iPad

Steve Jobs is a genius of marketing and the master of hype. And boy, do I love some good hype!! Whether or not the iPad is everything you'd hoped for depends on whether you look at it as a bigger and better iPod Touch or a toned-down laptop. I think of it as the former, and it impresses the crap out of me.

See, I don't use our laptop for things like word processing, photo editing, etc. It's just for web surfing and using this recipe software I have, so I can use it in the kitchen. I don't need another computer. I need a portable gadget that does real internet on a decent-size screen. And if it does other cool stuff--- bonus!

Since my PalmPilot days, I've been hot for an electronic calendar with a screen big enough to really see what is going on today, this week, this month. I was positively claustrophobic using the tiny PalmPilot screen, and went to the Franklin Covey paper system within a couple of years. Now I'm on a teensy weensy paper calendar in my purse, in painful conjunction with a highly functional calendar living on my PC. So while others are enamored of the iPad's battery life and iBooks app, I am melting at the sight of the calendar on a big, portable screen. Cooool.

As many have pointed out, this device is not something you'll toss in your purse. It will require a satchel. ("It's not a purse! It's a satchel." Bwahaha!) I carry practically nothing in my purse. If I could find an iPad satchel with a phone pocket and a place for credit cards and a lipstick, I'd be all over it. And I'd ditch the purse.

[Oooooh! I just found out that Blogger has a new editing interface, which now expands to fit the text of an entry. NICE. Thank you, Google. I hate scrolling through here making edits.]

Anyhoo, I saw an interesting exchange on a blog where readers were commenting how there should be more women on Apple's marketing team, because iPad is a terrible name. One said it's like "maxIPad" followed by someone else saying she would wait for next year's model, the "minIPad." Good one.

I don't know about the 3G for my area. It's pretty slow and sporadic here. I'd definitely go wifi.