iLike: Apple’s gizmo is a multi-touch of class
The 1956 movie – and the rules – are called The Ten Commandments. Moses is holding a flat tablet of stone with letters embossed on its face.
It looks remarkably like an iPad.
Ever since Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz in southern Germany, invented the printing press in 1440, a revolution in the production of books that lasted until the 20th century, there have been various attempts to produce words and images in ever-more accessible form.
Gutenberg illuminated five centuries of western development. The iPad, Apple’s latest invention, is less ambitious, seeking to illuminate only the 21st century.
It is – on the face of it – an unimpressive looking electronic device that could be mistaken for a small tray or table mat. But simplicity is the key to the iPad’s magic.
As a journalist of 30 years plus, I have been tapping keyboards since Apple founder Steve Jobs was a boy – and I have the biceps to prove it.
I started on the knuckle-bending Remington typewriter. This hefty machine, with keys that required more brawn than brain, was the preserve of the rookie reporter. If you managed, say, six months, without a libel case, you graduated to the more user-friendly Olivetti, still a formidable beast but with Italian styling.
It had other advantages, too. I remember one chain-smoking colleague who used to wedge his lit cigarette between the “y” and the “u” keys. He was a bit of a clever dick and could easily write 1,000 words without ever relying on either of those letters.
Years later, he was not a bit impressed when computers arrived because he had nowhere to put his cigarette. He didn’t like using ashtrays so he did the next best thing – he quit (smoking, not the job). After years of manual labour on these massive typewriters the day of the electric machine finally arrived.
The first one I remember was the Golfball, a scary, high-powered electric machine that sounded like a 747 taking off. It was great fun to use, if you could manage not to get your fingers mangled between the ball and the A4 paper you wrote on. This was followed by the more sedate Daisywheel, a girly version of the Golfball and nowhere as reliable.
Then came the age of the real computer (yahoo!) – big machines with operating parts the size of a small bungalow. Every newsroom required as much space as an airline hanger and some of the machines were so moody they had to be housed in air-conditioned rooms while the reporters sweated it out upstairs.
Not until the smaller versions arrived, quickly followed by flat-screen machines, laptops and netbooks, did the 21st century really take hold in the world of journalism.
So, the arrival in Ireland of the iPad heralds another revolution in the communications world.
When I told a friend, excitedly, that, thanks to a pal in Britain, I had got hold of an iPad a day prior to its Irish launch, he was suitably impressed. He texted one caveat, though – “RTFM” – which, in polite terms means “Read The Fecking Manual”. The trouble is that in Ireland we don’t do manuals.
On this occasion, though, it might be no harm to at least experience an online tutorial. In many ways, the iPad demonstrates more computing power than NASA had when they put a man on the moon. It is also hugely versatile and can handle over 2,000 applications.
While marketed and sold as a personal product, it is in the publishing world that the iPad is really the business. This is the first computer you can actually curl up in front of the fire with and it is that ease of use that has finally led major publishers in the United States to take their online publications seriously.
National Geographic is available as an iPad app and the online version of the magazine is as stunning as the hard-copy version. Another venerable monthly magazine, Popular Science, is an “early adopter” of the iPad. Since 1872 it has been looking into the future and now it has finally arrived. Last April it launched Popular Science+, an iPad app that delivers everything readers love about the print magazine in an immersive experience that takes full advantage of the multi-touch features of the iPad.
The convergence of great content and new technology has helped make Popular Science+ one of the best-reviewed and most downloaded iPad apps in the US.
For CEO Jonas Bonnier, the app fulfills a long-standing goal.
“Since the birth of the web 15 years ago, we thought it was all about creating a digital interactive experience,” says Bonnier.
“But we don’t love magazines because they’re interactive. We love them because they’re inspiring, surprising, and provocative.
“We can read them from the first page to the last and then save them.
“The problem was we couldn’t deliver that kind of experience to our readers through the web on a computer screen.
“But on a handheld multi-touch screen like iPad, it’s all suddenly possible.”
As a Remington typewriter veteran, all I can advise is to suppress your “anything this hyped must be overrated” gag reflex and give it a go.
The iPad is a truly remarkable piece of kit.
