New Job and Apple Products

Big update! I've got a new (hopefully) ongoing paid gig over at 148apps.com writing various kinds of articles about iPad games. You can read my first post here. That means part one of my two part plan to do way more game journalism this fall is working out.

That also means I'll have less time for original stuff here, hence my preemptive slowing down to one post a week. What I hope to do is put up one new, silly kind of exclusive article here every week and also do a weekly wrap-up to all my other internet activities going on. Also, if you want straight, pure and insane insights into my thoughts in short digestible form you can follow me on twitter for stuff like "had a dream David Duchovny was Iron Man. He wasn't very good."

One more thing. Some dudes I know just launched their awesomely named entertainment/sports blog Bon Iverson today and you should totally check it out.

I also think this would be a good time to just share some of my thoughts on Apple products in general. After the jump...

These commercials are the worst form of Apple smugness

I like to think that my tech lifestyle is quite well-rounded. I have an HP laptop running Windows, numerous Nintendo game consoles, an Android phone by HTC on Verizon, an iPod touch and now an iPad 2 and I enjoy all my products thoroughly. So while I have never been ideologically opposed to Apple products, I've also never been their biggest champion. Part of it was because while the various iOS devices are cool, I've always viewed as Macs themselves to be for people who are willing to give away some of the freedom, and extra money, to mess around with their computers in exchange for stability. I understand that but that's not who I am. There's something satisfying to me about conquering the challenges of a PC. Also, I'm not a video professional and therefore have no need for Final Cut.

With the iPad though, I struggled to see why anyone would need it. Yo dog do you want a big phone that can't call people? How about a really stripped down laptop. Sure tablets are neat luxury items and I wanted one but I couldn't justify it. Saying it was journalistic purposes wasn't going to cut it despite how much my professors praise this device. They are in this no man's land where they are aware of new tech but aren't jaded enough to recognize when it's flawed. Eventually though I just stopped trying and decided to accept the hypocrisy and buy one anyway with the hope of landing a job like this.

Surprisingly enough, I've found more practical use for the thing then I would've thought. I've mentioned earlier how a larger touch display makes an all-touch gaming device more feasibly but, with properly designed apps, all the productivity apps like Pages and iMovie and Keynote are also far more capable than I ever would've considered. In fact, I wrote the majority of this post in my bed in the Notes app.

The way I see it, my big and powerful desktop replacement laptop is too busy being a desktop to be a laptop. So in that sense my iPad's purpose is to be a laptop replacement. Having five times as much battery life certainly helps.

Smart covers are neat too.