This time it’s just a gadget, not a new roof, but still.
I bought an iPad Air II, the latest iteration of Apple’s tablet. It’s got all the bells and whistles, except I didn’t buy the cellular version. If I need to make a call, I’ll find a phone booth.
Since I don’t use my iPhone very much, the whole world of IOS and gestures and not having a hard drive and file management of some sort on the device and all that is a little (okay, a lot) mystifying. I hate to say this, but other than occasional web looking, this pricey device will serve mostly as an ebook reader, I guess. I do send the wife a text now and then as needed, but that’s about it. Still, I’m doing my part for the economy, and it was handy when I was at LCC last week.
Tip the Wink 
Every little bit helps, Rick. And it’s a swell little device.
Thanks, Bill. These gadgets aren’t cheap, though. Now I suppose I’ll need to read one of them dadgummed ebook things on it.
I use the iPad a lot , but not for reading.
Richard, that is a neat looking gadget. I use a cellular tablet though I mainly use it to read ebooks and play chess. These gadgets have many features that I know very little about.
Sweet! We have two iPads: the original and the iPad2. Katie has the iPad3 and Patrick has the latest and greatest iPad version (maybe the one you just bought). APPLE has made a lot of money off of us.
Nice. We got two Verizon Ellipsis tablets when we got the new Galaxy 5 phones in Florida. And they were incredibly cheap. (I’m talking $10 for one and $20 for the other!) Jackie uses hers way more than I do to play games. No phone but I do use it for email, to check the blogs, to read the NY Times and other newspapers, to play Freecell and as an ebook reader. And I used it to watch the local NY Eyewitness News live while in Florida.
No Apples here.
Since my bills seem to take most of my income, I reckon I’m doing my part
Rick, I do think you’re kidding yourself (and dating yourself) if you think you’re going to find a “phone booth” anywhere. Do they even exist any more?
I’m with you on iOS. I get frustrated using the internet on my iPhone. Example: none of my Blogger editing functions work properly on my phone. The reformatting kind of drives me crazy too. But I sure don’t miss the sidebar ads. I tend only to check email and use it as a phone. I keep contemplating buying a tablet myself specifically to take advantage of new books that exist only in digital format. Plus, too many of the PR agents I deal with prefer using NetGalley these days and I refuse to read book on my laptop. A tablet is the only way to go since it will be multi-functional. I begrudgingly will confess that we are truly running out of space for real books in our home. And I’ve already curtailed buying hardcover vintage books in favor of reading copy paperbacks that I can just donate to a book sale when I’m done and not feel I’ve wasted too much money.
RE: Phone booths. I saw one of the last remaining phone booths on a trip recently out west. Forget which state though. Had to be either Washington or Oregon, so it may very well have been in Portland! We were both floored. And yes there was a working phone inside. Chicago still has a few working pay phones but they’re all of the semi-enclosed type, no real booths anywhere anymore.
The phone booth line was humor, people. You know: ha, ha!
Patti, so what DO you use it for? The regular internet-mail-calendar kinda stuff?
Prashant, you and me both. I guess I’ll figure some of it out eventually, or at least the things I need. The most irritating thing is that my email disappears if I open it on another device.
George, I wanted the iPad Air because it’s lighter and if I’m going to use it as an e-reader I want it easy to hold. The case I bought has a strap on the back I can slip my hand through to hold it too.
Charles, you’re one of those high-paid college professor types, plus you’re a big-name author, so I’m sure you’re exaggerating about your poverty. I’m kidding, you know.
Jeff, I know you got tablets cheap as dirt, but I wanted a really light one and this was the best bet for an Apple product so it would sync with our other devices. And yes, I WAS KIDDING about the phone booth.
John, it seems the flow of tech carries us all along with it these days. I don’t particularly like it, though sometimes these things are handy, but I often feel like a blind man try to learn how to drive. I also don’t much like that there are seemingly constant updates and upgrades which must be downloaded and often change functionality so we have to relearn the device we thought we had finally figured out.
But I thought Apple products are intuitively easy to use (he asked innocently)?
Just found out we’d had enough taken out of Jackie’s pension and social security in Federal withholding to get a nice refund check. I know many people want to keep their money but we like to make sure we don’t have to pay in April.
Jeff, this thing is as easy to use as you could want, if you have any familiarity with smart phones which I do not. Don’t I recall you mentioning your vacation reading was affected by you getting new tablets? Why, yes, I do.
We got a refund from Oregon, and another on a refile coming, but the Feds wanted a couple hundred over our already hefty withholding. Still we got more back than we had to pay, so it’s good. Part of that refund went toward this gadget, or rather the refund went towards part of the gadget.
You know I’m just teasing. It definitely can eat up a lot of time. We had to go back to Verizon a couple of times to deal with various issues. I guess it is easier if you have smart phone experience. Now you’ll have to be dragged into the new century like the rest of us. Quite often I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Oh, one thing that helps is that I put all the blogs I visit on bookmarks so I can easily find them all on one page.
I knew you were, as was I, kidding, Jeff. When I fired up the iPad, it pulled all the old bookmarks off the other computers (all in the network, don’t ‘cha know) so somewhere in that morass of URLs most of the blogs I visit are to be found. Now I need to clean house a bit.
I just checked the specs and ours is several ounces lighter, but it is definitely smaller than the iPad. And yours costs a lot more, obviously, even if we didn’t get ours for virtually nothing.
😉
We got a pretty good price at Costco, compared to the Apple Store, but still spent a lot.
A wise decision, sir. I salute you.