Megatheriums for Breakfast

Well, at the sake of being seen to be the total Apple fanboy (a description that a few years ago I would never have dreamed could be applied to myself), I’m going to talk about my new Apple toy – the new Apple TV. The name is a bit of a misnomer as it isn’t a TV at all, just a media device which connects to your television.

At only AU $129 it wasn’t a major expense, and I figured it would be a modest enhancement to my existing television / hi-fi system.

It has actually exceeded my expectations already, and that got me to thinking about how Apple products compare with products from other companies. I have found through personal experience that a product which looks good on paper often turns out to be a disappointment in practice. That has never happened to me with an Apple product. Rather I usually find myself surprised and delighted that the product does more, or works better, than I had hoped. Perhaps this is one reason why Apple is now (by market capitalization) the second largest company in the world? Or maybe not, there are plenty of huge companies which produce awful products (viz Microsoft).

Anyway, I ordered my Apple TV not long after it was announced, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago.

The first amazing thing is how small this thing is – it literally fits into the palm of your hand. With its tiny size and sleek blackness, it is just unnoticeable in my audio-visual set-up – a visitor would have to have it pointed out to them.

I connected a HDMI cable from the Apple TV to my television, via a switchbox (I only have one HDMI input on my television), and to my hi-fi system via an optical cable. Neither cable is supplied with the Apple TV, by the way. Plugged in the power, turned on the television, and within moments I was being asked to set up a connection to my wireless network, a matter of putting in the network password (you do password your network, don’t you?). Bingo, I was up and running and could rent a movie, or view YouTube or Flikr. A little more set up (turning on Home Sharing in iTunes on my computer and on the Apple TV) and I could play all of the media I have in iTunes on my computer – all the movies, iTunesU lectures, and digital music I own. One more bit of set-up (pointing iTunes to the photo folder I wanted to view) and I could view all of my digital photos or turn them into a slideshow.

The quality of all of this media is just great, either viewed on my (modest) digital television or played through my (equally modest) hi-fi system.

The first night my wife and I picked out a movie we’d missed at the cinema (The Men Who Stare At Goats), paid for it with a couple of clicks, and watched it through. Sure, we could probably have rented a DVD of this same movie for a couple of bucks less, but the hassle of having to go out to the video store, find the movie, drive it back home, then return it has got to add up to a few dollars of inconvenience value. The only disappointing thing is that, so far, there are a number of movies I would like to see which aren’t yet available for rent in the Australian iTunes store, but, as they say, patience is a virtue. And there are still plenty of movies available for rent which I would like to catch up with.

But the best thing about all of this is when I installed the Remote app on my iPad. It turns my iPad into the media centre of the house. With this, I can sit down in my armchair and scroll through all my media on my computer and start playing through the Apple TV. Being able to scroll through all my music albums and pick one to play instantly through my hi-fi is wonderful.

Then there’s the Internet connection. My daughter came round and mentioned a YouTube clip that our son-in-law had posted. Within a matter of moments we were viewing it full screen on our television.

So I have to confess it – I’m an Apple (TV) fanboy!

Some time ago, I wrote about my feelings for books, and where I thought reading was going.

At that stage (March 2009), I had just discovered reading on my iPod Touch. It was long before the iPad was announced, but I’m pleased to find that my earlier comments are all pretty much still valid. I still treasure the feel of a “real”, dead-tree book and will no doubt still hang on to most of my current collection of some 3,000 volumes – at least until the next time we move house!

But since I bought an iPad in late May of this year, it has become my reading device of choice.

I have now read almost a dozen books on the iPad, and I find it a very comfortable experience, though I am appalled at how badly some e-books have been constructed by the publishers.

Apart from free classics, I have paid full price for all of the e-books I have acquired.

My favourite e-book store is Books on Board, which has a great selection, good prices and a really easy mechanism for selection and payment. Though I have bought a couple of books from Amazon to read in their Kindle app, and a few from Kobo books to read in their app, I prefer to use the Apple iBooks app, which I find is by far the best of the reading apps on the iPad. However, in Australia Apple are still only offering classics from Gutenberg (they haven’t been able to negotiate agreements with local publishers, it seems).

