— Musings —04.11.2010 09:13 AM
It’s happened
I’d been warned about this.
A week ago, after lining up in the dark at a Buffalo mall to purchase three iPads – one for me, one for my lawyer, and one for another guy I owe big time – my kids have appropriated my shiny new iPad. It’s theirs.
The stuff they seem to like the most are the games (including the extraordinary Scrabble app), the interactive stuff (like the drawing apps), and – of course – the amazing clarity you get when you watch movies and videos. You see movies more clearly on the iPad than anywhere you’ve ever seen ’em, including movie theatres.
The kids didn’t need primers on how to use the iPad. Immediately, they seemed to know how to slide, swipe and pinch the images on the screen. It was like they understood it right away.
I’ve been asked a hundred times if it’s worth getting, when it appears in Canadian Apple stores later this month. My answer is that you don’t need it for music (the iPod does that), or calling people (the iPhone does that), or word processing (the Mac does that). But for everythig else, it’s amazing. For books, newspapers, movies, games, photos – anything visual – it is revolutionary.
Now, I’d get mine back, but my youngest boy is playing Scrabble on it.
I just purchased a $20 MP3 player. So there.
the kids have it… which tells the story
From the moment I looked at that machine I convulsed with laughter:) How bright it gleams (just being visual…)! But for now I sit in my comfy chair and read a book – I mean the “real thing”: None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen. Chapter One: Don’t Confuse Me with Facts
I went to Seattle the same day that Warren went to Buffalo. It looked like my iPhone on steroids except you can’t talk on it. In the Apple store I held it in one hand while trying to type on it with the other. I guess I tapped to hard with the other hand and the slippery thing fell from my left hand unto the glass display making a loud noise. Yikes! Thank goodness it didn’t break! I decided the thing was to heavy for me….sad to say! I’m happy with my macbook for now. But, being there in Seattle I fell in love with the MacAir!! Light and I think more useful than the iPad. However, it doesn’t do books etc. as Warren says like the iPad. I agree for reading books the iPad is marvellous, but if that’s all one wants I going to look into the other book readers like Kobo which is cheaper: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/kobo/kobo-promo.html
I think I spotted Savonarola in the I-LINE – he seemed very excited. Did I really hear him laugh: “Away with all those notorious bonfires! I don’t need them anymore:)”
Food for thought. Birthday present.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2010/01/the-ipad.html
I just bought the New Yorker book of cartoons, ($20 on sale at Chapters) c/w with a DVD update of all their cartoons, and I haven’t laughed that much for a while, looking at the book, not the DVD. Maybe they’ll look good on an ipad. Reading the caveman one out loud is really funny.