Under a Gibbous Moon

I don’t give a shit about the iPad one way or the other. To me it seems like a underpowered, under-featured  and overpriced laptop, but the thing that keeps pissing me off is how tech magazines and blogs seem to act like this device will dethrone the Kindle as the eBook king and lead a new revolution in the technology.

This is strange since, last time I checked, the iPad would be a step backwards. The hole point of the E Ink technology was to create a display that was actually easy to read. Anyone who uses a computer for an extended period of time knows the kind of headaches reading on a monitor can cause.

It’s no surprise since you are essentially staring into a low powered lamp. Now, though, the pundits think that people will go scrambling back to read while staring into the sun. I’ve even read that school are interested in replacing textbooks with iPads.

First, this is awesome because I want a $600 dollar device to read my $100 book and don’t tell me they’ll cut the price for the electronic version, they’ll just add a few hyperlinks and call it the enhanced edition (not to mention killing the used market). And second, since students (well not frat boys) spend hours and hours studying their textbooks I’m sure they’ll appreciate the added eyestrain.

The iPad may be everything to everybody but it’s not a goddamned eBook reader. Stop acting like it is.

Related (maybe) posts:

1. The dangers of fanboyism