Science & Technology

Rave

1st Anniversary of the iPad™

Posted 13 months ago|8 comments|475 views
Written by
Coloranter Raver
Denver, CO

On Sunday, I put all politics aside as well as all my ranting (I might post a few comments on political rants and raves, but I don't write any). Instead, I focus on raving about things I really think are cool or really like.

Today, by some coincidence is also my one-year anniversary of having gone completely iPad®. That's right, when my trusty Mac Powerbook® G4 titanium laptop was going to cost $300 to fix, I decided to invest that same money plus $199 more for the lowest level wi-fi 16GB iPad last April funding the purchase with my tax refund!

Since that day, I have never looked back and do absolutely everything I used to do and so much more on my iPad™. Last May, I was so keen on what I had already accomplished using the speedy, user-friendly, super intuitive touch-screen tablet computer, that I boldly predicted that everyone would own one by the end of the year. Whoops. Well, Apple, Inc. has to date sold over 30 million of them making them and their new spawn the iPad™ 2 the fastest selling consumer electronic product in history and also the one with the fastest produce permeation – so maybe by the end of this year?

What I use it for...


...web design.
...writing – half done with first screenplay and first novel is under final review.
...blogging.
...keeping the financial books in spreadsheets for my small business.
...watching movies, tv, and music videos.
...listening to music (iPod).
...reading books.
...playing loads of games (Angry Bird™ is the best).
...sharing Apps with friends and family (my favorite new one is a new prank app that let's you trick people into thinking you can track their cell phone...loads of fun to see a teenager's face).
...managing my dozen email accounts.
...calendar, address book, and phone numbers all organized into one place.
...graphic design and printing (the new iPad-ready HP printers are fantastic).
...ranting and raving.
...surfing the web almost anywhere almost anytime.
...graphic design.
...restaurant menu layout and design.
...record keeping.
...taxes.
...inventory control.
...conquering the world (playing Sid Meier's Civilization™).
...ordering products.
...reading the news.
...updating my Facebook® and Foursquare™ Pages.
...connecting with friends.

Basically everything I used to do with my lap top but so much more. I am going out on a bit of a limb, but I truly think it's the best invention since the wheel.

If you have an hesitations about buying a new iPad, I wouldn't. Mine is a year old, works like a dream, continues to deliver an amazing amount of work output, and has only ever crashed once –– that's once in one year!

If you have an hesitations about buying a new iPad, I wouldn't. Mine is a year old, works like a dream, continues to deliver an amazing amount of work output, and has only ever crashed once –– that's once in one year! It has no virus attacks, plays nice on the Internet (if you can live without your Adobe® Flash-based Facebook® games), and couldn't be more portable. I do recommend acquiring a keyboard either Bluetooth® or dock-based as this will save ours of touch-keypad learning curve.
Overall, I would say the iPad™ has revolutionized my live in countless positive ways as it has for the dozens of friends of mine who have jumped on the bandwagon along with me.

As a final note, a lot of people come to me with their technology problems and for advice as what kind of computer to buy or if they should get an iPad™ or a Kindle™. I always give people a brief oral questionnaire to determine their needs. In my years of supporting and helping people make this decision, there is literally almost nothing that most people ever use their computer for that one cannot do on the iPad™, and many, many things you can do on an iPad™ you cannot do on a traditional computer even a laptop – though opening the App Store™ to all their computers was another stroke of genius by Apple, Inc. and dissolved some of the differences. I whole-heartedly endorse the iPad™, and vs. the Kindle™ it's like the difference between buying a book vs. buying a computer – it's that simple.
EMAIL|FLAG THIS POST
COMMENTS
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
13 months ago: Being an a happy iPad owner, I salute your post but I did read where Rep Jesse Jackson Jr (D-IL) lambasted the iPad because it "probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs."

To quote from the Daily Caller article,

"Jackson expressed general outrage over the potential of a paperless society that the iPad threatens to create. "What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? What becomes of bookstores and libraries, and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not-too-distant future, such jobs simply won't exist," he said."

