Longtime readers of this blog — and anyone who had to sit through a meeting with me in the late Nineties and early Aughts — might remember my enthusiasm for a little Apple device called the Newton.
I won’t go into it’s history here, but I absolutely loved the Newton. It was a great tool for writers, lightweight and easy to use. It had a (for the time) a nice long battery life — surprisingly enough, it could run on AA batteries in a pinch. It had a nice set of native applications, including a more than adequate word processing program. And it easily sync’d with the Mac OS, making it a snap to move project files back and forth.
And, despite the bad press, I never had any difficulty with the amazing (but much maligned) handwriting recognition software.
As I said, I loved it. I first started using a Newton when I managed to cajole my bosses into buying me an eMate — a stripped down laptop running the Newton OS and sporting an amazing clamshell design that marked the first major design revolution at Apple. I took it to meetings and stopped traffic. People came in from the halls to ask about it. I could have sold a hundred of them just by showing up on client sites with it in my hands.
I loved it so much, I scraped together money I didn’t have to buy the MessagePad, a handheld “brick” version that offered much more processing power and versatility than the eMate. It wasn’t as visually impressive as it’s younger sibling, but the MessagePad stayed in my hand wherever I went.
The first lines of a short story that would eventually become Assam & Darjeeling were written on it. As was the first scenes of my adaptation of The Odyssey. Plenty of other poems and short stories and ideas started (and, sometimes, stalled) on the Newton as well. And, after shelling out a few bucks on eBay, I got my hands on a modem. So now I could do e-mail too.
Long after Apple abandoned the platform, I hung on to my Newtons (in fact, I still have them up in the attic, along with my first Mac). Sure, it was dead technology at that point, but I was still using it. In my own defense, I might very well be the person who coined the term “Zombie Technology” is justification for my commitment to the platform — with it’s eerie green glowing screen, the label was an apt one.
But eventually, I had to let it go. It was just too difficult to use in conjunction with the OSX platform and, ultimately, what had once freed me up as a writer was now slowing me down. So I buried it, tamping the dirt down as gently as I could.
Since then, I’d see little signs that the ghost of the Newton still wandered the halls of Cupertino. The scribbly little cloud puffs when you deleted a file in OSX were a cut and paste job from the Newton OS. And when the iPhone and Touch appeared with their neat little square apps and convenient dock at the bottom of the screen, I felt a familiar twinge in my fingers. Despite the disdain that Steve Jobs was rumored to have for the Newton, it was undeniable that some cannibalization was being done.
With the Touch and, later, the iPhone, I found myself once again wandering around with technology welded to my hand. And I was perfectly happy.
But . . . this was an iPad review, yes?
I apologize.
After dropping a few well-placed hints earlier this year, the nice people I work for were kind enough to give me the green light on ordering one of those newfangled iPad gizmos with all the trimmings. And they even sprung for the 3G model, pretty much ensuring that I could irritate all of humanity no matter where I went.
When it got delivered last Friday, I was out of the office taking care of Baby Sophie. Using up the last of my cajoling tokens, I was able to convince a coworker to bring it to me at the end of the day. Once the baby settled down for the evening, I started playing.
Life is, as I’ve often said, very good.
Like most everything Apple makes these days, the iPad was a breeze to activate and configure. I was off and running within minutes. You forget what a relief that is, until you have to work with something from another company.
I’d been waiting a while to get my hands on the iPad and the first hour of using the damned thing was punctuated by a series of delighted chuckles. My lovely and patient wife endured a barrage of “Oooh! And it also…” comments throughout the evening. She didn’t wholly appreciate my referring to it as Sophie’s new baby brother, but she loves me enough to know when I’m (most likely) joking.
Overall, the iPad feels great. It’s just the right size to carry in one hand, without being too heavy. And it doesn’t feel too small in two hands. After a few hours, I could feel my iPhone getting jealous.
As a media device, the iPad is outstanding. I’m not an HD or Blu-Ray snob and I don’t have a television the size of a king size mattress, so watching a movie or TV show on the iPad is no problem for me. And once you start using the YouTube, ABC TV, and Netflix apps, the geek joy goes even higher. Now I can finally watch “Lost†and see what all the yammering is about.
As an internet device, the iPad is a joy to use. These kind of things can be clunky and more trouble than they’re worth, but Apple long ago cornered the market on interface design. So it’s a relief to use a device that requires little or no time to learn — especially if you’re already familiar with the iPhone or Touch. The e-mail interface (particularly in landscape mode) is very clean and easy. And the browsing experience is terrific. Much has been made of the lack of Flash compatibility but, in all honesty, I didn’t even run across a Flash “hole” until after a day or so. And, even then, it didn’t really diminish my experience overall.
