A Seamless Life

Some months ago my iPad joined the rest of the paraphernalia on the table beside my chair that I use from time to time all through a normal day: current magazines, a book, a cup of tea, a plate with snacks, the odd bill that came in the mail...you know the stuff I am talking about. But as I have added more and more apps and discovered more and more of its capabilities, my iPad has been taking over more and more of the functions of those items while enabling new ones such as e-mailing, puzzles, games, voice mail, Netflix movies, photo albums and armchair travel.

This morning as I sat there with the iPad opened like a book on my lap, reading, a little message flashed in the middle of the page. It announced a Skype video call from a sister 3,000 miles away. A touch of a finger tip on the Accept button: no mouse or even trackpad to locate, and her live picture opened up right there in the middle of the page. Didn't have to reach for the phone, no Bluetooth headset in my ear...absolutely seamlessly I chatted with her. When we hung up, also just a tap of a fingertip, I was right back where I had been on my page.

The other day as I read a newspaper on the iPad a reminder from the iPad's calendar to call my bank popped up. I was grumpily about to get up from my chair, hunt my bank statement, look up the bank's phone number and find a phone, and a pencil and piece of paper to make any necessary notes. Then I remembered I could do all of that right there on the iPad. In fact I didn't even have to use a phone at all. In less time than it would have taken just to listen to the bank's phone system's voice menu, I had done my business, no lingering frustration of having had to wait interminably for a representative to take my call, as always happens, no annoying paper note to lose. And I continued right where I had left on my newspaper, a happier man, with more time for my tea and more time to exercise. Well, at least to keep checking Google for the research that one day will assure me that all that concern about exercise wasn't necessary after all, just as I thought.

No wires to trip over, no attachments, not even the necessity to find a table to rest a hot laptop. No tv remote.

Ahhh! The Seamless Life has arrived!

Fall in Budapest

Short days, long evenings, low, gray skies, chill, damp rain:  typical Fall weather wouldn’t change my routines when I had to go to work, raise kids and putter about with Do-it-yourself projects and maintenance around the house. 

Now though I have to find things to do to keep the devil away from my idle hands that complain at the thought of  being exposed to Fall weather. My iPad has come to my rescue and I can while away some time comfortably with it by my fireplace, an activity my whole body thanks me for and which keeps that devil at bay.

For the past ten days or so I have been taking this sequence of screen shots of a corner of a park in Budapest that is scanned continuously by a webcam, observing the inexorable march of Fall reflected in the changing color of the trees and as they lose their dense foliage to become bare trunks and branches.

In the beginning, just a few pale reddish patches, still mostly green.

The reds are taking over and the green a paler shade.

On this sunny day, the trees are ablaze with vivid red and golden leaves.

The reds are turning to brown and the leaves are beginning to fall away. Note the workers raking leaves.

Overnight most of the leaves have been stripped from the trees, most of the branches are bare and the grass is littered with fallen leaves.

But Is it a Book?

Guanaguanare said...
Just found this post, Louis. You are making me VERY interested...that e-book feature sounds great! Please tell us more as you explore it.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmy_i5U59U-V43tH_w5Tn49_MKTlWL0nZ0ki2Lw_hKrY_B7WIq3sxE8b7EpW-2NEgt1SrmprjKkvWFMiH2AolIfT5kEBUSXxnohiCmqmilwM196WnbPwQnFmeXU8CnSBrnVyM7wkpBN8e/s1600/iPad.jpg

Two internet friends, Ric and "Guanaguanare" who are serious bibliophiles recently indicated their strong interest in, but some reservations about the iPad as an e-book reader. Knowing that these two very cultured gentlemen do not read books only for their content but as a sensual experience as well, savoring the feel of the book, its binding, its entire provenance, I decided to take my iPad for a "road test" today, to see how it measures up, not just as a reading device, but as a book, as they might regard a book and as I used to, and still do, myself.

I took my iPad with me to the doctor's office today. I would see if it would withstand the challenge from the vivid illustrated covers of the usual magazines in a doctor's office, assuming that they still had covers. To see if in spite of being an electronic gadget without the warmth of a bound book it would provide enough of a sustainable booklike experience to resist the easy, short articles better suited to the distractions and anxiety of a medical waitingroom than a book. I also assumed that wifi would not be available there so I wouldn't be tempted to use any of the myriad other capabilities of the iPad, so it would be a book and nothing else but a book.

