Rare Book Monthly
iPad: Avenue to the Attention Age?
The iPad with the external keyboard & dock (photo via Apple)
The lack of a physical keyboard means that, away from home, typing on the touch-screen is a practiced and developed skill, and you'll probably never get to the point where you want to write chapters for a book on it. There is, however, an external keyboard that docks with the iPad and charges it. It also props it up at an angle similar to a laptop or desktop, so it essentially gives you the functionality of a laptop on a desk. I'm honestly considering getting one to replace my laptop, and that keyboard dock is key in my eyes.
I don't propose that this replace your Windows-based PC machine at work. I see the iPad as a great way for people to interact with the Internet in the new modes that are defining the experience in the Web 2.0 era. And I see it as a particularly forgiving platform, with almost no possibility for malware, very few physical buttons and a large display. Things like Facebook (for sharing pictures with relatives, maybe?), Twitter, RSS feed reading rather than manually going to various sites, all of these can be done on the iPad, and I dare say they're meant for each other. I have my ideas about how user-generated content in 2.0 could work with the rare book field, but that'll be for next month's issue of AE Monthly!
If you’d like more information on the iPad, I suggest watching a video Apple has uploaded to their website which details virtually all of its features. You can find it by clicking here.