As a book reader, I’m going to make an obvious prediction and say that the Kindle’s days are likely numbered if Amazon doesn’t do something dramatic. First of all, there’s the Kindle app — which worked great on the iPhone already and is now even better on the iPad (and both of my books look great as well, just saying).
I have to admit, the new Apple Book Store seems a little derivative of what Amazon and some of the other book reader apps have already done. But that’s a minor quibble. I expect it will evolve. My only peeve with the Apple approach to books is their adoption of that damned “page turning” animation. It’s an effect I’ve always disliked when I’ve seen it elsewhere online or in interactive media. I don’t like developers pretending a screen is paper. It’s a bit condescending to their user audience and forcing the digital to ape the physical analog world just seems wrong conceptually. Programmers should be looking for new ways to let new media deliver content, setting it free to be itself instead of pretending it’s something it isn’t. But hey, that’s just me. I have issues.
(I won’t weigh in on the closed system approach Apple has taken to the device and the iTunes store as a whole. That’s a subject for a different time. Suffice it to say that the Kindle versions of both Assam & Darjeeling and Matters of Mortology are both DRM-free. Amen.)
And I was surprised at how well comics translate to the device. After downloading a number of free issues for the ComiXology and Marvel apps, I can see the appeal of, say, having the whole Claremont/Byrne run of X-Men at your fingertips. But I don’t really see anyone giving up either the social aspect of going to their local comic book store each week, or the tactile pleasure of holding the comic in your hand. I’d say the same is true for digital vs. physical books . . . although the author/publisher in me is more than a little excited by these new media, channels, and devices. Again, that’s a different post for a different time.
I’m not a big time gamer but there’s definitely a whole new level of development waiting int he wings thanks to this device. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of content gets produced, to see how far the adventurous programmers can push the interface and user expectations. Or if they just, y’know, settle for porting over Pac Man to yet another device.
A lot has been made of the touchscreen interface and keyboard. Personally, I didn’t have too much trouble using either. I type very, very fast on a conventional keyboard, so the onscreen one slowed me down a little. A few common keys are out of place, which led to a bit of hunt and peck from time to time (I did miss the Newton’s handwriting recognition more than once, though). But overall, it seemed perfectly serviceable. I expect I’d be able to hammer away on it or a few hours at a stretch without too much trouble. Although my preferred writing program Scrivener won’t make it to the platform any time soon (if ever), the addition of an iPad version of the Pages software is a welcome addition. I won’t be writing my next novel on it, but I bet more than a few chapters will get banged out on it.
So . . . long story short, I really like the iPad — and not just because it reminds me of how much I loved the Newton. Technically, I supposed you’d say it’s a “tablet” — living on the technological continuum between smartphones and laptops, serving as a hybrid that shares select features and functionality of both. In that context, it’s quite successful. My biggest disappointment is that I don’t own one of my very own. At some point soon, I’m going to have to share it with everyone in the office. I’m not by nature a selfish person, but it’ll be very, very hard to give it up when the time comes.
A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon training a number of middle managers on social networking. I started off the session by saying: “I grew up reading comic books and science fiction. Which is another way of saying I’ve been waiting my whole life for the real world to catch up. At long last, I’m finally living in a world that I used to read about. And I love it.â€
The iPad is just one more reason why.
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Things I Did on the iPad in the First 24 Hours
- Tried not to squee too much about it on Twitter.
- Composed, sent, and replied to a boatload of e-mails.
- Watched the latest episode of “Doctor Who†and the first four episodes of “Lostâ€.
- Made notes for a new poem about Sophie that I’ll get around to writing about the same time she starts sleeping through the night.
- Bought a book from the Kindle store.
- Downloaded and read the free Clairmont/Miller Wolverine #1 using the Marvel app.
- Wish more than once that DC would put their comics out there.
- Spent $100 on work-related apps.
- Sent our accounting department a reimbursement request for the aforementioned $100.
- Obsessively polished the screen, just like every Apple device I own.
- Wrote this blog post.
Things I Didn’t Do
- Porn.
- Skype.
- IM or Chat.
- Buy a book from the Apple store.
- Buy a comic book from Comixology or Marvel.
- Use the dock or wireless keyboard we bought to go with the device. Didn’t really need ‘em.
- Share it with anyone.