Getting my books into iBooks has involved some shenanigans to remove the Digital Rights Management. I’m not going to tell you how I did this, because it’s arguably against US legislation to publish such information. But I am confident that I am within the law to actually do this – I have paid for the books, after all, and all I am doing is format-shifting them. What nonsense that we even have to worry about this stuff!!

But as well as books, I have been reading a lot of other stuff on my iPad. There are newspapers, for example. I also regularly look at the New York Times. I tried their “Editor’s Choice” app, but though it is well-designed I prefer their web site, which has more varied content.

My local-city newspaper, The Age, doesn’t have an app out as yet (and judging by the offering from their sister publication, The Sydney Morning Herald, it won’t be worth waiting for), but their web site is OK, if a little tricky to navigate by touch. My wife and I both sit reading The Age in the morning on our iPads as we have breakfast. In this regard, I am very fond of the set of MoviePegs I bought, which enable me to prop up the iPad in a portrait orientation.

In the morning I also check out the local weather, using a great Australian app called Oz Weather HD.

I also particularly like the Guardian newspaper app called Guardian Eyewitness. Every day there’s a stunning photograph, complete with tips for budding photojournalists.

Looking rather like a newspaper itself, though actually a collection of my favourite RSS feeds, is The Early Edition, which I use to scan through what is new. Mostly, though, I shunt off longer articles to the brilliant app Instapaper. I’m particularly enjoying following the 17th Century blogger, Sam Pepys, this way.

My latest delight has been discovering that I could subscribe to New Scientist magazine on the iPad, through the Zinio app.

Over the last 30 years (!) I have tried to keep up with New Scientist in many different ways – a subscription to the hard copy through my local newsagent (expensive), a subscription on microfische (required a special reader, and uncomfortable), a digital version through an organisation called Newsstand (I could only read this on my computer, sitting at my desk – also uncomfortable).

But finally, I can subscribe at a reasonable cost (only a third of the cost of the hardcopy), and read it in comfort in an armchair. Brilliant! And much more pleasant and interesting to see all of the photographs, diagrams and sidebars (and even the advertisements) in their right place in the magazine, with excellent layout. The pinch and stretch zoom capabilities of the iPad make this a very comfortable way to read a magazine. I wish The Age was available in this way.

And then there’s… well, comics. OK, I know I’m now nearly 60 years old and I shouldn’t be indulging in reading the kind of escapist stuff I read when I was 13, but the fact is that I still enjoy it. Some time ago I bought a DVD collection of 40 years worth of Spider-Man comics, all in PDF format. I read some of these on my computer, but as usual, sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen is hardly relaxing. But come the iPad, and the excellent GoodReader app, I can sit and read my way through these with great comfort and lots of nostalgia.

Then there are modern comics, or graphic novels, whatever. Both Marvel and DC comics have their own apps (based on the same engine) and both have a good selection of free comic books. I particularly enjoyed ElephantMen, both for the quality of the graphics and the interesting story.

And if we want to get out of the graphic gutter and reach for the literary stars, then there’s always the excellent Shakespeare Pro app. Every play the Bard wrote, complete with line numbers, search capabilities, illustrations and much more.

Reading will never be the same again.

I’m probably going to skip by a lot of books I’ve read in the last few months, too bad! Here’s just what I can remember. It does demonstrate (1) that I am reading a LOT of books and (2) that my iPad has become my reading device of choice. This list of books doesn’t even include the many articles from newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other shorter stuff which I also read on my iPad. More on this in a separate post.

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

Paperback, my own collection

I have always been very interested in the history of science and technology, and this book really pandered to that interest. Covering the late 1700s to the early 1800s, this is a beautifully written and fascinating look at the intertwining of science and culture in the “Romantic” era in Britain. I had no idea that scientists like Humphry Davy also wrote poetry and were closely associated with poets like Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron, who in turn had been deeply interested in contemporary science.

Even putting aside that fascinating side of the book, The Age of Wonder is also a wonderful collection of scientific biographies, covering the lives and work of Joseph Banks, William and Catherine Herschel, William’s son John Herschel, Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday, not to mention the explorer Mungo Park. Really well done.

Heresy by S.J.Parris

E-book, on my iPad

Ho-hum mediaeval mystery with Giordano Bruno as the protagonist, for some reason. I slogged through it, but was left unsatisfied.