My electronic bookcase contains just two books at the moment: James Joyce's Ulysses and Winnie the Pooh. Just in case you are wondering about my literary taste, let me say that Winnie the Pooh comes pre-loaded with every iPad, a manifestation of executive power, its inclusion being the personal decision it seems of Apple's CEO Steve Jobs himself, who happens to like Winnie the Pooh. And while at first I wondered about his choice, I recalled that Winnie is prized highly by the eminently erudite Ric who wrote a blog about his delight in it:

http://richernandez.wordpress.com/2009/12/25/my-pooh-christmas/

It turns out that those two books were a good selection.

Winnie the Pooh showed off the capability of the iPad to render illustrations beautifully and faithfully, in color, equal to the printed book.



Ulysses could be enjoyed as I would have done with the printed book, flipping back and forth between virtual pages very naturally with my finger, not with a button or from a menu.



Without interrupting the flow of the book, with a press of my finger I could call up the meaning of any of its numerous unusual words or highlight with a virtual yellow highlighter any remarkable passage I might want to return to. But, while I would normally cringe at defacing a book, those markings can be completely deleted. I could also select passages for pasting into a document.


The iPad nestled comfortably on my lap as I read, again, just like a book, and didn't get hot like a laptop. The pages seemed to have the tint and texture of paper and they seemed to curve realistically inward towards the spine of the book. The black frame of the screen around the three-dimensional representation of the leaves of the book disappeared from one's consciousness, leaving nothing but the impression of holding a real book.

Adding a leather jacket to the iPad, which I intend to do, will be the final touch that makes it easy to achieve that "willing suspension of disbelief" (Coleridge) in this case to immerse oneself as fully in an e-book as one would in a bound book with paper pages. In a doctor's office as in bed.



I cannot imagine anyone taking a beautiful but hefty bound "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" to bed to read one of his sonnets, but one might be tempted to cosy up with a slender iPad.

Out of the Box

Usually "Out of the Box" refers to a way of thinking.

Today it had its literal meaning for me, as I eagerly took my new iPad out of its box and became acquainted with my new, shall we say, device, rather than "toy"?

This will be a very short blog, because as you see in the photo, I am syncing it with my computer and then I am going to spend an uninterrupted time putting it through its paces. I know that time will be uninterrupted because my spouse is doing the same with hers, which also was delivered today. At least she has a good rationale for getting hers: it's Mothers' Day this weekend. On the other hand I have no such excuse for mine, but I'll find one.

I guess we'll be having just a virtual dinner this evening, or a trip to MacDonald's.

The iPad That Came to Dinner

The iPad that Came to Dinner

A guest at Easter dinner tonight brought the iPad he had purchased the day before when iPads first went on sale. It caused almost as much excitement as the new baby he and his wife had brought along.

I had decided to wait until the 3G model becomes available in two or three weeks, but after getting my hands on this iPad, it’s going to be very hard to restrain myself from going to the Apple store tomorrow and getting my own non-3G model.

I tried out its capability as an e-reader. Like most people who have delighted in books, real books, I have been cool to the idea of e-books, until tonight. Just wait until you realize that the pages not only turn with your fingertip, just as with a printed book, but the page will even stop in mid-curl if you stop “turning” it. You can leaf back and forth, just as with a real book, no buttons or commands involved. There is the feeling that you just can’t cosy up to an e-book in bed or wherever, but in its leather case, the iPad felt just as sensuous as a bound book, and along with that realistic page turning, the absence of buttons or keys or a menu, it’s easy to forget that this is an electronic device. And when you are ready to put it down on your bedside table, the case closes with an adieu just like the cover of a book.

In addition to having the feel and manners of a bound book, the iPad is capable of adjusting the size of the text and the brightness of the page to suit one’s physical needs, an important consideration for declining eyesight or restrictions in one’s environment such as a partner who would rather sleep or in, say, a situation with no ambient light. I could even adjust the text so that I could read without my eyeglasses. It should put the joy back into reading for anyone for whom the act of reading is becoming or has become somewhat uncomfortable.

At the end of dinner the owner produced his iPad claiming that it wanted to say “Goodbye” to me. Well, it almost said “Goodbye” to its owner instead. But I knew I couldn’t run away with it fast enough, and besides he knows where I live.