Bye-Bye Books

April 3, 2010, will long be remembered as the day the book died. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, just the tiniest bit… (and, I realize that only a total Apple fanboy like myself would assume that a couple generations in the future we’d still be referring to such tablet computers as the iPad, in general, as “iPads” – though I guess that’s what Star Trek predicted with its PADDs – and, hey, how come Trek didn’t get any flak on the feminine hygiene front, huh?). But, I’ve seen and touched the iPad for myself now, after fighting off some vicious crowds at the Freehold Mall Apple Store this past Saturday, and I have to say I was instantly lusting this device. It’s exactly the perfect size – makes the iPhone and iPod Touch seem very small and awkward to use once you’ve held the iPad, but it’s not so big that it just looks like you chopped a notebook computer in half, like some earlier attempts at tablet PCs did. The iBooks feature is just what I’ve been waiting for. I know, there’s the old Kindle with it’s e-ink screen that’s supposed to be better on the eyes. But the iPad is color, and has so much other functionality with web, movies, photos, music, games, etc. Plus, I’d rather have something backlit that I can read upside-down lying on the couch or in bed, than the Kindle which requires an outside light source. I know, backlight is bad for your eyes… we’ll, I already spend most of my day in front of a computer screen, so I don’t think it will make much difference at this point. Whatever the case, the iPad rocks, you’ve just got to check it out, whether you are PC or Mac or Droid or whatever… it’s just about the coolest gadget I’ve ever seen. I think it will really speed up the shift to digital books that Kindle and other e-readers started, just like the iPod mainstreamed digital music, even though mp3 players had been around for a while before it.

So, stash away any current books you have in a safe place – maybe they will be worth something someday as relics of a simpler age…

– Nigel Matrix

The Apple Store, Bespin Mall

Enraged Cybernaut Bemoans Latest Technology

Ah, Lobot. Short for lobotomy? They say (in the Expanded Universe) that Lobot was some kind of criminal at one time, and he eventually wound up as an “indentured servant” to the administration of Cloud City. Forced to have cyber implants installed on his head and take orders directly into his brain, Lobot supposedly was a mute by that point. Oh well, I don’t really follow the EU much… seems like Lucas doesn’t really, either. If I recall correctly, in Episode III, there are some pilots wearing implants similar to Lobot’s on the Tantive IV – the familiar Blockade Runner, an Alderaanian vessel of Senator Organa. So would such a peaceful, highly democratic, poster-child-of-the-Rebellion planet such as Alderaan allow indentured servitude to exist? Hmm…

Oh well, mute or not, in the case of this comic, Lobot has reason to scream over the never-ending march of technology. Maybe he can get a refund if he writes to Steve Jabba of Apple Intergalactic, Inc.

– Nigel Matrix