Audio By Carbonatix
This week’s Newsweek — which should probably be titled “Suck-up-week” — includes a front page pic of the iPad and a back page ad for the Amazon Kindle. The main article is a generally positive piece about the iPad and the geeks who love it.
Indeed, I have used both for the last week. I borrowed a Kindle a week ago and then got an iPad for my birthday yesterday; I updated my iTunes and plugged in. It’s amazing — if particularly Wi-Fi unfriendly. (Apple just offered a mediocre fix to this.) The colors are incredible. The apps that I quickly downloaded seem pretty good — though the New York Times one is too small (is it just me?). And the manageability factor compared to my BlackBerry is simply not comparable. Playing with the magnification and paging through stuff is giggle fun.
But the Kindle, well, I thought it would be rendered useless. I was wrong. It’s more like a book. Convenient and relaxing to read. The 3G hookup is much more reasonable…and it has a time and place…. Books are better on it. There are costs, of course. You pay for many things on the Kindle that you can get for free using the superior web browser on the iPad.
But as a New Yorker story of a few months ago showed, the readability of the Kindle has a distinct advantage. It’s relaxing in the evening when people like me, who spend all day on a computer screen, just don’t want to see another one.
I ain’t given up either one. At least until I go broke. Which might be soon.
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