I recently wrote that technology helps make people more efficient. Now that I've gotten an iPad as a gift, I have to eat my words. Owning an iPad is the most distracting thing ever. There is nothing - with the possible exception of the actual act of dying - that can tear a new iPad owner away from their iPad. In fact, you should gift an iPad to every person you wish would never work again. America should probably give out iPads en masse to terrorists.
Anyway. My first few hours of iPad ownership were taken up with really frustrating and mundane problems that really have little to do with the iPad and everything to do with Apple's draconian policies, which make neither sense nor (I hope!) money for the company. I had to download all the songs from my iPad onto my computer so I could update my iPad's software. Since I own an iPod, I already knew that this would not be easy, because iTunes and the iPod interface conspire to hide all music files for reasons I can't honestly understand. However! This is a free online program for everything, and after a bit of doodling around on Cnet and PCWorld I downloaded SharePod. This program let me download all my files to my comp. Hurray!
Then I had to update the software, which involved creating an Apple ID (boo, more Apple totalitarianism) and then waiting for several hours while the new software downloaded. (Really, it took hours. Not necessary.)
Next step was to register my email addresses. After talking with the network administrators in my office and spending hours figuring out how to configure Gmail's imap (hint: the Googlemail workaround can help!) I finally arranged both my work and personal email ID's on the iPad and started checking mail using the native mail function.
Final step: music. Not done yet, because I don't really want to sync my library and forever renounce all the files I currently have on my iPad (strike three for Apple totalitarianism). Although this might not technically happen. When I finally gave in and Sync-ed my apps, I got a huge warning that my computer was going to erase all my apps and replace them. I sighed and clicked "ok." Strangely, nothing was erased.
All of which brings me to the last, amazing, glorious aspect of iPad ownership - APPS!!!
I am the sort of person who goes nuts about apps. Watching the Word Lens demo on Youtube ignited a tiny fire of happiness in my soul that continues to flicker away weeks later. In some circles I'd probably qualify as a very amateur hacker (I have been known to hack office proxy servers to set up Dropbox. I mean, it's Dropbox, for God's sake) I have (I'm sure!) done things to my computer's registry that, if my computer were a person, would get me thrown in jail. But none of this really prepared me for apps.
See, the last time I downloaded a mobile app was two and a half years ago. That was the last time I lived in the US, and at the time mobile apps were limited to Gmail and Google Maps. These were so cutting-edge that an investment banker who was interviewing me for a job seriously asked "what I thought of Google's decision to make Gmail available on the mobile phone." (Which just goes to show you that the people at Goldman Sachs don't know everything.)
My mobile phone in India is so low-tech that it uses a T9 keypad. Which means that my new iPad is really my first introduction to the massive, sensational world of apps, a world that has become so rich and so necessary that James Murdoch (son of Rupert) recently said that he believes apps are the future of monetization in the media industry. (I know, I know: If you were to plot me on the famous technology adoption curve, I'd be so far to the right that I'd be sandwiched somewhere between "laggards" and "dead people.")
Sure, I had an inkling what apps could do when I downloaded TweetDeck for PC. Tweetdeck is a delicious little bonbon of code that transforms the world's most irritating and pointless exercise in self-aggrandisement (Twitter, fyi) into a customized, real-time computer newsfeed. A fellow journalist recently referred to it as an alternative to a wire service, and companies normally pay thousands of dollars for wire subscriptions.
So the past several hours, for me, have been passed in a delirious haze of re-discovering all the programs that have made my life a better place, now in iPad form. Like Dropbox. There's a great little Dropbox app for iPad! There's Skype!
And then things I never knew COULD exist so conveniently. There's NPR! There's a program that lets you look at NASA photos of the universe! Flight time trackers, day planners and even public toilet locators! Elaborate maps of the subway systems of 150 different countries! An amazing portfolio of things from Conde Nast, all of which I have downloaded. Ultimately, these are great fun and they look good.
Of course, every honeymoon phase comes to an end. I eventually ran up against the limitations of the iPad. It's great for consuming things - TV, movies, songs, recipes, etc - but the iPad is a bit like a society belle from the 1950s. It looks so good that it takes you a while to realize that it doesn't really do anything. Specifically, it doesn't make anything. It doesn't run elaborate games. It doesn't really do word processing. It can't edit audio or video tracks. What happens in the iPad, stays in the iPad. (At least as of now.) In this sense, it's the ideal incarnation of the Apple philosophy, and the antithesis of the hacker movement.
When I was thinking about getting a Blackberry a while back, a co-worker recommended I go for an iPad. "But the iPad is useless except for games," I protested. He blinked, then admitted that I had a point.
