Category: Apple

First, a confession: the only cellular phone I have ever owned has been an Apple iPhone. My first iPhone was purchased in 2008 and was an iPhone 3G. After two years, I was eligible for an upgrade and purchased an iPhone 4. This year, I am once again eligible for an upgrade and will be ordering an iPhone 5 as soon as they are available for pre-order. Therefore, you would be perfectly justified in reading everything I say with an air of skepticism, in fact, this would be healthy. I have been accused of being an Apple fanboy, and while not every single piece of tech I own is made of Apple, it is only really because they don’t make printers or DSLRs. But, despite the overwhelming physical evidence to the contrary, I like to think that I go Apple because Apple designs and produces some of the best tech available for the price bracket. I haven’t always been a Mac zealot, but I’ve yet to see a computer or a phone that can rival an iPhone or a Macintosh. Ultimately, though, in this modern, technological world, devices are becoming much more personal than they ever used to be, and thus the user experience and preference is much more subjective that ever before. So if you like your Dell, or Android, or Kindle, far be it from me to try to change your mind. If you have found a piece of tech that suits your needs and pushes your hotkeys, by all means, plug and play.

That is not what this is about. Rather, I want to investigate what innovation means, in light of the iPhone 5 launch and two differing articles I read in my morning Zite digest. (see Zite) This will be neither exhaustive nor definitive, but I hope to at least jumpstart your thinking about the topic. Yesterday morning, Apple released the iPhone 5. You can find all the details you need about it at Apple.com.

This morning I read an excellent article by Mark Wilson over at Co.Design entitled “The 3 Worst Design Details from Apple’s iPhone 5 Event”. His main point is this: “Apple sold the masses on design, and then they gave us stretched iPhones, silly straps, and iPod Nanos worthy of parody.” Wilson maintains that Apple had “solved its critical usability issues and changed the way the world communicated” but that once they created their Sistine Chapel, Apple “refused to put the chisel down. They stretched iPhones, added more icons, and generally did things just for the sake of doing them” without actually doing anything innovative, in terms of design, with their new iPhone. Wilson thinks that Apple has designed themselves into a corner with the best mobile phones ever, and simply does not know where to go next, so they substitute shiny bezels for amazing new products. “Apple has built their iDevices too well to keep modifying without doing some damage to the original work. Michelangelo wasn’t expected to make a thinner, faster, and all around more handsome David 3. But Apple is” and therefore we get an iPhone 5 that is simply a taller iPhone 4s with a bit more power under the hood. David, but with even more chiseled abs and something stronger under the fig leaf. Ultimately, while dismayed at the iPhone 5, the new iPod Nano, and the latest iPod Touch, Wilson admits that all of Apple’s genius has not left the Infinite Loop with Steve Jobs, and points to the radically redesigned Apple earbud headphones, called the EarPods, as evidence that Apple still has the design edge, somewhere “still holding out from a foxhole deep within Apple” but he doesn’t think the possibility for a truly incredible next big thing is very high.

On the other side of things, MG Siegler, writing for Tech Crunch, in an article entitled “Apple’s Magic Is in the Turn, Not the Prestige” thinks that “Apple took something ordinary, a phone, did some extraordinary things to it, and then made it re-appear in grandiose fashion. It’s a great trick. It’s so good, in fact, that I think it’s fair to call it true magic” but that Apple’s failure is not in the trick, but in repeating that trick every time they re-introduce the iPhone. By this time, the world has seen that particular trick, and while still amazing, it has lost its luster, especially since Apple’s greatest magician, Steve Jobs, is no longer here to grace the stage. But that is what we see. While Siegler admits that “to some, this repetition is now boring” he thinks “Apple looks at it the opposite way: they’re perfecting their trick.” Apple has the lead when it comes to smart phones (among other things) and has no real incentive to radically re-design. Siegler reports that “there are two companies that are making any money in smartphones: Apple and Samsung. Or, put another way: Apple and the company” that is copying Apple’s formula. When Apple has no real competition, just copy-cats, all they have to do is improve the show, all they have to do is “photograph their assembly process with 29 megapixel cameras to ensure that a machine picks the exact inlet from 725 unique cuts” and the magic is complete.

