Initial Thoughts on the iPad
So, on June the sixth, I bought an iPad. A 3G 32GB iPad, s decently midrange piece of hardware.
As yet, I’ve had it for the last day, and I have to say, this is one of the most amazing pieces of hardware I’ve had the pleasure to use.
Charles Stross mentioned that the iPad was functionally equivalent to the Young Ladies’ Primer from Neal Stephensons “The Diamond Age”, and the more i use the iPad the more I have to agree with that sentiment. Smooth, easy to use, easy to hold, and feels like a dream finally come true.
That’s all the normal iPad gushing that you might hear. In reality, I’m really noticing that while the hardware has no major flaws, my life lacks a hole that the iPad actually fills. It’s a world changing device, but it’s not what you would immediately expect to be a world changing device.
I am intensely reminded of the time that I bought my original iPhone – intensely interesting, even intriguing hardware, but I had no real place for it. The necessary je nai sais quoi was lacking, and the iPad carries the same base embodiment. It’s powerful, useful, chromey and wonderful, but does not solve an immediate need. The app store is also a little too young to really have any amazing, world-changing applications on it. It has the potential, and I will not regret this purchase, but as yet the potential is largely unrealized.
Also, just for the pleasure of writing the fact, I wrote this entre article on the iPad, entirely in the on-screen keyboard, which, I will note, I am fully able to touch-type on.
Just think about that for a moment. I can touch type, with a great deal of accuracy, on a purely software keyboard against my thighs as I lay in bed.
The future is here, and she is Apple. All hail Discordia.
