Gizmos

Our wedding anniversary is coming up in a little over week, and my wife has been eyeing a Kindle Fire. (Well, looking at pictures, since they haven't shipped any yet, and there's no place where you can lay hands on one to play with.) 


We are Mac folks, however, have been since she owned and ran a newspaper that used a Mac toaster for layout, in the early 1990s. Try that some time, laying out a tabloid on a nine-inch screen. OS 4 or 5, as I recall.


The iPad has the same size screen as the first desktop we had. And that's about all they have in common.


The toaster, which quickly became a boat anchor, was but the first of many Macs that have cycled through here. The memory gets ever larger, the screens get bigger, and the price has gone down. Welcome to the future. 


Um. Anyway, yesterday I decided to go see if there were any iPad 2s available. When I got mine, there was an eight-week waiting list, and I haven't been tracking that. While the Mac store down at the mall was packed with early Christmas shoppers–there were fifty or sixty people clogging up the place–they have an express desk. Say, what are the possibilities of getting an iPod 2 in such and such a configuration?


100% said the sweet young thing behind the table.


Okay. Gimme.


Yeah, it cost twice as much as the Kindle, more by the time you get the extended warranty, but if you are dyed-in-the-wool Apple fan, you know going in you are paying for the hardware and that there will be ten million programs and applications at prices from free to reasonable, to stuff into the new toy, so I went for it.


Mostly, it'll be a reader and web-surfer, and you can use WiFi (3G is a built-in option). Got the neat little magnetic cover that turns it off when you close it, color-coördinated, too. 


She didn't know I was going to get it, and was properly surprised. Ran the battery way down yesterday playing with it. 


Happy Anniversary!