Even if that were the whole story, I think that shows a surprising level of innovation. But, take that a step further. Siegler turns the complaint many have, that “when people say they’re disappointed about the new iPhone, what they’re really saying is that they’re disappointed it doesn’t look that much different from previous version(s). But again, not only is that true, Apple went out of their way to make sure that was the case” and he then quotes Jonathan Ive, Apple’s lead design engineer:

“When you think about your iPhone, it’s probably the object that you use most in your life. It’s the product that you have with you all the time. With this unique relationship that people have with their iPhone. We take changing it really seriously. We don’t just want to make a new phone. We want to make a much better phone.”

Siegler’s point is that true innovation is in taking something familiar, something iconic and magical and keeping it the same while making it so completely different. Think about it: when most tech companies make a new computer or gadget, with better battery life or something, the tendency is that it gets bigger, changes shape, or something to accommodate the new internal components. Isn’t real genius in incorporating better internals while making the exterior even more svelte that it was before? And, in fact, this is exactly what we want and don’t understand. “Apple” according to Siegler “is not and will not make changes just for the sake of change. And while some may now be clamoring for this change, the paradox is that if Apple did make some big changes, many of the same people would…moan about them. Apple is smart enough to know that in this case, most people don’t really want change, they just think that they do because that’s the easiest way to perceive value: visual newness.”

Ironically, the iPhone 5 delivers visual newness. Siegler invites people to walk into an Apple store and pick up a new iPhone and “within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this” because all the innovation inside the phone, and yes, even the refining of the same old exterior, will make the same old iPhone a new and amazing iPhone.

A very good point.

But I prefer to look back to history, but I’ll keep it short. When I was a kid, the first phone I remember using was an old black rotary phone. Something like what you see on the right.

For me, that was a phone. And then someone invented the touch tone phone, and while ours was a little different, it was essentially the same thing.

But, gosh, what a re-design! Ease of use just increased dramatically. Suddenly this design took over, and hasn’t left us yet, because even the iPhone 5 still uses that same exact 3×4 grid for its button layout. It took years for the re-design to happen, to be implemented, and to take over. This was normal and this didn’t perturb anybody. Nobody complained when five years after the touch tone phone was out that nobody bothered to completely reinvent the phone.

Somehow, now with the iPhone, we expect major innovations at every iteration and complain when they don’t show up, even while, as Siegler and others suggest, the real innovation is occurring under our very fingertips. Let’s examine an even shorter history of the phone, and one specific phone, the iPhone. Released in 2007, it has undergone six re-releases, but only three re-designs.

As you can see, the original iPhone was redesigned into the iPhone 3G model, which was then redesigned into the iPhone 4 model. I firmly believe that Apple will redesign the iPhone again into a completely new model, but we aren’t there yet. Apple designs, and then refines. It takes a few years, but each increment gets better, gets smaller, gets stronger until the design is pushed as far as it can go, and then it is made new. Believe it or not, that is how the design for everything works: televisions, cars, refrigerators, toasters, vacuum cleaners, etc ad nauseum. That is why most four door sedans and most TVs look so much alike. The design is set, and then reworked. Every so often a new, stunning model is put on the market, and then everything looks like that and then is refined as far as it can go. The crafting process is one of innovation and incrementation. And then comes variety and artistry, but only once the most basic design is crafted to perfection.

No, the iPhone 5 is not a massive step forward in innovation. Yes, the iPhone 5 is a massive step forward in innovation. It depends on what you are expecting, and what you are looking for. Apple leads the world, of that there is no doubt. As the recent Samsung trial proved, before the iPhone phones looked and acted a certain way, after the iPhone, all of that changed, just like before the touch tone phone, most phones were rotary phones, but then those buttons changed the telecommunications world forever.