I wonder, when we talk about technology that expands productivity, if we have to make a distinction between productive and consumptive (?) technology, or if it all ends up the same. Am I actually becoming more productive because I can now browse recipes on my iPad, instead of online or in a book? (Actually, I obviously am - but what's the value of this productivity increase?) From what I can tell, the critics were right about the iPad. It's basically a really nice lifestyle magazine. You buy it for the pictures. (And to show off to your friends, obviously)
Anyway. My first few hours of iPad ownership were taken up with really frustrating and mundane problems that really have little to do with the iPad and everything to do with Apple's draconian policies, which make neither sense nor (I hope!) money for the company. I had to download all the songs from my iPad onto my computer so I could update my iPad's software. Since I own an iPod, I already knew that this would not be easy, because iTunes and the iPod interface conspire to hide all music files for reasons I can't honestly understand. However! This is a free online program for everything, and after a bit of doodling around on Cnet and PCWorld I downloaded SharePod. This program let me download all my files to my comp. Hurray!
Then I had to update the software, which involved creating an Apple ID (boo, more Apple totalitarianism) and then waiting for several hours while the new software downloaded. (Really, it took hours. Not necessary.)
Next step was to register my email addresses. After talking with the network administrators in my office and spending hours figuring out how to configure Gmail's imap (hint: the Googlemail workaround can help!) I finally arranged both my work and personal email ID's on the iPad and started checking mail using the native mail function.
Final step: music. Not done yet, because I don't really want to sync my library and forever renounce all the files I currently have on my iPad (strike three for Apple totalitarianism). Although this might not technically happen. When I finally gave in and Sync-ed my apps, I got a huge warning that my computer was going to erase all my apps and replace them. I sighed and clicked "ok." Strangely, nothing was erased.
All of which brings me to the last, amazing, glorious aspect of iPad ownership - APPS!!!
I am the sort of person who goes nuts about apps. Watching the Word Lens demo on Youtube ignited a tiny fire of happiness in my soul that continues to flicker away weeks later. In some circles I'd probably qualify as a very amateur hacker (I have been known to hack office proxy servers to set up Dropbox. I mean, it's Dropbox, for God's sake) I have (I'm sure!) done things to my computer's registry that, if my computer were a person, would get me thrown in jail. But none of this really prepared me for apps.
See, the last time I downloaded a mobile app was two and a half years ago. That was the last time I lived in the US, and at the time mobile apps were limited to Gmail and Google Maps. These were so cutting-edge that an investment banker who was interviewing me for a job seriously asked "what I thought of Google's decision to make Gmail available on the mobile phone." (Which just goes to show you that the people at Goldman Sachs don't know everything.)
My mobile phone in India is so low-tech that it uses a T9 keypad. Which means that my new iPad is really my first introduction to the massive, sensational world of apps, a world that has become so rich and so necessary that James Murdoch (son of Rupert) recently said that he believes apps are the future of monetization in the media industry. (I know, I know: If you were to plot me on the famous technology adoption curve, I'd be so far to the right that I'd be sandwiched somewhere between "laggards" and "dead people.")
Sure, I had an inkling what apps could do when I downloaded TweetDeck for PC. Tweetdeck is a delicious little bonbon of code that transforms the world's most irritating and pointless exercise in self-aggrandisement (Twitter, fyi) into a customized, real-time computer newsfeed. A fellow journalist recently referred to it as an alternative to a wire service, and companies normally pay thousands of dollars for wire subscriptions.
So the past several hours, for me, have been passed in a delirious haze of re-discovering all the programs that have made my life a better place, now in iPad form. Like Dropbox. There's a great little Dropbox app for iPad! There's Skype!
And then things I never knew COULD exist so conveniently. There's NPR! There's a program that lets you look at NASA photos of the universe! Flight time trackers, day planners and even public toilet locators! Elaborate maps of the subway systems of 150 different countries! An amazing portfolio of things from Conde Nast, all of which I have downloaded. Ultimately, these are great fun and they look good.
Of course, every honeymoon phase comes to an end. I eventually ran up against the limitations of the iPad. It's great for consuming things - TV, movies, songs, recipes, etc - but the iPad is a bit like a society belle from the 1950s. It looks so good that it takes you a while to realize that it doesn't really do anything. Specifically, it doesn't make anything. It doesn't run elaborate games. It doesn't really do word processing. It can't edit audio or video tracks. What happens in the iPad, stays in the iPad. (At least as of now.) In this sense, it's the ideal incarnation of the Apple philosophy, and the antithesis of the hacker movement.
When I was thinking about getting a Blackberry a while back, a co-worker recommended I go for an iPad. "But the iPad is useless except for games," I protested. He blinked, then admitted that I had a point.
I wonder, when we talk about technology that expands productivity, if we have to make a distinction between productive and consumptive (?) technology, or if it all ends up the same. Am I actually becoming more productive because I can now browse recipes on my iPad, instead of online or in a book? (Actually, I obviously am - but what's the value of this productivity increase?) From what I can tell, the critics were right about the iPad. It's basically a really nice lifestyle magazine. You buy it for the pictures. (And to show off to your friends, obviously)
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