Journal Entry
iPad as a reading medium
The Unofficial Apple Weblog considers the iPad vs other reading experiences and decides:
When I read the paperback on the tube, not once did I worry about hanging on to my paperback for dear life. A $7 paperback book is a pretty low target for a thief. A $500 iPad out in the open on a crowed train, on the other hand, is prime theft material. The reading experience goes down dramatically when you need to keep an eye on the people walking past you. Think I’m being paranoid? The New York Times reported in April that smartphone theft increased 70% year over year in Boston and 65% year over year in Washington DC. Those aren’t pickpocket thefts either — they’re snatched-out-of-your-hands thefts. The iPad is a larger and easier-to-snatch device than a small smartphone, especially when you’re reading it on a crowded city train, and the constant awareness that you must keep an eye out for potential theft detracts from the reading experience.
Everyone’s been asking me about my own experience. I’ve had my iPad around for a little over a week. My impressions are pretty much the same as after the hour I spent initially playing around with it.
Most of the reasons people prefer a paperback (it’s more portable) are points I apply toward my iPhone. Whoever said a paperback can be ‘put in a pocket’ must be wearing some crazy baggy jeans. Because I find it hard as fuck to stick a paperback in any of my pockets except my winter jackets. I don’t walk around with paperbacks in my pockets like a lot of people seem to suggest you can do with a paperback, but can’t with an iPad.
Dumbest comparison yet.
But as I mentioned in my first impressions post, I see the iPad as being most amazing for comics and magazines. And that’s just what I hit mine up with for the most. I have 6 subscriptions that I have now moved over to the iPad. I was just held up at the bank this morning, and spent time reading Popular Mechanics. The only magazine I can’t get is Consumer Reports.
In addition, I’m catching up on some episodes of The Walking Dead, I fell behind on reading. I’m also picking up where I left off reading Wolverine when I left for college.
Most surprising to me is that I’m instinctively moving a lot of internet browsing and rss reading off my laptop onto my iPad. It offers a much more comfortable way to read, and reading long articles and blog posts feels relaxing, and not something I want to scroll through as quickly as I can. Interesting items get copied into one of my notes applications for sync across all my devices. As a result, some integration between blogging apps and browsing/rss reading will be nice. In one week I’m rarely doing any browsing on my laptop.
As for eBooks and reading. My iPhone is still my go to reader, as I’ve predicted. It’s palm sized, light, and it’s always with me. But I’ve already comfortably read two books on the iPad (Daniel Pink’s Driven, and A Memoir of Sherlock Holmes), which was more use than I expected. I really like the landscape iBooks reading mode. I’m thinking I will probably read more books on the iPad than I expected.
Given that, right now Kindle.app will make more sense for use, as I can switch between my iPhone and iPad and Amazon’s whispersync marks where I was last reading and lets me continue. Convenient. Hopefully iBooks, when it comes out for the iPhone, will allow similar behavior.
I have an all day travel trip from Detroit to Barbados at the end of the month. Normally that’s a torturous trip. I’m somewhat looking forward to the trip with the iPad, because the crazy awesome battery life will last the whole trip. I’ll work on my laptop until it goes dead, and then know I can entertain myself on the iPad with some books, movies, or games (or even peck away at some work) for the rest of the trip.
Filed under the topic Journal on May 10th 2010 at 5:10 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.
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Tobias is a Caribbean-born SF/F novelist who lives in Ohio.
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1. Catherine Shaffer on May 10th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
You got held up at the bank! *snicker snicker*
2. Jed on May 10th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Fwiw, I’ve put paperbacks in my pants pockets on occasion. Not thousand-page epic fantasy paperbacks, but still.
Also sometimes in jacket pockets (regular California lightweight jackets, not just big heavy winter coats).
And I used to sometimes carry one in my waistpack, back when I wore one of those.
Still, your point is well taken: I don’t often carry paperbacks around in my pockets.
But for me, the main point of an ebook reader would be to be *more* convenient than a paper book. For me, the idea isn’t that paperbacks are already as portable as I want them to be; it’s that they’re not, so I want a device that is. My iPhone fits in my pocket, so I always have it with me, and I sometimes read from that screen, but a bigger screen (that’s still pocket-sized) would be even better.
I realize I’m not addressing quite the same point as you are; I’m not arguing that a paperback is a lot more portable than an iPad. But for me, the iPad is also not a lot more portable than a paperback, and portability is the main thing I would want in a device that replaced paperbacks.
(Um, but I don’t mean to attack the iPad; I’ve spent some time with one, and enjoyed it. It’s better than I would’ve expected in various ways. Still not the right device for me (not yet, anyway), but obviously plenty of people like it a lot.)
3. Edward Greaves on May 10th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Um…I can fit a paperback in my pockets rather easily.
In fact, instead of just saying that, I took out my copy of Crystal Rain and proved it. (And just to prove I’m not lying, I recorded it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev7MM2Aav0w )
However, I rarely ever *need* to put a paperback in a pocket. I’m usually either holding it, reading it, or it’s in my backpack. I’m going to agree with you that the pocket issue is a non-issue.
Now, as to the article you cite, I admit that with my Kindle, I used to a bit more paranoid about it. I was an early adopter, and that made me nervous on the train into and out of Manhattan. Granted, I’m not a daily commuter, so I tend to be more mindful that I’m going outside of my regular environment and am therefore more on my guard. But I’ve had it so long now, that I get less stressed out by it.
Also, I don’t know about you with the iPad, but I know with my Kindle I tend to hold it with both hands like a book. I would suspect that someone going for a snatch and grab would rather do it for something you’re holding in one hand, rather than a device you’ve got both hands on. But I could be wrong about that. Of course it’s true, the odds of someone even considering a snatch and grab on your paperback are miniscule, compared to any electronic device.
Personally, I wish the iPad had come out a year ago. I’d tried to buy my wife an iTouch, and she just didn’t like it as a portable device. Too small and the potential for he child abusing the device and breaking it, or it getting damaged in the purse, etc, nixed the whole idea. Instead we opted for a netbook. Not a bad choice, and cheaper certainly than an iPad would be. But I think that for 95% of her computer use, the iPad would have worked out just fine.
4. Mary Kay on May 10th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
I love my iPad for reading — it’s so much easier for my old eyes than paperbacks, and about equal to a hardback to my arthritic hands. Except it’s much easier to prop up & read that way. I’ve been having something of a reading orgy. Where do you go to get the magazine subs? Do you go to the individual magazine sites or are there sites that handle a bunch?
MKK – read &answered on my iPad
5. Tobias Buckell on May 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Mary: I use Zinio (zinio.com, and they have an app for the ipad). It’s, early days, but it gets the job done happily (the area where you manage your library is pretty crude, for example).
6. cedunkley on May 11th, 2010 at 11:01 am
We have a couple of iPads here at work and I’ve managed to fiddle with the iBook app. All they have on there at the moment is the free Winnie-the-Pooh book and I’ve flipped through a few pages. It seems real nice. And the iPad as a whole is a nifty device.
My biggest issue however is I’m on the computer all day for the day job and I don’t know that I’d want to stare at a computer screen to read as well. So far no one I work with owns a Kindle for me to get a look at the e-ink screen. I think I would prefer that but until I see it in person I can’t be sure.
I suspect I will need to make a visit to the local B&N since they have the Nook set up on display in there information booth.
I need to make the switch to e-books soon as I could probably build a room with the amount of books I have. They’re all so expensive still, however. The Kindle seems like the way I’m going to end up going, if I really like the e-ink screen.