I Have a Tablet!
As someone who has resisted every single technological invention brought to market, I cannot contain my excitement about owning an Arnova tablet. Over the summer I heard rumors that the publishers of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News were going to release a tablet with their content loaded, and I thought maybe my self-imposed banishment of techie products might end. And it did.
The day after I read about it in my paper-version human-delivered copy, I ordered the tablet online, and counted down the days until it arrived. I was amazed that I could so easily load the information required, and start reading the Inquirer that day. Aside from basic computer skills, I don't have much experience with products that require advanced technical abilities. I have never owned an iPod or a Kindle, although I have purchased them as gifts, I still own a dumb phone, and I don't have a laptop. I'm not one of the 800,000,000 people who have a Facebook page, and I don't have a Twitter account. But then something happened last year that got my attention: the iPad.
When the late Steve Jobs presented it a year and a half ago, I went positively gaga over it. I visited the local Apple store, and played with it until closing. Although my husband has used an iPhone for the last couple of years, not once have I ever borrowed it to check my email or browse the Internet. The screen is too small for my middle-aged eyes, and my fingers are too fat for the keyboard.
But the iPad and other tablets that are now available solved both of these problems. They are aesthetically beautiful, with sleek casings and glass screens, and most important, they are big. When I'm reading, I want the letters to be large enough so that I can read with speed, and this is the tablet's greatest achievement.
For Philadelphia Media Network, offering the papers with the tablet allows people like me--the tech-averse--to invest a small amount of money to try something new. I was not ready to invest upwards of $700 for a tablet, but I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to buy one for $100. I have been an Inquirer subscriber for over two decades. I'm old enough to remember the Bulletin, and I want to live in a community with a vibrant newspaper presence. When there is little oversight of community and government agencies, corruption flourishes. While technological advances have presented enormous challenges for media companies in recent years, we need to ensure that content is paid for, not simply rerouted to other websites. Otherwise, what will there be to aggregate if no one is paying reporters and editors?
Perhaps the tablet initiative will be the wave of the future. For the last few weeks I've been learning how to use all of the features available on the Arnova, and I may even try and download a free book from the app store. Every so often I see someone with an iPad, and while I await patiently for the market price to come down, I'm quite satisfied with what I've got.
The day after I read about it in my paper-version human-delivered copy, I ordered the tablet online, and counted down the days until it arrived. I was amazed that I could so easily load the information required, and start reading the Inquirer that day. Aside from basic computer skills, I don't have much experience with products that require advanced technical abilities. I have never owned an iPod or a Kindle, although I have purchased them as gifts, I still own a dumb phone, and I don't have a laptop. I'm not one of the 800,000,000 people who have a Facebook page, and I don't have a Twitter account. But then something happened last year that got my attention: the iPad.
When the late Steve Jobs presented it a year and a half ago, I went positively gaga over it. I visited the local Apple store, and played with it until closing. Although my husband has used an iPhone for the last couple of years, not once have I ever borrowed it to check my email or browse the Internet. The screen is too small for my middle-aged eyes, and my fingers are too fat for the keyboard.
But the iPad and other tablets that are now available solved both of these problems. They are aesthetically beautiful, with sleek casings and glass screens, and most important, they are big. When I'm reading, I want the letters to be large enough so that I can read with speed, and this is the tablet's greatest achievement.
For Philadelphia Media Network, offering the papers with the tablet allows people like me--the tech-averse--to invest a small amount of money to try something new. I was not ready to invest upwards of $700 for a tablet, but I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to buy one for $100. I have been an Inquirer subscriber for over two decades. I'm old enough to remember the Bulletin, and I want to live in a community with a vibrant newspaper presence. When there is little oversight of community and government agencies, corruption flourishes. While technological advances have presented enormous challenges for media companies in recent years, we need to ensure that content is paid for, not simply rerouted to other websites. Otherwise, what will there be to aggregate if no one is paying reporters and editors?
Perhaps the tablet initiative will be the wave of the future. For the last few weeks I've been learning how to use all of the features available on the Arnova, and I may even try and download a free book from the app store. Every so often I see someone with an iPad, and while I await patiently for the market price to come down, I'm quite satisfied with what I've got.
posted by olgapolites at 7:57 AM
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