Every time Apple opens the doors to the loading dock, the digital world goes nuts. Yesterday, a device called an iPad found its way into the hands of consumers. From my very limited understanding, an iPad is akin to an iPhone, but bigger and with a few more bells and whistles. I may be wrong, but I don’t care.
Love gadgets? That’s cool. Need to get the iPad NOW. Whatever makes you happy.
My father in law loves gadgets. He used to get everything that came out. He had 8 track before anyone else. He was very proud. About 12 minutes later, he got himself a CD player. He was very proud. We got him a Blue Ray player one year. It changed his life.
There’s much confusion about why some feel the need to knock the iPad and be snarky to all who want one and are sincerely excited by this innovation. Brian Tannebaum has been called a blathering idiot by Rick Horowitz. Tannebaum wears the mantle with honor. Niki Black is distraught over all this criticism and snarkiness. “Why,” Niki asks. Why can’t they just leave us alone?
I don’t much care. I don’t have a Kindle because I can read books without it. I don’t have an iPhone because I don’t really want to stare at a little screen while standing face to face with living, breathing, real people. All my emails will be waiting for me when I get back to my computer. The world won’t explode if I can’t do every single thing that pops into my head the very instant I think of it.
Having lived through a lot of technology, I found some of it good and most of it okay. A few things are so important that I can’t live with them. I need my computer. I do not need a cellphone. This will alienate most of you, but it’s true. I don’t really like talking on the phone all that much, and would be just as happy if cellphones were never invented.
The question, to me at least, isn’t whether the iPad is cool, or can download movies so you can enjoy them anywhere (and Lord knows how society survived without the ability to watch a movie upon demand). I’m sure the iPad is cool, at least to many of you.
But it’s not necessarily a part of Batman’s belt, without which Gotham will succumb to the Joker. It’s just a new toy, a variation on an old toy and some people enjoy. If that’s what you want to spend your money on, good for you. Enjoy it. It’s like when someone asked me what I thought of law student business cards. A silly affectation, but ultimately harmless if that’s what they want to spend their money on.
The iPad is just today’s shiny new toy. Apple will have another version out in a week or two at half the price and twice the function, but by then it will be an old toy and nobody will care. If it turns out that the iPad serves enough of a purpose to be worth buying, I can wait. I’ve survived this long without one, and will do just fine. The cool kids may laugh at me for walking around iPad-less, but then I laugh at them for being bit too slavish for the newest, shiniest toy. They say you can’t survive without it. I say I can. It doesn’t matter whose right. The shine will wear off in a few hours, and we will have to wait for Steve Jobs to tell us what we want next.
So if people stop making it sound like every time the doors at the Apple loading dock open the world will change, then there will be no need for techno-curmudgeons to announce that the shiny new gadget didn’t cure cancer. Enjoy your toys, have some fun and I hope that no one ever gets cancer again, because there is still no cure.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What ever happened to all those silly little girls . . . err . . . I meant sophisticated ladies who were so outraged when the iPad was announced?
The name of the product reminded them of sanitary napkins, much as ‘legal pads’ remind them of tampons for lawyers, ‘mouse pads’ remind them of tampons for rodents, and ‘padding the bill’ is a bloody mess.
There were screams for NASA to rename its ‘launch pads,’ and for the ancients to rename Pandora’s Box.
Are they buying iPads, or holding a protest in front on One Infinity Loop?
A major difference between the iPhone and iPad is that the latter lacks phone abilities, unless/until Apple permits the use of programs like Skype.
Too, the iPad apparently lacks a camera.
I see no needed utility in the iPad, but I do find my iPhone very useful. But then, I tend toward the techhead.
I am still holding onto my old 8-track tapes because I am sure the 8-track will be making a comeback.
Scott, I’m typing this on an iPad. It’s less than 1/4 the weight of my laptop. I never use the camera anyway, and I have a phone. Last night I used it to display recipes while I cooked dinner, and then to surf the net, and show my guitar tabs while my brother and I played for the family.
Yeah, it’s useful. Not strictly necessary, I could have done all that with a laptop or carried books, but I’m on vacation and I would have had to carry them on the plane. For me this is perfect. My moon, who is 82, likes her’s because of it’s weight and that she can read email without going to a computer. My 20 year old daughter likes the size and that she has her music and writing together, as well as chat and Facebook.
In short, for some people it’s a great thing. Others will find it lacking. Fine with me.
A rose by any other name …
If you want, I can send you the double-knit leisure suits that I’ve got in the back of the closet so you can look sharp when the 8-tracks come back.
Perfect. If it makes you happy and serves your purposes, then it was a good purchase.
I’d say you pretty much nailed it.
It’s just a device. It will have some utility for some people, but I doubt it’s like the invention of the Gutenberg press.
When it matures and becomes more affordable, I think I’ll like to have one. A color reader that could replace a bagful of books would be something I could use.
I’ll wait. But I won’t wait in line.
My post was more about the pixels spilled and time wasted bashing lemmings. Let them have their migration to the sea.
While I would never speak for a blathering idiot (blithering, maybe, but blathering, never), it might be that Brian felt compelled to offset the chorus of lawyer/social media guru types who were telling people that the iPad was the best thing since sliced bread. It wasn’t that he hated the iPad, as much as he hated the hype surrounding the iPad at the periphery of our ranks.
awesome line:
“[The iPad is] not a necessarily part of Batman’s belt, without which Gotham will succumb to the Joker”
I don’t have strong feelings about the iPad, enthusiasm over it, critiques of such enthusiasm, or critiques of those critiques.
Carry on!
The “it sounds like a sanitary product” was a particularly low point for internet culture for me.
Exactly. And I asked on my blog for anyone to convince me it would help me as a lawyer. Kind of quiet over there. Like Scott, if someone came to me with an iPad and said, “this will transform your practice,” I’d buy 10.
The iPad is a phenomenon, but not for the reasons the lawyer/social media idiots say. The addiction to whatever is new in “Apple,” is comical.
It was a great marketing move on Apple’s part. Now they can offer an upgraded model with a two-piece fold out keyboard.
The “iPad With Wings” of course.
Not all of us “silly girls” had issues with the “iPad’ name:
Using the iPad in a Smart Grid
There has been quite a debate in the legal blogosphere about the utility of Apple’s new iPad for a legal practice. Long time legal blogger Nicole Black has started a new blog about the iPad, as has Josh Barrett, a…