{"id":3894,"date":"2010-04-30T23:05:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T03:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2010-04-30T23:07:01","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T03:07:01","slug":"ipad-therefore-iam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3894","title":{"rendered":"iPad, therefore iAm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So can you guess how I spent my day off?<\/font><\/p>\n

If you guessed mailing copies of Kaleidotrope<\/a> to award judges (and a couple of contributors), finishing a chapter of that art therapy book (which I think is shaping up pretty well, actually), filling the bird feeder in the backyard, walking and playing with the dog, and just pottering around the house…well, you wouldn’t be wrong. But obviously the big news of the day was that my iPad, ordered exactly one month ago in a mad “what the hell” moment, finally arrived.<\/font><\/p>\n

And I have to say, so far, it’s really quite cool. I didn’t experience the same sort of orgiastic thrill as, say, Stephen Fry<\/a> at unpacking the box, but it is tough not to be at least a little impressed by it. Apple certainly knows how to make pretty<\/em> looking things.<\/font><\/p>\n

I almost missed the FedEx delivery, arriving back home from the post office (and grabbing some lunch) at the exact moment that the deliveryman was walking to our door. I then spent the next hour or so installing the latest version of iTunes — you do need to hook the device up to a computer with iTunes installed, so it’s not exactly “turn it on right out of the box” — and syncing the two systems. <\/font><\/p>\n

And then I started playing with it. And you know, I really am quite impressed. This is what it looks like after I started downloading (mostly free) apps:<\/font><\/p>\n

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So far I really love the NY Times Crosswords, and the Dragon Dictation is surprisingly good at transcribing voice to text. Netflix’s player was a little unresponsive when I tried it this afternoon, but the video quality was excellent. The same goes for the ABC Player, with which I could easily imagine watching Lost<\/em> (and, heaven help me, Happy Town<\/em>). Both Marvel’s reader and iBooks are impressive, in the free samples I’ve tried out, and who doesn’t like a good game of Scrabble? The other apps there I’m still testing out — I downloading Skype, for instance, even though I’ve never actually used the service before, and I still haven’t decided which Twitter client to use, Echofon or TweetDeck. I’m sure, as I continue to use the iPad, I’ll find plenty of compelling evidence to suggest that both sides (pro and con) are right about the device. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Ultimately, is it worth the hefty price tag? I don’t know. The real test will probably be the next time I have a lengthy commute, or how well it handles reading Kaleidotrope<\/em> slush, or maybe in an app I haven’t yet discovered. I do know I’m not remotely sorry I bought it, and I am finding it incredibly difficult to put it down.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So can you guess how I spent my day off? If you guessed mailing copies of Kaleidotrope to award judges (and a couple of contributors), finishing a chapter of that art therapy book (which I think is shaping up pretty well, actually), filling the bird feeder in the backyard, walking and playing with the dog, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[86,4,28,52],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-computers","tag-kaleidotrope","tag-personal","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}