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.