Updated 4/19.
I do love the iPad. I like to curl up in bed and watch movies on it, just like I'd read a book; or else, curled up all cosy-like, I look at items for sale on Etsy. (I've never bought anything from etsy sellers, but oh, I do love to look at the things people make. Bend is a small town still; it's hard to find anything like what's available in Etsy, especially for clothes. I'd buy this if I could figure out a place to wear it.)
I use the iPad almost exclusively for internet browsing: searches for recipes or summer camps or edible native plants, for example, or reading all y'all's blogs. I check email on it. I check the weather. I check Mt. Bachelor's current conditions. I read the news. I stream podcasts through it when my work gets tedious; I prop it on the windowsill and watch movies while I'm washing dishes. The WebEx app for iPad is better than WebEx on my company-provided laptop, so when I'm not hosting, I often "attend" meetings that way. Sometimes – don't tell! – when I'm on a conference call that turns irrelevant (or, more often, when I'm tempted to say too much and need to hold my tongue) I play Solitaire on it.
I find it miserable to type on, though. Cutting and pasting and backspacing is just painful, and it turns out that even when I compose emails, I do a lot of cutting and pasting and backspacing; so I never compose anything on the iPad. The problem is not really the iPad in itself, but the fact that I'm trained to a keyboard. I'm almost 40. I type 80 words/minute. Using a touchscreen to compose is as slow as ... as ... as writing!
Also, I dislike reading books on it. I think again it's a matter of mental models. The Kindle app is intended for reading books, so when I hold the iPad I think: book. But it's not a book. It's a computer. It doesn't provide the same satisfying tactile experience as a book, and it does poorly the few things I need a book to do (which, essentially, provide comforting familiarity. When I read fiction I channel my 12-year-old self). And I don't yet know what it does better than a book.
Movies, on the other hand, I find vastly improved by the iPad. I never have liked going to the movies, not ever in my life; and I don't like TV either. Movies have struck me as loud and obnoxious and too obviously manipulative with that music and faces as big as a house: gah. Watching them on the iPad, though – curled up in my bed, alone, quiet, in control – it's so intimate. It is, actually, just as intimate as reading a great novel. Also I like being able to (as it were) re-read sections that puzzle or intrigue me. It has been a great pleasure to discover movies – in my late 30s!
3 comments:
Interesting. Curl up in bed and watch movies. I could enjoy that. My husband bought a huge screen flat TV and there's merit in it if the movie is scenic, but curling up is not an option.
Hmm.
typing is tricky - mostly i do it one fingered... however, on a plane recently, without an internet connection, i answered many many emails. i got into the groove with the ipad set up on the tray table with its little prop stand, and it was surprisingly okay. but the ergonomics were just so.
I bought a keyboard for my ipad, and it's fantastic. Because the whole keypad thing...I cannot get it to work for me. And yes, I love cuddling up in bed with it and watching things when I am home alone. Have you seen Gavin & Stacey? It's the perfect watch in bed on your ipad series.
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