod Touches don't play Flash either. And people seem to like them just fine for browsing the web. I'm going to assume this isn't a real game breaker.
A closed App system. Yes, please, thank you very much. And so far it seems like most people have been pretty happy with the App store - because you know, people seem to have an aversion to frauds, viruses, Trojans, and keyloggers. As far as I'm concerned - keep it closed. I never want to have to go through the pain and agony that I've had several times with trying to clean an infected PC.
All it all what I see is what I like.
I want to read books. I like ePub mainly because I like to know I own a book. And if I bought it once I can take it with me anywhere across platforms. I can't do that with the Kindle where all the books are proprietary DRM. Especially if the owner of that store can decided one day to take back a book I've bought. Not cool.
Oh, and while I like the e-ink screens - they suck for showing illustrations and maps and drawings that I kind of depend, on especially for histories.
I can use it to check emails and read them and type a reply in comfort. I like my iPhone but as I get up there in age, the smaller text is a bit of a pain to use. Something hardback book size for a display is great.
If I want to use it for making a call I can use a Bluetooth headset and use Skype. Great.
For general surfing the web the iPad is better for me for just the same reason that it's better than the iPhone for email - bigger display for the win. And when I'm sitting in a airport lounge where it used to take me three to five minutes to take the laptop out of it's bag, turn it on and wait for it to boot, then find a wifi signal, on my iPad I'll be happily surfing the web while humming the title track from Rock Godz!