Read more at: http://goo.gl/7i75S

It's ironic how social, political and religious hardcore ideologues tend to demonize technology with ignorant babble even though they're usually on the opposite side of the political or religious spectrums. Imagine the poor scribes who were put out of work when the printing press was invented.
Coloranter Raver
Coloranter Raver
Denver, CO
13 months ago: Mark, You're probably not going to believe I read this comment after I wrote my post for the day on this very topic – very validating.
13 months ago: Funny how no one seems to realize that the tru threat of a paperless society is the ability of any entity to flip the switch and plunging into the dark ages. No longer will the Nazi's / Christians/ Fed /etc have to go door to door to burn books.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
13 months ago: If the "switch is flipped" and were plunged in the dark ages, you'll probably be more worried about finding potable water, your next meal and surviving rampages by the millions of displaced and starving urban dwellers as opposed to sitting down and reading a good book. And in fact, books and their authors were in fact burned during the dark ages.
13 months ago: Do you have any idea why they called those times the Dark ages? I'll give you a hint. Did not have anything to do with potable water or food. It had everything to do with control, and the church - governments demonizing the written word and physically asserting policies against literacy and education in order to control the population and bend them towards its will.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
13 months ago: I don't disagree with you Slim about the dark ages - I was under the impression you were referring to a sudden loss of modern technology and the energy that drives it. Yes, an iPad, Kindle, etc., would be nothing more than glittering junk without power but as I noted, there were be more immediate problems than simply not having paper books to fall back on. Actually if were in the dark ages, the relatively modern invention of the printing press that created our papered society would not exist either.
13 months ago: Oh, no no certainly, if we somehow lost technology there wold be much larger wolves at the door. However the dangers of electronic publishing supplanting physical print as the standard delivery system of information are those of control.

One can draw many parallels between the printing press and the emerging internet. The one thing that stands incongruous is that no one stands between you and the press when you publish. In the case of electronic publishing there is almost always another entity involved and in most cases that entity can be controlled to the point of making it difficult to disseminate information.

We've seen in say China how difficult the Chinese government has made it on the citizens to find information they can trust. And of course many of them are able to use workarounds to get to the truth, but what percentage of the ordinary work a day Chinese citizens take advantage of this illegal opportunity. In these ways the Chinese are still living in a dark age.

Of course there's another hand. Always is, and on this one the argument can be made that electronic publishing opens up entirely new channels of communication. Authors can write and self publish to e-books, websites and a myriad of other sources of viewership. Take RantRave for instance where else could I go and spout to you about the terror of electronic publishing.

You know I agree with Jackson to the extent that I also think It's a shame that all those people employed by the publishing companies lost their jobs. And in the back of my mind it screams out that our rush towards a technological future is really beginning to cost us in the undereducated and underfunded present.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
13 months ago: I'm afraid we disagree on Jackson and I'm confident his attack on the iPad is a calculated but ignorant publicity seeking stunt. Fact is Slim, as you noted, without the Internet and it's vast electronic publishing forums, we wouldn't be having this ducssion and it's not likely that you, me and the rest of the crew here would be publishig articles.

Up until the advent of the Internet, your oppoutnity to be pubished or to broadcast was decided by the gvernment and handfuls of people who controlled the fourth estate.

...You know I agree with Jackson to the extent that I also think It's a shame that all those people employed by the publishing companies lost their jobs. And in the back of my mind it screams out that our rush towards a technological future is really beginning to cost us in the undereducated and underfunded present...

Disagree again - there's people making money publishing and broadcasting electronically who probably wouldn't had the opporutnity in the old media. For example, here's an ex-military guy who's now making his living doing YouTube as a tech reviewer and I've been one of his subscribers for a long time. When he first started years ago, it was rather ameaturish as most YouTubers tend to start out but check out his latest video and his production values:

http://www.youtube.com/soldierknowsbest

I rather watch him and others talented YouTubers than 95% of the produced crap on network TV. Maybe what you should think about is how these politicos and old media loathe the Internet for cutting off their capability to dispense and control the flow of information.

Post a Comment
Sign in or sign up to post a comment.