Innovation is a long, tedious progress, and in crafting the iPhone 5, Apple has moved the entire process forward another huge step, and make no mistake, they will again, but they have to earn the right, and they have to make the journey: there are no short cuts. And, when you think about it, five years is a damned short time to go from the original iPhone to the iPhone 5. Apple is moving at breakneck speed. Just give ’em a bit more time, and the wow will come.

Steve Jobs is dead. Apparently he passed away sometime this morning, and it seems obvious that his death is a result of his recent and prolonged battle against pancreatic cancer.

I first learned of his passing on my iPhone, and confirmed that the report was more than rumor on my iMac. I suppose this is as fitting a legacy as any for the man who changed the modern world. If I say that my life has been irrevocably changed because of Steve Jobs, I am not exaggerating or being sensationalist. The first computer I ever bought was an iBook (the laptop) back when I was 16. The first digital media player I ever bought was an iPod, classic Jobsian hardware. My first purchased desktop was an iMac, the great grand computer of Jobs’ Apple Computer saving computer. The first, and only, cell phone I have ever owned was an iPhone. I watch TV via my TV.

All my life I have been immersed in new technology, hardly surprising for a kid who grew up in the 90s. Most of my life has been shaped directly by Apple products. It should come as no surprise, then, that Steve Jobs’ death is hitting me harder than even I realized that it would.

I have been sitting here tonight, reading tributes to Steve on Twitter and FaceBook, and trying to figure out why I am on the verge of tears. Steve Jobs was a business man. He made products and sold them and made billions of dollars doing it. If the founder of Nike or McDonalds died tomorrow, I doubt I would give it much thought. It would be a footnote to my day. So why is Jobs’ death affecting me so much? Probably because Jobs did so much more than just make and sell a product. He has changed life itself.

I watched the keynote address from yesterday’s iPhone 4S product launch, and something Phil Schiller said is replaying itself in my brain: “we created the iPod because we love music”. Steve Jobs helped to create the digital music player because he liked music. Sure, the money he could make selling it must have been in the mix somewhere, but I really don’t have a problem believing that Steve’s primary motivation wasn’t the money, but the music. In all the keynotes I have ever heard Jobs give, one thing always seemed to be at the forefront of his presentation: enjoying life. Sure, he talked about how Apple was doing, and how many products they had sold, but always the emphasis seemed to be on the lives of the people using the products, and not on Apple’s bottom line. Jobs’ eyes sparkled when he talked about living at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. He got choked up after demonstrating how his innovative FaceTime allowed people to talk face to face. He was like a giddy kid when he announced that he had brought the entire Beetles catalogue to iTunes, and not from the greed of pennies filling his bank account, but from finally being able to bring some of his favorite music to millions of people in a format that would allow some of the most popular music of all time to be preserved for hundreds of years to come.

I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard that Jobs’ annual salary from Apple is only $1. Not that he didn’t benefit from his company’s success, he surely did, but what was important to him was designing the world of tomorrow, and in creating new ways to enjoy the things that make life worth living: family, creation, and innovation.

I think because I was 16, in the prime of designing my life, when I first started to adopt Apple products, that I also started to design my life around Apple’s, and Jobs’, philosophy: think different. Create. Stand out from the crowd. Live life. My life has become a life in which I immerse myself in my creative endeavors because I find them stimulating. I think that is all Steve Jobs ever really did.

This man I never knew changed the world I live in. Steve Jobs changed my life.

I will miss him.

Twitter has been full of some awesome quotes from Steve Jobs. These resonate most with me:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Ever since I bought my iPhone 4 (a little over a month ago) I have been searching for the perfect case in which to enclose it. My first attempt was a failure, and my second, despite being the paragon of nerd construction, was only slightly better. It took an act of chance to give me a case that I absolutely love.

My iPhone 3G was housed inside of a Griffin Clarifi.

