Trending topic: The I-Refuse-to-call-it-IPad

Well, there it is. Yesterday Apple unveiled their new IPad. While I was all "Oooh! Shiny!" (I'm still "Oooh! Shiny!" but now with a dose of the giggles and I'm actually contemplating practical applications as well.) at first I now find myself wondering what the hell I'd do with this thing?

I think I'd definitely use it for my email and watching videos. I also think it would make a neat digital photo album. I have been in love with iPhoto for years, though. I also foresee this actually being the one thing that converts me to ebooks. I have, in the past, not really liked ebooks. There's just something about reading lots of text (example: I read the first Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Until Dark, on my MacBook pre-screen dying) on a computer. I found it to be annoying as hell and after about half an hour it hurt my eyes. The ebook they were featuring on the demo video actually looked like the pages of a book. That, to me is cool. Granted, falling asleep with an $700 book on your lap is probably not the best idea and I do have a tendency to fall asleep reading. I can't count the number of times Casey has taken a book off my face or off my pillow and put it on the nightstand next to me.

I think the ebook thing will really catch on, especially if they start putting textbooks on it. I remember that in high school I would just carry around all my books because I wouldn't have time (5 minutes for a passing period?! C'mon!) to go to my locker and switch out books. Especially if my locker was on the far end of the first floor and my class was on the opposite end of the third floor. Students could just get their IPad, load their text books onto it at the beginning of the year, and then carry the 1.5 or 1.6 pound (depending on the model it's either 1.5 or 1.6 lbs) IPad to class. Add in a multitasking dealio where you could take notes directly on your IPad about what you're reading and that would completely revolutionize education. Not to mention think about all the trees you'd be saving if you could just write your homework on your IPad and then email it to your teacher!

I would like to use the IPad for presentations, but I have to find out if Numbers or Pages (the Mac equivalent of MSWord and Excel and Power Point) can run on the IPad.

What would I have liked to see included? Some sort of handwriting recognition where you could use a stylus on notepad and wha-la! It transfers. I would have also have liked to see some sort of blue tooth phone application or VOIP installed. Something where you could combine your IPhone and your IPad, not needing to carry around both. And they say that the IPad has a speaker built in, but does it have a headphone jack? I'll have to look into that.

Another thing that will be cool would be an art type program. Think sketch book. You could even call it iSketch. It would be another stylus-type program where you could draw directly onto the IPad with a stylus, have a palette on the side, you could choose brushes or whatever and then upload your works of art to the internet to either be printed or just viewed by the world. Or if you didn't want to go the uploading route, you could transfer them to IPhoto for your own private viewing pleasure.

Like I said, all my gripes are mainly software based. It's a really cool concept, but I really don't think it's quite there yet. I seriously think I'd spend the extra couple of hundred bucks and replace my MacBook before I bought an IPad. It will take a lot of talking and a few upgrades (the biggest of which the IPad seriously needs flash capabilities) before I actually shell out the cash for it.

Oh, and what's with the name? Apparently there are absolutely no women working in the upper ranks of Apple because IPad? Seriously!? My first thought, much like most of the women I follow on Twitter, was IPad- sounds like a maxi pad. One of the trending topics on twitter was itampon. Mr. Jobs should have gone with iSlate instead. Maybe, before it's released, they'll change the name. Until it does, I refuse to actually say IPad out loud simply because the giggles it garners. I'll be calling either the iSlate or the Apple Tablet. Yes, we live in a pretty immature society. We all love our fart jokes and PMS jokes. Personally, I like fart jokes better, but that's just me. I am pretty sure the next time I get my period one of my friends (if not several) will say something to the effect of "Need to borrow an ipad?" And I'm not even going to post the ipad skit from MadTV that came out a couple of years ago. I know it's been posted all over the place already, so yeah. If you haven't seen it, you can go and google it.

Thems my thunks, take 'em or leave 'em.