I’ve been conquered. Given the choice between 2.54kg of laptop hanging over my shoulder and 730 grams on iPad, I’ve given in to what may be the future of media.
For internet browsing it is brilliant and I love freedom from the hegemony of the mouse, the resizing of pages and navigating through hyperlinks with my fingers. Ditto for the Twitter client Tweetdeck.
By and large I like the media apps but if you are looking for the iPad as the future of media, it still has a long way to go. I’m left a little unsatisfied.
Based on the apps I’ve downloaded so far including The Australian, Gourmet Traveller, ABC and Wired Magazine we are still in the dark ages.
Gourmet Traveller at $7.99 seems expensive when the print edition is $8.95. I’m getting all the content but the navigation reminds me of simply reading a pdf and to some extent is awkward. I like most people like to flick through magazines and usually start at the back. Perhaps I have to re-learn my magazine reading skills.
The ABC’s free app still hasn’t cracked its brilliant iView for the iPad, mainly because of Apple’s refusal to use flash, which I fully support seeing as there are so many crappy flash websites out there. I look forward to what they come up with but if I want the full ABC experience I need to use my desktop.
The Australian’s app at $4.99 was the one I had most hope for. What we have is a basic form of the newspaper with the more specialist sections more difficult to find.
On Saturday I was seeking the arts pages from the review section and the food pages from the magazine. I ended up going online and then gave up and bought the paper version of the Weekend Australian to get what I wanted.
On Monday under the Business menu I found some of the media stories but I really wanted a dedicated section. Again I turned to print.
I had more hope for the giant 500MB Wired Magazine download. While the interface is more developed than Gourmet Traveller (and rightly so being a technology magazine) it still isn’t quite there.
In terms of the tactile reading experience, I’d liken reading newspapers and magazines on the iPad to having sex while wearing two extra thick and durable condoms. Perhaps three.
But it does change books forever. The iPad is lighter than many hardbacks and easier to hold. I can adjust the type size, the background light and even make the pages reverse white out of black if I want to read in bed and not wake whoever else is in it, human or animal.