I finally ran out on Sunday to the Apple store to buy a black 64Gb iPad2 with wi-fi only. Black because it’s classier than white, 64 Gb because it’s got the most storage space for my photos and music and digital content and wi-fi only with no 3G phone connectivity because I already have an iPhone. The magnetic cover can fold up and serve as an angled stand. It switches the pad on automatically when you pull it open, a nice touch. Several Google applications I had on my phone got synched over through my PC and is now four times as large (Scrabble is one) – very nice, although those do not make the best use of the native iPad screen resolution. I think it will be fixed shortly. (I hope so). I love the way my blog is displayed when accessed via Facebook (not that I read my own blog, but I’m sure I will in future). The blog sits on the WordPress server ‘cloud’ and not on the iPad, a thought that is still a little unsettling to me. Do I own the content, or does WordPress (they provide free server hosting space for the blog)? Will they pull the plug on it some time?
The 1Q84 book from Japanese author Haruki Murakami (translated into English, of course), a runaway hit in Japan, is my first e-book. I like my paper books, so I will have to get used to reading like this! Yikes. And the Apple store does not stock many titles. I will have to download Amazon’s little application that can allow me to buy books through them. Even so : I don’t think the iPad color display is a match for the black and white electronic ink of the Kindles. But my I needed my slate do a whole lot more – and does it ever. It carries 1500 songs, a dozen or so music videos, and for now just a smattering of my favorite pictures. It may end up carrying 1000s once I upload all my favorite pictures of the recent and distant past (scanned pictures). It can display a map of anywhere in the world where there is a signal, many times with place markers and directions. The mint.com financial app gives me up-to-the-minute balances and transaction detail of every one of my financial accounts : every bank account, savings account, credit card account, retirement account and even values for fixed assets. So I can ride the roller coaster of the stock market every day. I subscribed to free reports from the New York Times newspaper; it comes will free marketing propaganda such as ‘Explore the promise of Canadian oil sands’ (No thank you).
