about the iPad
I’ve now spent 24 hours with the iPad. Everyone keeps asking what I think of it, so I’m formalizing my thoughts and posting them here:
The device:
It’s pretty. This is no shock, coming from Apple, though I do find myself impressed with the quality of the display every time I fire it up.
The battery is good. Pogue said 12 hours of straight video play. Haven’t tried that myself but at the rate things are going, I’d believe it.
Downside: it does not charge when plugged into my mac (older machine) and the cord isn’t really long enough to plug into wall and continue playing with it, so you do have to take a break when you want to charge it. Fortunately the battery seems good enough that that shouldn’t be a problem.
The thing is heavier than a kindle and holding it for a while, while not painful, can get awkward. I got a case. I’d recommend it.
The content:
The Apple apps (mail, calendar, etc) are top notch. They feel like they are the full incarnation of what the iPhone version wanted to be. Disappointingly, Apple does not provide a native chat application (still) which feels like a missed opportunity for the device – perhaps that will come in the next OS.
The third party apps I’ve tried so far are also quite impressive. There does seem to be a thinness around the offerings at the moment though, particularly among the free ones. Also, there is no Facebook app, which seems weird to me. I’ve been much less active on Facebook because of that.
File handling is an annoyance. I can’t download a PDF from the web to view later (I can bookmark it and view it in safari – but there is no way to get the file in an offline state – and no way to mark up the PDF unless it’s imported into Pages – which I can only do if I email myself). Access to Mobile Me iDisk (available on the iPhone) is also noticeably absent.
One would presume the apps will catch up as they begin approving in the iTunes Store again this week.
The experience:
The thing moves fast. I imagine that the next iPhone will also process this quickly and finally we will have a powerful smartphone instead of just a smartphone. The apps all load quickly, video runs beautifully, the speaker is good enough quality to watch tv shows with.
Most importantly though, is the lack of multitasking. This will upset power users, but I found myself consistently more relaxed as I was doing only one thing at a time instead of the usual 4 or 5. I wonder if this will help combat ADD overall – I doubt it.
(I should also add, that while typing is obviously not as good as with a keyboard, it is lightyears better than with the iPhone. I can type at near keyboard pace on the iPad screen.)
So what?
Ya, I agree with the sentiment that this device is more about consuming than creating. But I’m okay with that. It’s been a pleasure to consume with it so far and I do now understand the middle zone between the phone and the laptop that this device will serve – I was skeptical about it before.
The verdict: if you like toys and consume a lot of media, it’s worth the add. But yes, there will likely be a slightly cheaper, better one in 12 months. (That said, this does not seem to suffer from the bugginess or rough first outing effects that iPhone 1 did – so don’t make that the excuse.) I like mine, and it’s been an excellent couch companion for the past day.
This post was written from the iPad.
Feel free to ask specific questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.
what you do vs. who you do it with
Someone said to me recently that they thought that in the decision criteria for choosing a job, who you work with (or for) was a much more important factor to consider than what you actually do. Put simply: the who matters more than the what.
I can think of times in my life where I’ve done things I didn’t enjoy per se simply because of the opportunity to be around certain people. And I’ve experienced this in both the professional and personal environments. With friends, I may go see a movie I don’t particularly want to see because I want to spend time with friends I haven’t spent time with in a while. At school, I may choose the less interesting (to me) of two project topics simply because the team is one I’d rather work with. While these experiences tend to make me think there’s some validity to the hypothesis, I can also imagine a situation where someone takes this to the extreme, chooses to do something they truly hate with people they really like and the hatred for the task leaks over into the relationships.
This notion isn’t offered as a comfort for those taking jobs they aren’t particularly thrilled about, but rather as a prod for those trying out potential employers: it may behoove us to figure out whether we’ll truly appreciate being part of the team, given who’s already on it.
startups, mba’s, and buckets
There’s been an interesting conversation happening in the world of blogs I read over the last week or so about the role and value of MBAs in startups. It started with this post by Charlie O’Donnell. This post was tweeted around the HBS community with some fervor last weekend and I read it and this reply by Rob Go shortly before embarking on an errand expedition (and ultimately a debate about these posts) with Rafael Corrales last Sunday night. Rafael wrote a great response to them, which I mostly agree with, and Kyle Doherty then added his two cents here.
I really have no desire to engage in a debate about MBAs’ approach to recruiting here (at startups or elsewhere) because I think most of the issues have been covered by Rob and Rafael and Charlie (particularly in the comments on Rafael’s post). I do, however, want to say one thing. And I should caveat that this is general commentary inspired by the above conversation and my experiences over the past year and a half, not a response directed at Rob, Charlie, or anyone else.
It frustrates me to no end when people bucket MBAs. An MBA is not a race or a religion. It is a graduate degree. That’s it. There is almost nothing I can generalize about any of the people I’ve ever met in this MBA program (or from any other MBA program for that matter) except to say that they either have or have had an interest in studying business administration.
People who make the assumption that MBAs are X, Y, or Z, simply because they have an MBA are as guilty of lunacy as the MBAs who throw themselves at startups with the expectations of red-carpet-rollouts simply because they have an MBA.
Contrary to popular belief, not all MBAs are flocking to finance and/or consulting. Further, not all MBAs *come* from finance or consulting. There are a ton of people here who come from interesting operational and functional backgrounds and have every intention of returning to operational and functional positions. These are the same types of positions that any startup seeks to fill.
So, what’s my point?
When Kyle said:
While it seems unfair to bucket a whole group based on the actions of a few, it’s human nature to do so.  Those who are really dedicated will figure it out, the perception doesn’t matter.  So I guess my approach is to think: who cares?
My answer to this?
I do.
I care a lot. I don’t want a few people who lack a social compass representing me in the world. I don’t want anybody to assume anything about me when they see MBA on my resume except for that at one point in my life I had an interest in studying business administration. And I want to fight those generalizations that get made (and the people who cause them to be made) for the sake of the rest of us who don’t behave like this. Then maybe the people who use criticism of MBAs and B-schools as a way to sell newspapers and display ads will have to find another way to write about us.
updating the site
I’ve added the WPtouch theme for mobile devices which means if you’re looking at this site on an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android device, you’ll have a mobile-optimized experience (it looks entirely different, but is much more consumable). Enjoy.
community supported agriculture
This is an off-topic post for me, but I felt compelled to write a quick blurb about the dinner I attended last night. It was a supper-club style event thrown by a friend in support of the Waltham Fields Community Farm. The primary purpose was to raise awareness (and money) for Community Supported Agriculture. This is a particularly important issue here in Massachusetts, which I knew little/nothing about. More information on the CSA initiative at Waltham Fields here, and more information about the Homegrown Supperclub (an awesome idea – bringing incredible local/sustainable food to the table) here.
project red balloon
I’m writing to share an initiative I’ve been working on at school and ask for your help.
DARPA, the government agency, is sponsoring a challenge on Saturday to test the ability of social networks to mobilize toward a common task. They are placing ten giant red weather balloons (tethered near the ground) around the US for 8 hours on Saturday. The first person/team to correctly submit the locations of the ten balloons wins $40,000.
We will be donating the money to The Global Fund’s AIDS research/awareness initiative.
I’m working on this initiative with several classmates and a few profs from Harvard Business School, and we’re looking at this as a test of the HBS network. Hopefully we win, but I’m confident we’ll learn something in the process!
details: www.projectredballoon.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/helpredballoon
Please help us spread the word by forwarding to your friends, blogging, retweeting, facebooking, etc.
We need your SUPPORT and it’s for a GREAT CAUSE!