It was a terrific case, made in two parts, that ruggedly secured my phone for over two years. Showing definite genius, the Clarifi also had a lens that could slide in front of the iPhone’s camera, yielding a degree of focus for up close picture taking that was not available otherwise. Unfortunately, when Apple redesigned the iPhone into something sleeker and more beautiful, the old case no longer fit (and the focusing lens was unnecessary). I purchased the case via ThinkGeek, but it was designed by the craftsmen over at Griffin Technology, a top of the line manufacturer of Apple accessories. I have a dual iPod/iPhone dock made by them, and if ever I was going to have the money to afford some really cool Apple compatible gadgets, Griffin is one place I would look. So, I naturally looked there first for a new iPhone case.

I really wanted a two part case, like the old one I had, and one that I thought would fit the bill was Griffin’s Elan Form in Graphite.

It really looks great, but that isn’t enough. The case itself is somewhat flimsy, and is designed with front and back sides that are supposed to snap together around the iPhone, but I discovered that the two sides parted company at the slightest opportunity after just a few days of use. If I were a business executive or someone a bit more high class that carried my iPhone around in my suit pocket or attache case or whatever, the Elan Form would be stylish and more than adequate, but my preferred method of iPhone transportation is the carpenter pocket on my blue jeans, and I need something a bit more rugged.

Purely by accident, I came across a review for a case designed by a brand new company called Small Works who dreamed up an iPhone case that is pure geek win.

The Brick Case is for the Lego lover. Overcoming multiple design and manufacturing obstacles, Small Works was able to fashion a case that resembles an iPhone-shaped Lego brick. The studs on the back conform exactly to Lego standards, meaning that any existing Lego bricks will snap onto the case, yielding endless decorative possibilities. I absolutely love the hard, rugged plastic that Small Works used for their case, and as an ardent Lego lover, the case is practically an embodiment of the nerd slogan For the Win! I do, however, have one complaint with the Brick Case: it is very rigid, meaning that the iPhone snaps into the case and never moves, but extraction from the case can be an arduous task. Nevertheless, I think I will keep the Brick Case for times when I need to have the iPhone in a case for a long period of time.

My modus operandi with my iPhone is to have it au natural when around the house. Apple’s design is too stunning to cover when the device doesn’t need protecting. Even when using the iPhone to take pictures, or control my  TV, I find myself examining the design with wonder. (I don’t mean to gush, but I do think the iPhone 4 is one of the pinnacles of Apple engineering.) That being said, I want a case that offers protection when out and about, but that is also easily removable. Enter the dues ex machina of this story: Small Dog Electronics. Small Dog is an Apple Specialist company headquartered in Vermont that is the epitome of small, local business (sadly, their only physical store outside of VT is in New Hampshire, but I would be happy to work in their first Wisconsin location). Their employees are friendly, helpful, and awesome. And, they are the only company that I know of that is crazy about their dogs. Seriously, there is an entire section of their website devoted to the dogs they love. I love Apple and I love dogs, and the intersection of those two is Small Dog. I had the opportunity to shop in their South Burlington store when I was attending college in up state New York in 2006 and I have been a fan of their company ever since. The long and short of this story is that a few days ago, while following Small Dog’s twitter account (@hellosmalldog), I noticed that they tweeted a contest whereby one could win one of ten iPhone 4 cases. (The other part of this story is that I have never, in my life, won any sort of raffle or contest. Ever.) The contest required a re-tweet and I figured that, even if I didn’t win, I didn’t mind giving Small Dog a little free publicity, so I re-tweeted. To my shock, the next day I got an email from Small Dog telling me that I won. I gave them my address, and yesterday I received my prize: a Marware MicroShell.

The MicroShell is the perfect blend of function and protection, offering a hard plastic shell that also flexes, allowing for easy removal of the iPhone. The case is a smooth, soft feeling plastic, cool blue color, and showcases the etched logo for Small Dog. In short: I love it. (Thanks, Small Dog!)

