With the imminent release of the iPad, it seems the web, or at least the parts of it I frequent, are worked up into a frenzy over the device. There are the usual haters, the fanboys, the unimpressed, the eager, all weighing in on one of the most hyped technological releases of the last few years.
I’ll say it right off the bat – I’m an Apple fanboy. I have been since I bought my first Mac, a Powerbook, years ago. But I was also one of the people who was a little underwhelmed with the initial appearance of the device. Since then, though, I’ve been thinking about it and reading about applications and I think now that it’s a device that I could get a lot of use out of. Here’s why.
I have a laptop, and I have an iphone, and both of those enable me to do an amazing number of things on the go. The laptop is particularly ingenious for being able to write when I’m traveling, or stopping off at a bar or coffee shop. But the laptop is heavy and I’m not always willing to lug it around. It’s battery life isn’t bad, but it’s not tremendous either, especially when not near an outlet. And there are some places where I can’t use it – on a crowded subway, for example. I also don’t have a 3G card or Mifi for it meaning that I’m restricted on where I can access the internet.
Then there’s my iphone which is extremely portable and which I have all the time. I almost always have some sort of signal, and I can play games or read books on it while waiting for the subway, or on the subway or really wherever. Only it has a small screen. And while I’ve used it for writing in a pinch, it isn’t optimized for that sort of thing. Additionally, while the battery rarely goes dead on me in the middle of a task – reading or watching a movie – it does put a dent in the battery capacity and it isn’t unusual for me to be on the edge of complete drainage by the end of the work day.
The iPad hits a sweet spot in between these two, primarily in the areas I use any of these things for.
1. Writing – the iPad screen is bigger and the onscreen keyboard is larger and QWERTY for when I’m sitting on the subway car and want to write down a few paragraphs. When I get home or to a bar or something, though, I can pull out my wireless keyboard and get some real writing done. The release of Pages (part of iWork) for the device means that I can work with .doc format with no problems and sync to my desktop/laptop, or email the file using wifi or 3G (which is the flavor I would get).
2. Reading manuscripts – As a member of the Altered Fluid writing group and also as an editor for Sybil’s Garage, I read a lot of manuscripts, either as part of the slush pile or to critique (sometimes both). I’ve done this on the iPhone, but it’s not ideal, mostly because of the small screen size. Docs to Go gives me some functionality with the files, but at that scale it’s tough to work with. The iPad would be ideal for this. And Pages again should give me the ability to annotate if needed.
3. Reading ebooks – I’m a lover of books, including physical books, but I live in NYC and space is an issue for me. While I’ll never stop buying paper books, I am more picky about what I buy these days. Ebooks occupy, for me, a middle ground between buying a physical book and borrowing from the library, with one big exception – it’s almost immediate. If I feel like I want to read Charlie Huston’s latest right now, and I have a signal (and a credit card), I can get it within minutes. I’ve been reading a ton of ebooks on my phone. Reading on the iPad would be even better because of the size of the screen. And Apple’s iBooks application looks really nice.
4. Television and movies – I canceled my cable subscription last year and mostly watch DVDs these days on my television at home. But there are times I like to watch a current show (like Lost) and fire up Hulu or browse the network websites. I can use my laptop for this, but for some reason, I don’t. There’s something about the form factor that makes it a little incongruous for me. But I can completely see watching something on the iPad, and with ABC and CBS shows available at launch, and Netflix instant watch (not to mention Hulu supposedly coming), that means I have a myriad of options in my hands. And I can take them with me – whether it’s into the bedroom or the next borough. And you have to admit that the screen is much nicer than on the iPhone. Not to mention the television and movies available through iTunes.
These are the main things I would use it for, in addition to the usual web browsing – but then there are other possibilities due to appear – like Marvel comics on the device. I haven’t bought single issues for years now, but I might if they were stored digitally on something like the iPad (and assuming the interface is nice). Then there are the occasional one-off apps that will make the thing more fun – from games (actually the board games look really great on the device) to simulated pianos.
Is the iPad for everyone? Of course not. It doesn’t do the hard work of a decent laptop and it duplicates a lot of the functionality of the iPhone or other smartphones. But what it does do hits that sweet spot for me. And so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on one of these to see the possibilities.
Rising Tide, the sequel to Falling Sky, was released on October 6, 2015. 
Falling Sky, my first novel, came out October 7, 2014 from Pyr. It's an adventure story set in a post-apocalyptic future with airships.