Warming Up Finally To The Post–PC Era – The ‘Book Mystique
I think the iPad 2 will probably reel me in at long last. It’s not a revolutionary advance over iPad one, but there’s a lot of extra value at the same price point, and more importantly, the iPad is now firmly established as an integral, and no doubt increasingly indispensable element of our digital future, for better or worse –– probably some of both, as is common with paradigm–shifting technologies.
For example, I love the Internet and am addicted to Google and Bing. It’s hard to imagine how I ever got along without real-time or at least short-delay communications and virtually instant access to information. On the other hand, I have a growing realization that the quality of my thinking has not been improved by the Internet, indeed the contrary obtains. My capacity to concentrate on one train of thought –– a prerequisite for truly incisive and critical thinking — has been diminished by the easy distraction and drinking-from-a-firehose information onslaught of life online. In the old days, when I still looked stuff up in books, things one discovered while looking up other things amounted to a manageable enhancement and enrichment of my frame of reference, because it was of manageable volume. Now it’s largely a distraction. Yin and yang. What has a front has a back. I completely understand a good friend of mine of literary and thoughtful bent who refuses to own a computer even for email.
That said, I wouldn’t want to be without the Internet. For better or worse, I’m an addict, although I have thus far resisted the time–burning flypaper of social media networking, and have no intention of embracing it in the foreseeable future. However, for other things, I’m becoming convinced that the iPad has its virtues, and being an avid consumer as well as a producer of periodical journalism, I see the future of that medium moving more and more toward digital distribution, and while I still think that the tactile pleasures of consuming my news and commentary off paper and ink hardcopy are superior, I see that being more and more an esoteric luxury, probably a really expensive one. For example, the regular 12 month subscription fee for a magazine I bought or subscribed to for some 50 years is now a relatively stratospheric $32 including Canadian postage, but I can subscribe to 12 digitally delivered issues for $7.50, with substantially enhanced content. I just renewed my print edition subscription for another year, but I’m thinking I may go digital next time. And if I do, an iPad to will be a much more relaxed and friendly platform for recreational reading than a laptop computer. Now, extend that same dynamic to the other half-dozen or so monthly magazines I subscribe to, plus my daily newspaper, and potential savings begin to add up to significant money. Since I’m paying for an Internet connection anyway, an iPad could conceivably even pay for itself in more comfortable and cheaper access to… more information. Yin and yang.
I surprised myself last week by getting, and even agreeing with Steve Jobs’s repeated references to the “post-PC era” in his surprise keynote appearance at the iPad 2 announcement. This represents a sea–change in my perception from a year ago when Jobs rolled out iPad 1, being among the sizeable cohort wondering if anyone would actually buy this thing. Fifteen million answers to that later…..
I now want one, and don’t imagine I’ll wait for iPad 3, which I don’t anticipate will arrive for another year anyway. And it’s not just me, of course, who’s coming to that conclusion. I think the projection of 40 million iPads being sold in 2011 is entirely plausible.
By coincidence, on Wednesday morning an old friend who I hadn’t heard from in a while phoned me, wanting to talk about his iPad. He’s a computer professional from the days of 2400 bps modems that grafted onto a hard–wired telephone receiver handsets, and former CEO of an enterprise software development firm, but he’d never owned an Apple product before. He says he just loves the iPad, and is rarely separated from it these days. He’s far enough outside the Apple enthusiast loop that he hadn’t been aware of the imminent iPad 2 announcement scheduled for a couple of hours after our telephone conversation, but I think he really gets what the attraction is. However he did ask if the iPad 2 would support Flash…..
Another friend phoned on Friday wanting to talk about iPad 2. This guy is a longtime Mac enthusiast, and the last time we had spoken a couple of months earlier he mentioned he was thinking about buying an iPad. I counselled him that he would thank himself for holding off on the purchase another few weeks. So, what did I think of iPad 2? I told him I think it’s great, and that any time now (or actually three weeks hence when the iPad is released in Canada) would be good. And the time has come, I think, to take my own advice.
The question now is timing and choosing which model. I have a laptop system upgrade pencilled–in for the late fall or early next year when my current primary laptop turns three, preferably the former in order to realize the capital cost allowance on the 2011 fiscal tax year, which for me ends with the calendar year. However, if I’m going to by two machines in this tax year, budgeting constraints will probably dictate that I go with a more modest spec respectively than I might otherwise have — probably a 16 GB iPad and a base 13” MacBook Pro instead of a 32 GB iPad and 13” MacBook Air. We’ll see.
Speaking of technical specifications, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t said much about them so far in this column. That’s part of the point, which is that such matters are of lesser importance in this new post-PC conversation. It’s not about horsepower. The iPad has an exceedingly modest technical spec by PC standards of the last few years –– a 1 GHz processor (albeit, now dual core in the iPad 2), an undisclosed amount of system memory (presumably more than the iPad 1’s 256 MB) as little as 16 GB of storage capacity and no more than 64 GB (the latter at a stiff price premium). Those are metrics found in laptop computers of 7 to 10 years ago. With the tablet and IOS having lower functional overhead than a laptop, you don’t need nearly so much muscle to do a satisfactory job. In his March 4 keynote Steve Jobs observed that a “lot of folks in this tablet market are rushing in and they’re looking at this as the next PC. The hardware and the software are done by different companies. And they’re talking about speeds and feeds just like they did with PCs. [However] I’ve said this before, but thought it was worth repeating: It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing. And nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.
Nevertheless, specifications and features do still matter. My friend pines for Flash support (he uses a third-party workaround). A consumer poll last fall found that almost half of respondents (48%) wanted USB connectivity to upload files in the next iPad and more than 44% called for support for Adobe Flash Player, 42% wanted an optical drive (admittedly difficult in a machine as thin as the iPad 2, as would be an SD Card slot). None of those desires were requited with iPad 2. Personally, lack of USB is one of my biggest gripes about the iPad.
The iPad 2 does get a camera — two cameras actually — but that was mentioned by only 29% of respondents in the aforementioned survey. It’s not a biggie for me, but no hardship to have I guess. Initial reports is that the iPad camera isn’t up to much.
Some wanted a 128 GB SSD option, but with a device like the iPad, I doubt that many users would ever need more than the available 64 GB. It would be convenient, however, to have the option of downloading file overload to an external hard drive through a USB port.
I also wish there was a mouse driver in the iOS, so one could use a mouse along with an external keyboard. I’m still underwhelmed by touchscreens However, easy video mirroring is a huge advance over iPad 1(requires Apple Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter cable, sold separately).
I’m not going to rush out and buy an iPad 2 on March 25 (Canadian release day), but by summer, I’ll probably have one, and begin checking out what the post-PC era has to offer first-hand.
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Bootnote:
iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available on March 11 for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G compatible with the Verizon network will be available in the US only for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 will be sold in the US through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. iMovie and GarageBand for iPad apps will be available on March 11 for $4.99 each from the App Store on iPad or:
http://www.itunes.com/appstore
iPad 2 will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK on March 25; and in many more countries around the world in the coming months. Further international availability and pricing will be announced at a later date.