So, I'm typing this post on my Mum's brand new shiny iPad. "What?! Such extravagance and frippery!" I hear you say. Well, yes. HOWEVER, after much scoffing and huffing and puffing at the seemingly pointless frivolousness of iPads, I have actually warmed to them. I've been playing on Mum's for all of 45 minutes and already I'm pretty much sold.
The thing is, most people (myself included until the last half hour) just see iPads as a fairly needless luxury. And, in a sense, they kind of are. BUT, I don't think it's until you've had a proper go with one (longer than 10 minutes in an Apple shop can afford) that you start to see their real potential. Basically, I've got this (very tentative) theory about a problem with the advertising we've seen for the iPad (not that I, a mere mortal, could ever really criticise Apple marketing which is, on the whole, perfection).
My theory is that they tried too hard to make it seem a viable piece of technology for everyone, all at once. Their determination to demonstrate how universal it is has, I think, actually weakened their campaign. They've focused so much on how it can be used for gaming, photography, presentations, Internet, books - businessmen, artists, young families - that it's made it feel kind of confused.
Instead of demonstrating how the iPad can be perfect for, say, a photographer in every aspect of their work, they tried to show how perfect it is for EVERYONE all at the same time. I reckon a series of adverts targeted at specific people (business people using them for presentations and easy transportation of files, artists using them as portfolios, commuters using them as libraries and games consoles, etc.) would help people better imagine how an iPad would slot seamlessly into their lives. Instead, I think the current adverts leave you thinking, "We-ell, I think I'd maybe use it for one of those things..."
Anyway, just a thought. My experience using one this afternoon has left me thinking, "Ah yeah, it'd be really useful for this and that". Also, typing on it is surprisingly easy ;)
So I haven't written a post in, oh, a decade. I shall give you an excuse explanation. Well, you see, it's been Christmas, and as you know from previous posts I've been more than a tad excitable of late, and I have allowed preparations for the festive season to pretty much commandeer my life for the past few weeks.
Also, I've started a new notebook (journal, of sorts) after finishing my latest one a few weeks ago. It is, needless to say, a thing of utter and complete beauty and I'm pretty attached. It always takes a little while to get used to a new notebook and to get over initial excitement about binding, paper quality, and to decide whether a .5 or .7 nib would be best, etc. (yes, I know...).
However! the preliminary zeal has somewhat subsided so I've now begun to think of my poor neglected blog once again.
Well, that was until I discovered this. Or, rather, my excellent mum bought me a year's subscription to it as a Christmas present. It is difficult - nay, impossible - to convey the sheer beauty and perfection of 'the real reader's quarterly'. Suffice it to say, it came tied in a green ribbon and asked me to put aside 'the challenge of the e-book and other similar worries' in the note from the editors. Need I go on?
I spent much of this afternoon curled up in front of the fire, gliding my way through my first issue (no. 28) and dreaming of working for such a gorgeous company. If you're remotely interested in reading, I beseech you - try it.
So, in short, all these things have led to the neglect of ol' goshkate.blogspot. So, in the next few days and weeks I shall address this injustice (as well as the hideously lingering guilt of the inexcusable abandonment of the goshkate presence on YouTube), and cast aside my new glittering literary appendages in favour of the old dependable blog.
Huzzah for that!
