Writing on the iPad

I’m an iPad owner.

No, I’m not a Mac junkie. Yes, I own an iPhone, but I’m perfectly happy with my 3G model. (And yes, I buy into the whole #attfail meme.)

I didn’t get an iPad to be cool. I got an iPad because it is the perfect piece of technology for someone like me. I’ve been looking at netbooks for a while, but was never impressed with their performance. I already own a laptop (a Macbook, go figure), but even at 13″, it’s a little heavy to lug around. I needed something on which I could read a book, play a game, watch a movie, write an email, post to a blog (like now), or do some light writing. It succeeds admirably in all categories–so much so, in fact, that I’m a little put out when I don’t have it with me and there’s no WiFi to tap into.

What I didn’t expect is how much utility I derive from the Pages app and the keyboard dock. My latest novel has been entirely composed on it. It’s comfortable, portable, and sleek. The touch control (especially if you invest in a stylus from the Apple Store) is intuitive and easy to use. I can sit in the easy chair and write, on the couch in the living room, in my man cave, or at lunch at Panera Bread Company. It’s my main writing outlet now, and I never thought anything would replace my MacBook for that, other than another MacBook.

When I’m using the iPad, my hair turns two shades blonder and the air around me drops about five degrees. Girls flock to me, asking if they can touch “it.” (Okay, that part is a lie that I was forced to insert by the Apple marketing people.)

If you’re a writer and a media consumer, I can’t recommend one enough. Just don’t buy into their corporate culture of elitism.

Here’s a classic example: I can’t sync my iPad to my MacBook. Why? I’m still running OS X Tiger, which is two generations behind (Leopard and Snow Leopard). I have to upgrade to Snow Leopard in order to do so, but if I do, I break a lot of the programs that I have. Apple claims that I need to buy a $169 box set that includes the iLife suite, the iWork suite, and Snow Leopard to ensure everything works properly. Ars Technica claims that I can use the $29 upgrade disc for Snow Leopard to upgrade. Two things happened: Inexplicably, as I prepared to buy the box set with a grumble, Apple raised the price to $229 for the box set. Also, the version of Pages in the app store (the word processor) won’t talk to the version of Pages I have in iWork07. So I have to upgrade both the OS and the iWork suite, or be forever doomed to sync my shiny toy to my Windows 7 PC.

After some careful research, I noticed that Amazon sells the box set for $95, so I gave Apple the finger and ordered it. The discs arrive tomorrow, so I should finally have the ability to have my electronics talk to each other. That’s something that should have happened in the first place.