I’ve had my iPad for a little over a year now, but to be truthful, I’ve yet to settle into a real routine with it. How I use it, and what I use it for, keeps changing.
It’s a great device, make no mistake, especially when I travel. On the road, I want a bigger screen than my iPhone, and the iPad is the perfect size. The phone is fine for email, Facebook, Twitter and the like, but I just can’t do web browsing on it for very long. Also, for most trips, I have no problem using the iPad as a laptop replacement; I’m not sure I would want to create content on it everyday, but I have to do a quick edit on a document or something similar, the iPad is all I need.
At home… well, I don’t find the iPad quite as essential. Handy, but not essential. For a time, I was in the habit of ending my day by climbing into bed with the iPad, dialing up Netflix, and spending the next couple of hours watching a movie. The problem is that the time right before sleep is when I usually read, and I noticed the stack of books on the nightstand was getting taller, not shorter. So, I broke the habit. Now, if I want to watch a movie or TV show, I do it on a real television before I go to bed (Netflix via AppleTV, usually)… and now I’m catching up on my reading.
I know, I know: I could read a book on the iPad. I’ve purchased a few e-books, and reading on the iPad was OK. Again, when you travel and space is at a premium, it’s nice to be able to tote along as many e-books as you want. But for most books, I’m still finding I prefer to buy the printed editions. Maybe that will change someday, maybe it won’t. I just like that paper, I guess.
Which brings me to the New York Times…
Before the iPad, I had the print edition of the Times delivered to the door. But the paper is expensive, and I found that between the Times’ iPhone app and reading it via a browser on the iPad, I could get pretty much all the news I wanted. So I cancelled the subscription.
Then, on March 17, the paper instituted its paywall. You get 20 articles for free each month, and then you’re done (although there were ways to get a few more). I hated having to manage my intake but I didn’t want to pay, so I stuck to my allotment of articles each month, at least until May 1 came — and I had to read all the stuff about Osama bin Laden. Two days later, I’d hit my limit.
The cheapest way to get the Times is to buy the print edition, which (even if you just get the Sunday paper) then gives you free access on both the iPhone and the iPad (as well as through a computer browser). An iPhone/iPad combo digital subscription is $8.75 a week, but home delivery of the Sunday paper is $3.75 a week for three months and then $7.50 thereafter (or $7.40 introductory and $14.80 after for the paper seven days a week).
So I went ahead and bit the bullet and resubscribed.
Ahhh….
I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was to start my Sunday with all that newsprint. Seriously: you just can’t duplicate the reading experience of the Sunday Times on the computer. Reading on the computer is OK, but… well, it’s not the same as spreading out all those sections on the living room floor. Plus, I know I find interesting articles in the print edition I would never run across online.
So maybe in this age of emerging technology, I’m going backwards, not forward. But so be it.
This post was written by Jeff Moravec and originally published on his blog. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @moraveccomm
