First day

The iPad’s fame precedes it. People say “It’s the way of the future, it will bring journalism into the 21st century.” So far, I’m not seeing it. I can understand why some reporters might like it, but to me it’s awkward, delicate, and hard to take notes with. Also, how am I supposed to carry this thing around? I can’t carry it around under my arm like a laptop without looking like a doofus, and I’m afraid if I put it in my backpack it will either be broken or become lost in the dying sun that is the bottom of my backpack. On the plus side, though, I can’t play angry birds on a piece of paper with a pencil. In all seriousness, I think many people will enjoy the iPads greatly. I, however, may or may not be one of those people. Depends if I can get temple run.

First week

I’ve only used an iPad to surf the web and play games before, so I’m excited to use one. I think it will make interviewing much easier, and will make some of the news staff excited to get out there and write stories. I don’t know about everybody else, but I feel awesome when I go to interview somebody with nothing but an iPad under my arm. Not in an “I’m better than you” way, just in a “look at my iPad” way.

Second week

I’m really starting to like this thing. Not only do I have a ton of cool games on it (Bringing Back Robot Unicorn Attack), but the apps that come preloaded on it are really fun and useful. Sketchbook pro lets you draw decent pictures with your finger on the screen. Hootsuite gives you a live feed of all your social networking site profiles. TED talks is full of interesting videos. The speech to text apps are impressive, to say the least. Though all of this is impressive, it seems like I could do all this with an iPhone.

Third week

I’m typing this from my iPad right now. As I fumble around the keyboard making mistake after mistake, I realize something. The iPad isn’t for serious typing jobs. It’s for quick fixes and taking notes. If I tried to the an essay with it, I would go insane. But for small jobs, it’s good. It doesn’t take five minutes to boot up like a computer. I can quickly take it out, take some notes, and put it away. The iPad compared to a computer is like a bike compared to a car. The bike might be better if you just want to go down the street, but anything beyond that would be easier in a car.

Fourth week

I really haven’t had the opportunity to use my iPad much lately. With all that’s been going on, my responsibilities on the staff haven’t been too taxing. But what I have been doing, I haven’t really been using my iPad. I understand how I could be using it, but for me it just seems too difficult, and it would be easier to just use a computer or pen and paper. Getting the iPads for the school is a nice idea, and I think they could be really useful for other departments. But as far as journalism goes, iPads aren’t very useful, in my opinion.

50 People, One Question – What is your favorite thing about City? from Little Hawk on Vimeo.