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

A Storm of Swords by George R R Martin

Audiobooks, on my iPhone

This is the second time I’ve read/listened to this series by George R R Martin. I’m not at all a big fan of long-winded fantasy series, but Martin writes so well, with such interesting and three-dimensional characters, and with such a light touch on the magical or fantasy elements of his world that these books do stand out from the genre. The series now seems bogged down, with Martin spending the last ten or twelve years trying to get out the next volume (I count A Feast for Crows as an unfortunate and awkward attempt to satisfy the demands of his fans) with no real prospect in sight of the whole projected series (eight volumes) ever being completed. But I almost think that the series could end with A Storm of Swords and still be considered a completed and satisfying work in its own right.

Passage by Connie Willis

E-book, on my iPad

The premise of this book – researchers investigating near-death experiences – didn’t at first sound promising. But Willis takes it in unexpected directions, and really makes you think. Though the whole book is essentially about death, you close it with a smile.

Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis

E-book, on my iPad

I really loved this. Again, Willis deals with an extremely unlikely premise – a young woman is beset with vivid dreams which seem to be communications from the past – and makes you believe it. It’s a romance but not a romance. A tragedy but not a tragedy. It will teach you a lot about the American Civil War, and will make you feel deeply about it and the leading players in it.

And it ends with a line which just bowls you over, because Willis has been leading you to it, step by step, throughout the entire book.

Blindsighted

Kisscut

A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter

E-books, on my iPad

Somewhat gruesome series of mysteries set in Grant County in Georgia, but well-done, with good characterisation. Not for those easily shocked, however.

The Temple of the Magic Rats by Robert Brunton

E-book, on my iPad

This is an unpublished novel written by a friend of mine. He gave it to me as a Word document, but it was far more comfortable to read it in iBooks on my iPad, so I did a quick conversion.

The author is an award-winning exhibition designer, and this book, like his first (The Golden Pavillions) is semi-autobiographical and features the building of a trade exhibition, in this case in Tehran in the late 1960s. But Brunton is able to weave in the tragic story of the Kurds and their persecution, making their plight seem personal and very real.

Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene

E-book, on my iPad

Interesting non-fiction about the way that reading works from a neurological perspective. How did the human brain develop so that extremely specific areas of the brain seem to be dedicated to the reading process, when writing is a cultural construct only a few thousand years old, clearly too recent for these capabilities to have evolved? Dehaene answers that question in a satisfying manner, and elucidates much about the way we actually read and learn to read.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

E-book, on my iPad

This is an award-winning novel by an Afghani writer, but to be honest I didn’t much enjoy it, nor did I feel that it gave much insight into Afghanistan’s plight today.

The Ghost by Robert Harris

Audiobook, on my iPhone

Entertaining novel about a ghost writer (whose name, appropriately, we never discover) hired to write the autobiography of an ex-Prime Minister of Britain (suspiciously similar to Tony Blair). Secrets are eventually revealed. Not great literature, but enjoyable enough.

(I started writing this post months ago, but only recently rediscovered the draft).

Well, you knew that I was going to buy an iPad, didn’t you? Indeed in recent months I’ve become quite the Apple fanboy. I lusted after an iPad from the moment I saw Steve Jobs demo it a couple of months ago. I ordered one on the very first day that we Australians could do so, on May 10th 2010.

In fact, I ordered two – a 32 GB wifi only version for my wife, who will use hers mainly at home, and a 32 GB wifi plus 3G for myself. I figured that we would need one each so we wouldn’t have to compete for the use of a single device.

Annoyingly, though my 3G model was delivered on May 28th, none of the local carriers would let you order micro-SIM cards or sign up for data plans before that date. I signed up with Telstra, figuring that they have the best wireless coverage, then had to wait for the SIM card. It arrived just in time for me to put it in the iPad and go through the very annoying activation process before we left to go on a 10 day holiday, taking the iPads with us.

I decided not to take my laptop with us, even though our holiday was mainly going to be about researching my wife’s family history. It would, I thought, be a great test of the iPad’s utility.

And indeed it proved very useful in many ways. The GPS chip and the Maps app helped us out many, many times; I could keep up with my email; we could look up things on the Internet; I used it to read books and magazines; I even used it as a (rather large) alarm clock!