*Re-sending Aug 6th, initially sent Weds Aug 4th during Posterous' outage due DoS attacks*
Earlier tonight I dropped my wife, Jodie, off at the International Terminal at San Francisco airport, for a quick 1-week trip home to Aus to take care of some family stuff. Normally when we fly this kind of distance she has her regular suitcase (mid-size, bit bigger than an American-style roll-aboard case), and her little mini roll-aboard suitcase as a carry-on; and in this latter one is normally a travel pillow, eyemask, earplugs, moisturizers, headache pills and Ambien tablets, wallet, passport, pen, 3 magazines, a book, maybe my book, a camera, her jacket, my jacket, and some other random shit. Tonight, she hopped out of the car with just one suitcase, and a handbag. Like this:
Why? Two days ago she got an iPad. Our first in this house. My friends are mostly surprised that I'd been holding out, but I secretly am a tight-arse (tight fisted here in the US) and was hoping to see maybe a front-facing camera, or a Retina display before dropping the Benjamins on a first release unit. But as we got her itinerary prepared for this trip, it became clear that the investment was worth it right now - not 14 months in the future when Apple somehow moved heaven and earth again (maybe).
How? Just look at these ticket prices, focusing on the third line:
- Ticket price on Qantas, direct flight, cheapest Economy seats: ~$1450
- Ticket price on V.Australia, layovers in LAX both ways (sucks balls), cheapest Economy seats: ~$1550
- Ticket price on United (gasp!), direct flights, Economy Plus seats +iPad: ~$1650
So we naturally, decidedly, and quickly booked United (gasp! again, my friend Alex is going to think I've lost it as I was just dissing the heck out of them last week) and promptly went out and bought a 32GB iPad.
So back to tonight; I (and the dog) dropped Jodes at the airport with just one suitcase and that handbag, because in it, she had a travel pillow, eyemask, earplugs, moisturizer, pills, passport and wallet, and an iPad. And on that iPad is:
- 3 movies she hasn't seen, to watch on the flight / in Sydney (iTunes rentals)
- Her current book; Gone With The Wind (Stanza / free ebook)
- The September issue of "Glamour" magazine (Condé Nast)
- All the music she owns. All of it. (iTunes again)
- Every email account she uses. (Mail App)
- Twitter, Facebook, and various other social sites in a new digital mag. (all in Flipboard)
- A range of photos of me and the dog (Photos App)
And still there's 22GB of free space for more content, and the 8 to 10 hour battery. This is why the iPad rocks my world. Tell me again, why I'm supposed to moan about Jobs having a deity complex, and hopefully wait for a semi-functional Android or WebOS tablet with an unknown delivery timeframe? Or even worse, a Windows tablet (yet again) with nothing but Office apps for company, and quite possibly a shitty stylus (yet again)? Once more, this is why the iPad rocks my world: it's here, it works, it's gorgeous, and it changes your life. Computing can only get better. I'm looking forward to being part of it. Devices/software like the iPad remind me why.