iPad

On Tuesday I will probably pick up an iPad.

When first announced, they seemed like superfluous innovation. I didn’t see the point. What changed that was actually seeing some iPads: at the Barnes and Noble near Georgia Tech last month.

It took less than a minute to decide that I wanted one. It then took a few additional weeks to figure out mentally what niche they would fill in my life, but they are simply “cool” enough that it would be a shot in the arm to have such a device.

And after those several weeks of thought, I realized there’s a fairly easy niche they can fill for me. I normally take my laptop to campus every day. But what I use it for is almost exclusively web browsing; I am almost completely unable to do philosophical work on campus of any sort. Too many human distractions. So, I’ll start leaving the laptop at home and hauling the iPad around. That’s apparently what my brother uses it for, and he owns an iPhone/iPad/Mac consulting firm.