Brainrub

The much-lauded iPad. Is it for you?

Ssssoooo… the iPad was finally released and instantly snapped up in the US. (I live in Canada, so I don’t get to witness that patricular level of retail frenzy – should I show up for it – until April 24th.)

Co-owner of Brainrub, Stewie, is jonesing for one as we speak.

You would think that someone like me, a gadget nerd since a very early age, would be drooling to get one of these, but I’m as surprised as you might be that I’m not even slightly interested in getting one. I can’t even put my finger on why, precisely. This may change when and if I ever get to try one out in person, but I just don’t find I’m all that excited about what it offers, or even the new-generation interface design it presents to users.

A lot of my friends have been asking me “So when are you getting one? What do you think about it?” Enough of them thought it was worth me posting it here, so that’s why this story exists. (Fascinating!)

I will admit that the iPod Touch / iPhone user interface (UI) is one of the most groundbreaking user interface designs I have seen or used in quite some time. This is, when you think about it, the first really different interface since perhaps the late 1980′s. As long as most people can remember, an interface meant a mouse and a keyboard. (Less often: a pen / tablet interface and keyboard, for you designers out there.) Every new technological device since, say, 1990 has included some variation of this pairing: a scroll-wheel and keyboard, a center-scroller and keyboard, etc. The only variations on this were the Newton in 1993, and the Palm in around 1995.

What the iPhone interface does so seamlessly is remove the mental requirement for a two-hand interface. Pretty much everthing short of long-message typing can be done with a single hand in either horizontal or vertical orientation. That is definitely no small feat.

Why I mention this at length is that the iPad seems to draw that out even further, providing (obviously) a larger screen surface with which to interact, and offering new and interesting variations on this UI. I can only base this on available media coverage, of course, but more than a few people I know in the US have gotten their hands on an iPad and they really loved some of the extras it offered.

So my feeling is: I get that. I understand it. But I don’t really get any sense right now that I need it – at least not yet. I also have an aversion to version 1.0 of pretty much any new technology. My first iPod was a 10gb 2nd generation regular old white iPod with a huge, clunky firewire plug on it, and a grey, backlit LCD screen. I still use this as an “archival” iPod. I waited close to two years, and I talked myself out of buying it many times. I have a netbook, and while it doesn’t have the flashy UI, it is fast, it does start up quickly, and it does what I need it to do. The only things it can’t do are the same things I notice that neither the iPad or the iPhone can do either, notably play open-source games like the MAME arcade emulator. It doesn’t appear that they will do so anytime soon, either.

I do notice that many people keep asking me “What do you think it is? Is it a cross between an iPhone and a laptop?” This shows me that both the launch and the media hype following the launch have failed to really capture what specific need this device is trying to fulfill. In my opinion, it’s a mobile information / entertainment device. It’s not meant to be a replacement for your laptop, and never was, so it kind of bothers me that most mainstream media kept saying “but it can’t run powerpoint like my laptop can.” That was never the point, even with iLife being offered as an optional application suite. So the iPad, in my opinion, was meant to be slightly less than a laptop, and slightly more than an iPod.

“So a netbook,” I hear you conclude. I don’t think that’s necessarily true either. Netbooks are (again, my opinion) primarily meant to be quick-startup informational devices. Yes they can play music and movies, yes you can read books and other documents on them. And yes you can even do some semi-heavy lifting document creation or programming on them. They’re mini laptops. But they are not primarily entertainment devices, and they don’t appear to be meant to straddle that line. They’re really just very compact laptops, period. (They used to be “limited RAM, limited hard drive” laptops, but people complained, apparently.)

Key difference between a netbook and an iPad: powerup. iPad: nearly instant. Always. Short of having to fully restart the thing because it crashed for some reason ([ahem]game play[/ahem],) you hit the power button, and it’s on. Netbooks from hibernation mode: a few seconds, then (if you secured it, which you did, right?) a few more seconds while you log in, then a few more while it restores your last view.

That key detail right there is what’s going to attract more of the “casual user” that the netbook was originally designed for, probably more than the new-fangled UI on its own.

Is it worth the price? I don’t personally think so as of this writing. It’s not super cheap – hey: it’s Apple – but for the innovations it introduces it’s also not bank-breaking. I personally just can’t see myself throwing down $500 for something without an 80gb hard drive in it today, and there are numerous devices that are cheaper that feature such a hard drive. Instant-on isn’t worth that price to me either. There are far cheaper dedicated book readers out there, notably Sony’s (which is on my list, as I transition off my Palm for good.) There are equivalent media viewers out there which are less locked-down than the iTunes driven iPad. (Don’t get me started. I like iTunes, and I like that whole platform, but open source gives you far greater flexibility.)

This is all merely my opinion, and I’m totally okay with it not matching up to yours. (I assume it won’t, in the majority of cases.) Will it be worth it to you? That depends on which of the innovations and features most appeal to you.

I kept seeing people on news stories over the past weekend claiming “I don’t need an iPad. But do I want one? You bet.” My great equalizer these days is that there are still, as we speak, people who need a roof over there head and financial assistance to buy food. Most of the people I saw in lineups on news stories about the iPad all had an iPhone and a Mac laptop, while they were waiting in line. I’m happy for these people because it’s nice to have that level of choice in your life. I’m not judging these people, but a statement like “need” in relation to a device like this is sort of jarring to me in light of the past two years and how the economy has turned out. That’s not to mention eathquakes (three so far this year), floods, bail-outs, layoffs, bankruptcies and whatever else you care to add to that list.

It’s a nice looking device. I may buy one someday in the next two years, possibly by version 2.5 of the product or the revised iPad OS. Do I need one? Not yet. Possibly you want one, and I encourage you to comment here if you get one.

Thanks for reading.

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I’m going analog. Not in that extreme right-wing/left-wing sort of way where I’m living off the grid and killing my own chickens. I just need some things in my life to give way because I’m falling out of sync, and I need a less digitally corruptive way to make everything feel like it’s back in order.

I must have stolen electronic equipment in a previous life to warrant the karmic injustice in this gadget-jealous life. Everything I have seems to be going belly up: television, gaming devices, computers.

I’ve finally let go of my PDA (an HP1910), which I have tried to integrate into my life for the past six years. Blame it on a technological flaw, bad karma, or happenstance, but dead batteries and continuous data loss throw everything out of order.

I’m done with it. I’m moving on. Moving on seems to feel like moving backwards. I’ve gone from a PDA to what I call my PAA (personal analog assistant), which is a Moleskin calendar almost identical in shape and size. All I need is a writing utensil—no more issues with batteries, syncing, or data loss.

This feels good to me, though, like it makes sense. Moving backwards feels like falling into order and falling into sync. In the two months that I’ve had my Moleskin, there hasn’t been a single issue with performance. It’s like magic when I open it up and see that all my data is still there.

I still want gadgets, though. I want all the kick-ass things I can take with me wherever I go so I can play, read and live in some brilliant electronic world. My karma, however, doesn’t appear to be in that same space. And I am, sadly, going to have to get over this.