iPad

Of course I want an iPad. I don't particularly need one, not in the way I needed an iPhone, because I still do so much actual, real work on my MacBook. But then again, it might be a stretch to say I needed an iPhone — and that's become much more useful to me than I could have anticipated.

And sure enough, the iPad is already weighed down by unrealized expectations, by everything it can't do (or can't do, yet). But there's amazing potential here. Think of everything you can do with an iPhone now that you couldn't do with one when it was first introduced. Not the improvements that have come with hardware, but the software that has made the device so useful in so many ways. I think the possibilities for a device like this are just about limitless.

I wish iBooks were more full-featured, though. (I've heard there's no hyphenation, only force-justified text, which irritates me.) I'm still trying to sort out how the type of books I design — heavily illustrated, with many photos — might fit in that world. (Will the photos be available as links, rather than integrated into the copy? Or is there a way to place them in the text?) Of course, nobody knows how smaller publishers will have access to the platform as of yet.

I think I have better reason than ever to explore my curiousity for programming.

Audrey

I was discussing the newly-introduced iPad with my wife — she's anxious to buy one; I'm impressed, though in no particular hurry — and it struck me that the iPad represents, in many ways, part of a new class of computers as "appliances." Smaller, somewhat less powerful devices that perform a small number of tasks and fill a specific niche. I suppose you could put the iPod Touch in that category, as well, though not the iPhone. (Have you ever considered your phone to be an appliance?}

And then I remembered that Palm Computing (or rather, their parent corporation 3Com) had tried to introduce something very much like this many, many years ago — the Audrey. It was a simple, but useful device: "users could access the Internet, send and receive e-mail, play audio and video, and synchronize with up to two Palm OS-based devices." (Ironically, it was also $499.) But the product never caught on, and was discontinued after less than a year. I don't think there was any place in the market for a device like that — a decade ago, we didn't use the Internet in the same way we do today, and it wasn't as pervasive as it has become, so the idea of spending a great deal of money on a simplified device for Internet use when you probably already had a desktop computer (that cost a great deal more) would have seemed absurd. And 3Com was never able to build on the success of the Palm platform in the way that Apple has built on the iPhone platform.

Devices like these have been long-promised, and we might see more of thm in the years to come — though the iPad comes to dominate that category the way the iPhone and iPod have theirs, perhaps not so many.

Hype

I loved using my Newton MessagePad. As much for what it could do as for what it represented — it was tomorrow. The day when a portable computing device would be really, truly portable, small enough to be carried in a pocket (almost). We're there now — or here — of course, but it all seemed much further away. This was more than a decade ago, when the desktop computer I was using at work had a processor not quite as powerful as the one in my iPhone.

In fact, I loved my MessagePad so much that when it was discontinued, I spent close to $1000 on a second model, out of concern that they might become difficult to replace in the years to come. (I tried using a Palm Pilot — smaller, closer to pocket-sized — but it seemed inelegant by comparison.) I didn't know then that years later, I would give it up when I left work to be a stay-at-home parent. There were no projects to keep track of, or schedules to follow, and what time I had for reading was lost, once I wasn't commuting by train.

The MessagePad is — mostly, I think, to people who never had the chance to use one — largely thought of as a failure. It was introduced as a revolutionary product with extraordinary capabilities (particularly handwriting recognition), but the initial models (which had been plagued with problems during development) were never able to deliver on that promise. In the end, it had become a powerful and very capable device (the handwriting recognition was never all that good, though the print recognition was greatly improved), but it was a product that was several years too soon, and it was never able to overcome the failure to meet expectations.

Even if you don't obsessively follow Apple, you've probably heard that the company is about to introduce a new product (in just about five more minutes as I write this), almost certainly a sort of tablet computer. Apple is famously, notoriously secret about new products before they're introduced (often with good reason), but that leaves a vacuum of information — and I'm wary that the hype and speculation surrounding this device have raised expectations so high that nothing that will be unveiled today could possibly hope to meet them.

Since I do obsessively follow Apple, if you'll kindly excuse me...

Forbidden

There's a part of me that wants to believe in the notion of love as seen in a Frank Capra movie, circa 1932. Somewhere out there, Barbara Stanwyck is waiting.

Divisions

I've been watching the ice flows on the Hudson. At first glance, it appears to be a solid sheet of ice covering the water, but then a large piece will slowly, gently float into view, and the impact of collision causes the divisions to be revealed.

When all is silent, you can hear it cracking in the distance.

Forget

Wouldn't it be as wonderful if it were as easy to change history as it is to erase a few long-forgotten email messages?

Old Haunts

Today was spent in wandering through a place that was once familiar. There was a time, I thought I might settle there, but that all seems as illusory as any reasons I had for being there (then, or now).

Ink

I've lost count of the number of new e-Book devices were either announced or previewed at CES this week. And I'm still not sure why. I've never believed the notion that nobody wants to read books any more (it seems obvious that isn't the case), and I think there's still a place for a device that performs a few tasks very well (as opposed to something that's almost infinitely extensible, all things to all people) — but these devices strike me as virtually indistinguishable from one another, and still far too limited.

Mostly because they're just too small — I think, as much as people want to read books, they'll still want to read magazines, with photos, illustrations and (hopefully) good design. (Yeah, I know, trends in publishing would seem to indicate otherwise, but stay with me for a moment.) I don't think the reading experience ought to be reduced to simply text — if anything, I think the Web has shown that the reading experience can be incredibly enriched by escaping the limitations of traditional print publishing, and I think book publishing will (eventually) move more toward that direction.

I don't think any of these devices are ready to accommodate that. (There was one, Plastic Logic's Que, that had a larger screen — larger, I think, than many of the other devices! — but it's a great deal more expensive than most, and seems intended mostly for business users.)

