iPad Love

The criticism I’ve most frequently seen leveled against the iPad is that it is not really a content creation tool. It’s like an overgrown iPhone, but without the actual phone, the complaint goes, and without the camera, either. Don’t, the pundits say, mistake it for a real computer, or for a writing tool that has the power to revolutionize how or where we write, much less how we think about writing.

Well, I beg to differ, as I predicted I would. Here I sit with a brand spanking new iPad balanced on my lap, and here I am using it to write something that I will soon publish.

The WordPress App that will send this entry to my blog was free and took only seconds to download. The image editor (I am using Photogene) that allows me quickly to grab and embed photos wasn’t free, but it was reasonably priced, and it is icing on the cake, anyway, since making a wide range of images available for content creation is as simple as populating the iPad with photos during a routine synch.

Given the relative youth of the iPad, I can’t see any reason at all not to be impressed with both its current value as a flexible content creation tool and its potential to become even more lithe and appealing in this arena as users and developers continue to envision and enact its possibilities.

In under an hour, I’ve written two email replies and composed one brief blog entry–and I am still only the rankest of beginners when it comes to this tool. I foresee much writing to come, and it pleases me no end to envision this writing as flowing from spaces and places in which even the slimmest laptop would be too ungainly.

Oh, yes, you little book-sized path to compositional nirvana. I love you already, and I can’t wait to see how you inspire me to rethink and revitalize my writing world.

AxisPortals Aphorism: The best writing often flows from life’s little nooks and crannies. The iPad fits in them, and that’s what makes it a content creation tool worth watching.