Added Bonus: Included in the box from Small Dog were two “small dogs” that are part of a collectible set, all species owned by Small Dog employees. In lieu of a dog of my own, they sit just beneath my iMac and keep me company.

I am an amateur photographer.

Until recently I was considering buying a point-and-shoot compact digital camera, something like a Canon Powershot or similar variety, but, after upgrading to an iPhone 4, I’ve changed my mind.

I had an iPhone 3G for over two years, and while the phone had a camera, it wasn’t the best and didn’t take exceptional photos. It snapped grainy, low resolutions pictures like most other camera phones. The iPhone 4 takes much better pictures with its upgraded camera which boasts higher resolution, increased megapixels and LED flash.

Quality is certainly a factor in a camera purchase, but a secondary consideration I had was pocket space. I don’t carry a man purse, messenger bag, or any other such device for hauling stuff around with me. My every day inventory is limited to what I can hold in my pockets. Currently that is a wallet, a moleskin notebook, a pen, a pocket knife, my keys, my iPhone, and on days that are sunny, my sunglasses. I don’t have an extra pocket for a camera, and even if I did, many small cameras are still bulkier than I want to shove into a pocket.

My last concern was ease of use, and while this isn’t a problem with actual cameras (power on-point-shoot-repeat), it was with the iPhone. My 3G was feeling its age, and barely was able to run the iOS 4 software and that made taking pictures painful. I would have my nieces over, and one of them would do something cute, and I would want to capture it, but by the time I whipped out my iPhone, unlocked it, activated the app, and waited for it to ready the camera, my ever-in-motion niece would no longer be in the same place doing the same adorable thing. To my satisfaction the super-speedy upgraded hardware that inhabits the iPhone 4 activates the camera app as quickly as my fingers can manipulate the touchscreen and I am ready to take a photo in seconds.

Having decided to make my iPhone my camera, I looked into apps that would further facilitate my creative impulses. There are a plethora of photo taking apps available in Apple’s app store, and if you’ve an iPhone or iPod Touch, I recommend having a look around. My go-to app, thus far, is Instagram.

The app allows me to take a picture, apply one of several filters to alter the look of the photo, and then post the photo to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr! and other popular social networking web sites. Instagram is so easy to use that, once I have decided what to take a picture of, I can snap a picture, choose a filter, give it a title and a geolocation tag, and upload it to the world wide web all in about 45 seconds. Even better? The app is Free.

I like Instagram so much that I have decided to challenge myself to take one picture with it every day for an entire year. So far I have taken 11 consecutive photos which you can see here. I plan to peruse the App store and try out other photography apps, and when I do, I will post reviews of the ones I like and choose to use.

Photography is a huge field, but what I really appreciate is the breadth of opportunity within it. There are high end, expensive, well-crafted cameras for the expert photographers and there are ordinary, cheap, well-crafted cameras for the amateur photographer. For my simple purposes, there is an iPhone with an app for that.

I own an Apple iMac, a most sexy computing machine, which came with a most sexy input device: a bluetooth keyboard. I happily used this wireless keyboard for most of the year and half I have owned this particular iMac. The keyboard is impossibly small, lightweight, and spectacularly easy to use. The latter point was most surprising to me as the first two were readily evident, but I thought that having something so small and compact would make it harder to type on. Quite the opposite, in fact. While I grew up on massive beige PC desktop computers with their massive beige PC keyboards, for the past few years I had been using either an iBook or a Macbook laptop, and Apple has been making their laptop keyboards smaller and more compact in the endless pursuit of the perfect portable computing machine. The end result was that I was becoming more and more accustomed, without realizing it, to a smaller keyboard. In actual fact, the Apple aluminium wireless keyboard is really about the same size as a Macbook keyboard. Therefore, when I received one with my new iMac, typing with it was as natural as ever.

