Not Ready for Prime Time

Packing for a few weeks in the middle of nowhere, Ecuador... bamboo cabin in the jungle, with a panoramic view of the ocean, sounds of birds and waves, intermittent electricity, no internet (have to take a trip into town for that). A week ago, I was planning on leaving behind my laptop and pile of books that I cram into my backpack with my bathing suit and a few clean clothes, and taking the iPad and wireless keyboard... but after trying to work on a short story on the iPad (see entry titled 'On the Go... Not!'), I've decided to take a break from the iPad, take the trusty old laptop with me, and get back to my digital experimenting when I return... I thought about taking both machines, and losing the books... but can't see myself taking the iPad out to the beach for a quiet read. Also bad enough to worry about the security of one machine in a third world country where I travel on the cheap. And honestly, I'm happy to have my real, paper and ink books, that I'll leave behind in some hostal library or other as I finish each one. So... while it's been fun to dally with the exotic, sleek and new, for the past couple of weeks, I'm happy to be back with the reliable, comfortable and useful for the next couple of weeks.

Yummy content consumption...

Took my iPad, uPad on a quick road trip to visit The Berklee School of Music in Boston with my son, Leo, who's looking at colleges, and then on to New Hampshire to drop him off at his summer music program. The whole family used the thing to check our email on the go, and to find a restaurant in the town where we spent the night... then, while having an after-dinner ice cream, we got into a conversation about the definition of 'Fascism' (yes, I could explain, but it doesn't seem germane to the topic of this blog), and we used it to get some answers. Back at the hotel, I did a little reading on it, and later, when Bill and I went to sleep, Leo played around on it before turning in. The next morning, we were singing along to some songs Leo was playing on the guitar, and we used it to get lyrics for our impromptu little family hootenanny. As no content creation was called for, the iPad, uPad was a simply delightful addition to our trip. I note, however, that I could have done all of the above on my iTouch, albeit on that tiny screen, except for the reading, for which the iTouch is simply tooo small.

On the go! NOT!

On the go! Writing this entry on my iPad... No external keyboard, no laptop. Typing it on Office Assistant, and cutting and pasting it into my blog. Writing and editing are painful on this thing... Virtual keyboard keeps toggling to numbers when I neglect to hold my hands in a hovering fashion over the 'keys' and the left side of my left hand accidentally brushes the numbers key. Lost the whole entry with one mistroke and had to retype. No user-controlled save button. Editing is a Paleolithic endeavor. Chewing raw meat, here.

NOT!! Just discovered that Blogspot does not work on the iPad. When you try to create a new post, you can put text in the title field, but can't put text in the main blog entry field. I did, in fact, write the above paragraph on the iPad, but in order to transfer it here, I had to save it to my Dropbox cloud on the iPad, move on over to my laptop, download Dropbox on my laptop, access the file via Dropbox on my laptop, and copy and paste it here.

Don't mind that it's all in the effort of digital exploration... that part's fun... but it's starting to be pretty clear that if I'm going to write during my three weeks in Ecuador, I'm going to have to take my laptop. (And I *am* going to write--that's what my summer vacation is for, in part.) Wasn't planning on taking two machines... bad enough worrying about hiding one fancy toy, when I'm shacked up in a $20/night bamboo bungalow, and traveling light is a bottom line... Big dilemma... What to do???

Cool... but oy

Whole sad day visiting 96-year-old aunt, who until a month ago lived alone with all her marbles, and is now deteriorating at a frightening rate in a nursing home. What does this have to do with the iPad? My 16-year-old, who was with me, distracted himself a bit during our visit by hopscotching though a bunch of different apps, as he listened to music, surfed the Web, pronounced the beginning of Moby Dick uncompelling, and played Cube Runner. True, you can't open windows simultaneously, but if you open and close apps quickly enough you can more or less multi-task.

Downloaded Office Assistant, basically Microsoft Office for the iPad. Was hoping to add The School server to my little cloud box, so I could use it to store and back-up some writing I'm working on, while I'm traveling. Was not, however, able to add the server, and have instead downloaded Drop-Box (free), but haven't figured out how to use it, yet. I'm terrified of taking no laptop on my trip, and not being able to work on my writing with the iPad. Have been spending mad amounts of time figuring out what I need to do to use the iPad for content creation... and need to attack other things on the long to-do list I made at 2AM last night. New digital toys are fun, but so time-consuming at the onset.

Sunday, June 20: Mouse-free

• Continued playing around with the eReaders, especially iBooks. iBooks allows you to highlight, but not annotate.
• Used notepad, email and other apps with and without the wireless keyboard. When using the wireless keyboard, you still need to tap and touch the iPad, as--of course--there is no mouse. This means the keyboard must be used within arm's distance of the iPad. As myriad reviews of the iPad have noted, it's a content consumption device, not a content-creation device. This makes me sad. Are we becoming a society that eats but doesn't cook? I will be trying to figure out all the work-arounds, so I can write and create on this device.
  

Saturday, June 19: Load 'er up

Day one with my iPad.

• Synched my two computers, iPod and iPad. This required updating loads of software on my computers.
• Explored basic iPad functions and set up iPad.
• Downloaded iBooks, Kindle for iPad, B & N eReader and Stanza, as well as some other free apps.
• Played around with the eReaders a little.
• Purchased an iPad case (works as a stand as well), and a wireless keyboard.
• Enjoyed the trippy graphics and interactive functionality of the free Alice in Wonderland from Stanza.
  

Reading, writing and annotating

I am a funny mix of neo-Luddite and early adapter. My passion for reading and writing extends to the visceral experience of a reading a real (non-digital) book, riffling through books in bookstores, jotting down ideas on napkins, writing in notebooks with favorite pens... But I couldn't resist the lure of a new digital experience, especially one that allows me to pack my whole library into one slender tablet, and take it wherever I go. So when Don put out a call for proposals for exploring educational applications of the iPad, I jumped. This summer, I'll be comparing and contrasting different iPad eReaders with an eye to how they might be used in the classroom, and looking into annotation tools (I already know there isn't much out there yet), and the feasibility of creating and updating reading blogs and The School's independent reading site using the iPad. I'll also be trying out Pages to see what it's like to write on the iPad.

In keeping with my desire for new reading toys, I borrowed a Kindle from The School this fall. It was awesome having so much reading in such a tiny device, but the sensory experience left me a little flat. The visuals and the clicking were so unbook-like. Moreover, I discovered that I read books in a far less linear fashion than I'd realized, flipping forward and backward, reviewing particular pieces... this was difficult on the Kindle. The very little bit of reading I've done on an iPad offers a more book-like experience, with the page turning, the graphics, and the ability to skim and navigate multiple pages with your fingers.

New toy! What fun!