To insure yourself you've got to provide communication constantly

[austin_dern]

My mother knows that I have an iPad. It came up this way. My parents were driving home from visiting a friend and the topic of Kindle book readers came up. My father mentioned that Kindles could be compared to the iPad, certainly for things like print size and readability and responsiveness, so why doesn't she try out mine and see how she likes that? She, apparently, told him that he was confused; it's my brother who has the iPad, and it's their granddaughter's favorite toy. (It is, by far.)

So then my father insisted again that I had iPad, and she insisted I didn't, and the result was that when I got home in the midst of WiiFit exercising my father said it was my responsibility to ``save him'' from the charge of confusion when I was done sweating. Thus I took it out when I was finished with that round of Step Aerobics, and showed the existence of it, as well as how iBooks looks, and admitted that I hadn't compared it to the Kindle so I couldn't say how things like reading in the sun compared.

My mother pointed out, in a statement surely not made just to save her pride, that most of the time when she gets in I'm in my room, and on my computer, so don't tend to have the iPad out. And that it was quite out of character for me to go buying a new gizmo when it had been out for less than a year, or maybe less than two years. She might add it's a bit out of character for me to ever buy a gizmo, given the sluggishness with which I swing into action on these things.

I wonder if I should mention the new computer.

Trivia: The audience at the Opening Day, 1894, baseball game between the New York and the Baltimore National League teams, more than fifteen thousand people at Union Park, was reportedly the largest crowd ever in Baltimore to that point. Source: The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball, Frank Deford. (I note my mild doubts about the soundness of trivia points like this, as it seems like it could easily have been the largest sports-based crowd; I'd have imagined, for example, Lincoln's funeral train to draw a bigger turnout than that. I note Deford insists on calling the teams the Giants and the Orioles, which is problematic if not outright anachronistic.)

Currently Reading: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

WARNING: I work for Amazon, and might have drunk the Kool-Aid.

This is for your mom:

I only have a Kindle; I don't have an iPad. They're really very different.

The Kindle is an electronic book. It's designed to take the place of normal books. Its screen is "e-ink", which looks and acts a lot like ink... except that, by pressing a button, the ink re-arranges itself.

The Kindle is a one-purpose device: It's made to carry around hundreds of books and read them, wherever you are.

The iPad is a miniature computer. It's designed to let you get web pages and view content (programs, games, and the like) on the go. It has a normal 'LED' screen, like most laptops.

The iPad is a general-purpose device. There's software to let you read Kindle books, Apple bookstore books, and other books.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I agree with Chip. Having seen both in action (I own neither but have friends that own each) I don't think they're very comparable at all. The Kindle, because it uses e-ink, has a sort of readability that you won't get from something like an iPad. An iPad can read books, but a Kindle specializes in reading books, and does it very well. I think for someone who is mostly interested in reading books, playing with an iPad isn't going to give a very good sense of whether she would like using a Kindle.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The Kindle is getting a bit of an unfair hearing here as my mother's able in principle to set her hands on two examples of it in actual normal civilian use. (She hasn't, as far as I know, but she could.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

They're good points about the benefits of a specific-purpose versus a general-purpose device. I'll try discussing them with my mother.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

You really have a different relationship with your parents than I do with mine. I don't live with mine, but they know all about my exciting new purchases and even my boring ones. They even know I have a giant rabbit head that I sometimes wear at parties. I tell them everything because, well, I like talking about myself.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It is one of those differences between us. I suppose I tend to assume what I'm doing isn't interesting to other people unless I'm asked, with the Livejournal here being an exception since it started out with people awfully interested in what I had going on.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I have both a Kindle and a Motorola Xoom (an Android tablet). I had to sit outside on a sunny day for several hours a couple weeks ago and the Xoom was totally unusable, as was my HTC Evo cellphone. But the Kindle screen was as easy to read as a paperback book.

If you do get a Kindle, you definitely want to pay the extra for the cover with a built-in booklight. E-ink screens, just like paper, don't work in the dark.

I much prefer reading on the Kindle. I've tried reading books on the Xoom, the Evo and the iPod Touch, and while they are alright for reading for a few minutes, such as waiting at the doctor's office, the Kindle's screen is a lot easier on the eyes for any serious reading.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The direct-sunlight issue is likely to be important: if my mother is looking for convenient ways to read books, it's probably because she's stocking up for her spring vacation, and that's going to be a lot of sun and beach chairs.