A few months ago, however, I had become somewhat nostalgic for a full size keyboard, that is, one that contained a numeric keypad and larger arrow keys. I had a full size Apple keyboard lying around, and when I say full size, I mean full. I had picked up an old iMac keyboard on eBay a few years back as a backup in case all my batteries went dead, or I spilled something, or for whatever reason I needed a keyboard that would plug in and work. But the massive input device was easily three or four times the size of the sleek bluetooth model and more than usually clunky.

All this talk of size, and sexiness, aside, the worst problem that I had with the old keyboard was that the keys were so large, and so spread out, that I continually hit the wrong key. A long time ago when I was just a young lad and Windows 95 was brand new, I typed in much the same way that a woodpecker pecks: tap – tap- tap (except that woodpeckers are usually faster). I hunted endlessly for the right key and then punched it down with a determined finger. Eventually, though, I took a short typing class in school, wherein I learned “correct” procedure, and straightaway I began typing faster with much fewer mistakes. Now, of course, like most people my age, typing is second nature. I never really look at the keyboard anymore, my fingers just fly across it and I magically hit the exact key that I intend to type almost every time. Sometimes I still find this amazing, given the number of keys on the keyboard and their completely unalphabetical layout. (I mean, who was this QWERTY person anyway?)

So given the fact that spend most of my time on the computer typing away, writing one sort of thing or another, the ability to type quickly and accurately is a necessity, and the large old keyboard simply couldn’t help me. The other problem I had was that I am mostly an insomniac and my writing is largely a nocturnal activity. I tend to only use the minimum amount of electricity, and so didn’t bathe in an overabundance of light. The aluminium keyboard, with its white keys and silvery reflective body, never gave me cause to have a problem. The iMac screen emitted enough light to see by for those few occasions when I actually needed to look at the keyboard; however, the older keyboard had black keys, and seeing as how I frequently missed the one I meant to hit while typing, I couldn’t even see the keys to find the correct one. I was reduced to using a USB lamp plugged into the convenient USB port on the left end of the keyboard just to make sure I was typing accurately.

Sure, most of these problems were the result of poor lighting and a dark keyboard, no doubt solved with proper illumination and a whiter keyboard, but the fact is, as soon as I retrieved my wireless keyboard and set it back up, I was typing much quicker and more accurately from the get go. There quite simply isn’t any comparison between the old and the new.

Now, if only there were a way to have my numeric keypad as well.

Turns out: there is.

I have since sold my wireless keyboard and purchased the Apple aluminium wired keyboard with numeric keypad. Much slimmer and sexier than ye olde keyboard, and the keys are compact like the wireless version. I love it so very much!

About 22.8 days ago I started an experiment to see how long my Apple branded AA batteries would last when powering my Apple branded Magic Mouse. I did this more out of curiosity than anything else. My test parameters were as follows: I inserted two fully charged (according to the Apple battery charger) AA  batteries into my Magic Mouse. I started up the Clock app on my iPhone. I turned on the Magic Mouse. As soon as my iMac paired with the Magic Mouse via bluetooth, I started the timer on my iPhone. I then left the mouse on and left the timer running. I waited until my Magic Mouse lost bluetooth connection with my iMac and stopped the timer. This is what I saw:

546 hours, 27 minutes, 43 seconds – and so on. It might not be precise down to the tenth of a second, or even the second, but I think that it is accurate enough for my purposes. I now know how long, approximately, a pair of  branded AA batteries lasts in my Magic Mouse. But, I grew up doing science projects in middle and high school where I was graded on my ability to design, run, and conclude rigorous experiments. One test is hardly a conclusive pseudoscientific experiment.

Well, as it so happens, I have two other  AA batteries, and I have started a second test along the exact same parameters as the first. I will perform 10 tests with each set of batteries and then can cull a more exact approximation of their time before depletion. Then, to be fair, I will test two sets of two AA batteries from two leading brands (probably Duracell and Energizer) as controls to which I can compare my results.

Sounds like months of scientific fun!

You can read my original post about the batteries here.

