Column: The future of time-wasting toys

Talk about it

There was a time, and it wasn’t all that long ago, when I would have told you I didn’t need an iPad.

I might have told you I really, really wanted one. That each new generation was shinier and faster and looked even more than its predecessor like the absolute best option for reading magazines in the bathroom.

But needed? No. I already had an iPhone, and that does most of what the iPad does but in a handier pocket size.

I might have told you all of those things, and I would have meant them. But that was before I got an iPad.

It’s not even a fancy iPad. It’s a hand-me-down first generation device from back before the days of high-resolution displays so detailed you can see every whisker in the pictures of puppies you look up online.

It’s still a good device, though. It does most of the same things. It just does them a little bit slower. Think of it like the Tyson Gay to the new iPad’s Usain Bolt. Like everyone else to the new iPad’s Michael Phelps. Like Andy Schleck to the new iPad’s Alberto Contador, which I suppose is a reference you probably won’t understand unless you’re a fan of either professional cycling or emaciated men with foreign accents.

I’ve made these kinds of claims before. Years ago, I wrote a column about how much I liked my personal digital assistant, and I couldn’t even get email on that, much less download an app just to read the constitution.

I haven’t actually read the constitution on my iPad. But I could, and that has to count for something.

I’m a sucker for just about any well-executed technology, but I swear there’s something magical about an iPad. Sometimes I’ll open a program and close it just for the experience of returning to the home screen with a quick swipe of my fingers. I realize the ability to close programs without using a button is probably not a good enough reason to shell out several hundred dollars for what is basically an oversized iPod, but I can’t deny it’s cool.

The bigger screen makes more of a difference than I would have thought. If developers use it correctly, it’s a whole new user experience. I swear, the angry birds look at least 15 percent angrier on an iPad. That has got to be worth something.

It really is the best way to read magazines, too. In the bathroom or out. I keep up with my subscriptions better now simply because I’ve always got them with me.

I’ve really only begun to explore what is possible with this new toy. I use it to keep track of the miles I drive for work. So, take that, notebooks. I use it to browse the Internet. Given the tendency of the screen to pick up smudges, I usually use it to keep an up-to-date record of my fingerprints, at least on my two index fingers.

And can you really afford to live without that?

Tags: opinion, commentary, farmington