I don't think the technology is ready to accommodate that, either. I remember years ago, E-Ink was being hailed as this exciting breakthrough — both because of the paper-thin form, and the incredibly low power consumption. And it still is kinda cool — but I don't think it's "there" yet. And other display technologies have caught up, more or less, as has battery technology. True, we still don't have devices with LCD screens that will last a week between charges — but that doesn't seem to be the disadvantage it once was.

I think it's the limitations imposed on these devices that hold them back, and keep them from being really, truly useful. No backlight. Limited user controls, in most cases. No multi-touch. (Once you use an iPhone, you want all handheld devices to be that easy.) The user interfaces seem sluggish. What do you get for these compromises? Better battery life, sure. Perhaps a slightly lower price — though not so much so that the devices don't seem disproportionately expensive.

As I said, a device like this doesn't have to do everything, but it should at least do those few things incredibly well. And not be overwhelmed by the compromises.

Red Beans

One moment, you're doing a Google search to check on how important the expiration date on that can of red beans might be (it was this past October) ― the next, you're knee-deep in web sites for conspiracy theorists, survivalists, "Microchips in the Flu vaccine," "Israeli Body Snatchers," "Airport Full Body Scanners destroy DNA" and people who are convinced the world will end in 2012. Still, I suppose they know their canned goods.

Carriage

It appears as though the first shots in the Cable TV wars have been fired! Even as negotiations are reported to continue between News Corporation and Time Warner Cable, hours past the deadline — which doesn't affect me at all — Cablevision has quietly dropped HGTV and Food Network over the same issues of carriage fees — which does effect me. Well, sort of. (I'd miss seeing Good Eats, but not much else.)

It should be interesting to see who gives in first.

Lyon Block

My Great Great Grandfather owned a large printing concern in Albany, New York, The J. B. Lyon Company — that's a picture of the building it occupied, taken in early 1911. His company was regularly awarded very lucrative contracts to print materials for the State of New York. My Grandmother's house was full of old books, though most were hidden behind glass cabinets, or in the attic, never disturbed. I remember the copper printing plate for a family bookplate that sat on a shelf near the fireplace.

I was reminded of this while browsing through a book of old photographs. I know a bit about my family history, but there are missing pieces. Some questions were never asked, some I never knew to ask.

It's been frustratingly difficult to find information on The J. B. Lyon Company, even with a fine-tuned Google search — the company printed hundreds, even thousands of books through the years (the latest I was able to find mention of was in 1961), that most of the results are no more than references to those various books, in various collections. But I do know that the company was started in 1876 in a small shop on State street, in Albany, incorporated in 1899. In 1892 (when the company suffered heavy losses from a fire), the firm employed about 180 men — by 1900, more than 1,000 were working in two printing plants.

And there have been scraps of information, here and there. Some are hidden in books that are only available in fragments — others are contemporary accounts that lack necessary context. Have you ever heard of the "Printing Octopus"?

I'm still puzzling that reference out (it's from a 1901 edition of The Albany Law Journal), but there have been hints that my Great Great Grandfather's company was often awarded contract work under, shall we say, questionable circumstances. According to a 1915 New York Times article (covering the trial proceedings of a libel lawsuit brought against former President Theodore Roosevelt by former Republican State Chairman William Barnes) "...the J.B. Lyon Printing Company of Albany...obtained nearly $8,000,000 of State printing contracts during the last fifteen years, although several other printing concerns got the contracts first by bidding lower than the Lyon concern. The Lyon Company generally put in a bid at a high figure and when the contract went somewhere else, usually to what was practically a dummy concern, so it was made to appear, it was turned over to the Lyons company."

Another story (this one from 1914) alleges that former Governor Martin Henry Glynn, while State Controller, used public funds to surreptitiously purchase land owned by J. B. Lyon (upon which he built a large estate), and that there was no legal record of the transaction. "[Glynn] was poking the public's money into the bank and his friend Lyon was getting it out through an intermediary with never a penny of security. I can find no deed on record showing that Glynn ever paid Lyon anything for that part of the Lyon estate on which his beautiful home is situated — opposite the Lyon home."

The J. B. Lyon Company was sold in 1916, though the company continued to carry his name — I haven't been able to sort out to whom, or why. And there are so many questions: according to my Great Grandfather's obituary, J. B. Lyon Jr. was "associated" with his Father's firm before it was sold (he would have been in his mid-twenties). Did my Great Grandfather chose not to follow in his Father's business? Did he even have that opportunity? Could the details of J. B. Lyon's behind-the-scenes shenanigans, now brought before the public's attention, have been part of the motivation for the sale?

There have also been hints of his involvement among Albany's political machinery, not that this comes as any surprise. At least, that's the impression I get from the scraps of information I've been able to piece together. In this story published in 1905 (again, from the New York Times), "Mr Stock reports that he was in the Hoffman House on Thursday night, and that while there he met John T. Cronin, Dr. J.H. Byrne, James B. Lyon, and Marcus Mayer, who, he said, told him that although they had had no meeting, they intended to inform the newspapers that they had. The result of the meeting that did not take place, he said, was a story that the Greater New York Democracy had indorsed [sic] the Municipal Ownership League's candidates." Apparently, once this covert meeting (or non-meeting, as the case may be) was discovered, the Greater New York Democracy pulled its' support for a Hearst-sponsored candidate for Mayor, in favor of the incumbent. Hearst owned the largest daily newspaper in the Albany area, and I imagine he was heavily involved in local politics.

(I'm not really sure what it all means, either, but I thought it was an interesting anecdote.)

My Great Great Grandfather died in 1929, at age 70. His son, my Great Grandfather died some ten years later, at age 48.