Loving IT

My iPad 2 is here. I think I'm in love. After using it for a few hours, holding one of my iPod touches feels like holding a toy, like switching from an oversized coffee mug to the thimble-sized plastic cups that little girls use at tea parties for their dolls. Still, the iTouches fit easily into a pocket or purse while the iPad has to ride in the zippered pouch on the outside of my laptop/messenger bag, so I won't be getting rid of the iTouches anytime soon.

I knew I'd be using the iPad to read eBooks, and oh my, they look gorgeous. Yeah, I know, the Kindle's "E Ink" is legible even in sunlight and the device has a great battery life, but since I spend as little time outdoors as possible and am rarely far from a power outlet, the ability to read in bed without a clip-on booklight is far more important to me. What I hadn't anticipated is that the iPad with the Smart Cover "rolled" into a triangular shape fits perfectly on the console of my treadmill. I can read while walking, something I could never do easily with "real" books. Hardbacks won't lay flat unless the spine's been cracked, and paperbacks are just too light to lay flat without being weighted down. Most magazines are so big they cover the controls on the treadmill, and the font size is usually too small for me. The iPad fits nicely between the treadmill's elevation and speed controls, though, and the font size (using the Kindle app) can be adjusted up to the point that I could almost read without glasses. I was so happy that I actually bought a book on Amazon.com yesterday (Any Human Heart by William Boyd; so far I'm enjoying it as much as the dramatization that was on Masterpiece Classic last month) after years of downloading just freebies. And if I don't feel like reading, there's the NetFlix app, and a keyboard big enough that I could actually type while walking (at my usual leisurely pace, anyway), and who knows what else.

My productivity at work was nil yesterday after the package showed up, so it's a good thing that the iPad was a gift/bonus from my boss. I can blame him for being distracted!