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iPad….. nice but not magical, yet (my Review)

So I’m writing this on my iPad. I’m not feeling the magic. (update, i had to save it so I could edit on my Macbook, else this post take would’ve taken 40 years to write)

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty, but not useful. Yet.

And before you decide I’m just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don’t know me.

I own:

Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.

I’ve Previously owned:

a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa. I think it’s safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.

That out of the way.

The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and …. well that’s it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).

I tried. I didn’t write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn’t write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I’d normally grab my Macbook for.

First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.

Amazon sides with publishers, hurts future

Much like Jake, I’m not overly surprised by Amazon’s (my words) Bonehead move. We all knew the Kindle was DRM’ed up the ass.

I mean they already reached out and started disabling text to speach, so is reaching out and removing content that big a stretch of the imagination? Not really, sadly.

I am however sad that Amazon has sided with Publishers. This will definitely cost them a lot of goodwill capital they might have had. Where as simply telling the publisher they’d no longer sell the book, but that sold copies were out in the wild, would have won them uncountable good will. Publishers are expecting unrealistic things in eBooks. If a book is pulled from the shelves (A real dead tree book) the publisher has no expectation of getting copies back that are sold. How could they? Send book retrieval ninjas out to scour the globe?

The Creator of the eBook is wrong

I’ll admit, I had no idea who Michael Hart is. But he’s wrong. Over on the Project Gutenberg blog he says the eBook reader will never take off, and lists some reasons why, in his mind he’s correct. (I’m sure there’s no bias as the founder of PG) I’m going to debunk them based on my own world view. (Be warned, his list is long and wordy, even before I add my two cents)

The Kindle needs an iTunes app

kindle.amazon.com comes close, allowing you to manage your Kindle library (except you can only see it, not control/change anything) and see your annotations… on purchased content only. Content you’ve put on the device is notably missing. Meaning annotations you’ve placed on ebooks you loaded yourself are still tricky to retrieve/make use of and only available on the Kindle itself.

Salsa Rob’s wife on iTunes!

Just wanted to post a quick shout out, my pal Salsa Rob (Not sure if he knows I call him that) pointed me to a sweet iTunes link for none other than his wife. Check it out! You jazz folks will have to let me know what you think! I’m not a jazz person so [...]