Last night I was over at my brother’s house helping him unload a brand new snow blower. Given the way the fluffy white flakes have been falling all day today, I bet he is glad to have bought it. After our work was done, we retreated into the warmth of his house where my wife played with his daughter, and Joe showed me his other special child: his newest Kindle. Yeah, this one: Kindle 3.

For comparison, he handed me his Kindle 2. I perused a book on both while he enumerated the features and we argued about whether it was better to sell his old Kindle on eBay or Craigslist. (As a frequent eBay seller, I supported the online marketplace. He preferred the down home local feel of Craigslist.) As I held the Kindle in my hands, I admit that I was very impressed with the craftsmanship and the texture of the device. The text was clear and easy to read; the font lines were crisp and unblurred. The “pages” turned quickly, and the device was light in the hand.

I own a 3G iPad, a device I use constantly and value highly. The first thing I thought when my brother placed his new Kindle in my hands was that I couldn’t see the text. There was only dim lighting in the room (mostly his Christmas tree) and the Kindle has no backlight. Being used to my brilliant iPad display, I was immediately frustrated to not be able to see the screen in low light. Next, a message of some sort appeared on the screen, and I instinctively reached up to touch the “x” in the upper corner of the message to make it disappear, before belated remembering that the Kindle is not a touch screen device, and my brother pointed to the rather obvious keys put beneath the display for such purposes as typing and selecting. But, once a light was turned on near to me, and after Joe helpfully produced his little Kindle reading lamp, I could see everything just fine.

Despite being an admitted Apple fanboy and an iPad lover, I see obvious and distinct advantages to owning a Kindle. It is an excellent device, especially the 3G version. The 3G is free, and useable world-wide. I once used the 3G connection on my iPhone in Italy while on vacation (mostly the Maps app to navigate the incredibly confusing Venice streets) and incurred a hefty data fee while browsing the local cellular data network. So, the free world-wide 3G connection is definitely a bonus. But, even my unfortunate incurring of a large bill shows why the iPad is superior to the Kindle: my brother can only read on his Kindle. He can’t find his way back to Grand Canal when lost in Venice. I can watch movies, view photos, surf the web, type this blog post, look up recipes, play games, tweet, mail, and a thousand other things on my iPad. And I can do it in full color. Even reading books, I can see illustrations in full color. The Kindle is only black and white.

If reading were all one wanted to do, I could understand owning a Kindle over an iPad (for one thing, the cost of a Kindle is a fourth of the iPad’s price tag) but I can’t see opting for Amazon’s Kindle in a world were very few only want to read on a mobile device. In order to afford my iPad, I sold a Macbook that was barely 2 years old, a decision I have not once regretted. I can do everything I ever did on my Macbook on my iPad (and some things I couldn’t), and without the weight, heat, and shorter battery life. As for reading digitally, given the current status of the eBook market (small selection, and relatively high pricing) eReading simply isn’t that feasible right now. I have whole shelves of books that I love to read that I cannot download in the iBookstore, Kindle store, Nook store, or any other digital book store, and haven’t the time or patience to locate in decently pirated iteration. My number one most looked forward to app on the iPad was indeed the iBooks app, but after seven and a half months, I barely read on my iPad. If I had purchased a Kindle, I fear the money would have been wasted. The overwhelming amount of apps available for the iPad make it a much more valuable device. As is already cliche to say: there is an App for that. If you want to do it, chances are you can download an app that let’s you. Usually you have more than one option.

I can control my entire media library with the touch of a finger, push it onto my HDTV via my TV, browse my iMac for content, and do anything else that I routinely do in cyberspace, all with a device that I can hold with one hand. None of that is possible with a Kindle, and I believe that in a world where more people are doing more things with digital devices, an electronic book reader will be swallowed up by devices that allow their users to read — and everything else. I find this disappointing to say, mostly because the newest Kindle is so well designed, but a great design, if unneeded, is ultimately a useless design.

But, even the most versatile of devices, such as the iPad, is overkill if all one wants to do is curl up and read digitally. And the Kindle allows anyone to do just that — with elegance.