My Sidearm is a Loaded Tablet Computer

I’m typing this on my iPad, a tablet computer.

What did you expect? I’m certainly not writing this pen to paper. Neither am I an old school journalist banging away on a 1926 Underwood No. 5. I’m not even using a desktop or laptop computer for this, although I have both and could work on it from either of them. I could even work on it from my iPhone but its screen is far too small.

It doesn’t matter which one I use because what I’m writing is saved as a computer file somewhere in the “cloud,” which is really just a reference to the internet. And the file is accessible from anywhere internet access is available.

So, why am I typing this on a touch screen iPad using opposing index fingers? Because I can. I can type while in a chair. I can type while in the air. I can type while in the park. I can type while in the dark. I can type in a red caboose and make it rhyme like Dr. Seuss.

Yes, it provides an opportunity to write almost whenever and wherever I choose. Even in rhyme. It’s my digital briefcase, my sidearm. It’s not a gun by any means but it’s loaded. Like a digital Swiss Army knife. I can check the weather in numerous ways. I can pay bills, deposit checks, write columns and read them in the online version of this newspaper. I could draw fabulous pictures with a stylus. And of course, I can buy, buy, buy. It’s endless.

The Universe at Your Fingertips

Maybe the reason I enjoy it so much is that it does much more than I ever imagined. And I can imagine a lot. Remember how you could use the Yellow Pages to “let your fingers do the walking?” Now you can walk your fingers to see and hear a universe of information without talking to anyone on a readable screen from your lounge chair.

It’s no wonder kids are glued to their phones which are often more powerful than tablets. Kids are OK with a small screen because they have young eyes. They use tablets for schoolwork. How often has a waiter used a tablet to take your order and payment right at your table?

I carry mine around at my side so much I’d consider getting a holster for it if there were such a thing. Oh, wait. There is such a thing. You could look it up. Probably the best option is an over-the-shoulder bag or a backpack. Tablets are surprisingly heavy because they have a battery layer the same dimensions as the entire device.

One of the big selling points of a tablet like mine is that it’s about the size of a sheet of standard paper, something we’re used to. Small enough to easily carry around but large enough to see what you’re doing. There are smaller and larger ones as well. I use mine in portrait mode mostly. Catherine uses her iPad more as a touchscreen laptop (landscape mode) with a protective case that includes a physical keyboard. She has it on the kitchen counter to follow the recipe for the many internet dinners she makes.

Take a Memo

I haven’t gone as far as just dictating my writing to the iPad but I could. I use Microsoft Word and its dictation feature really works. How do I know? I just tried it. It would be useful if I had a lengthy thought in my head and didn’t want to worry about typing it in and correcting grammar along the way. Just get the thought down.

I might try that. I just hope I can make sense of it later. Kind of like those cool dreams you had when you wake up and write down what the dream was about. You know, those notes that don’t make any sense the next morning.

Editing during dictation takes practice. If I say “delete five words,” it will type “delete five words” (I guess to show me what it thinks I said) then it suddenly decides it’s a command so deletes those words plus the five previous. If I wanted the literal “delete five words,” I’d need to turn off command recognition. One thing is certain – don’t try dictating when the TV is on or you won’t recognize what it wrote down.

It’s weird to think that I could lie in a hammock and tell an artificial intelligence (AI) program to write my columns for me. So, you may be wondering why I don’t do that. How can you be sure I’m not? Well, don’t fret. As I reported awhile ago, AI doesn’t appear quite ready for writing columns, and it would be cheating, leaving me feeling unfulfilled.

I received one of the two first iPads in Red Wing when they came out in 2010. People laughed, calling it a giant iPhone. Well, I’m on my third one now. And mostly because they keep getting more useful. Tablets are so convenient that at home I keep mine nearby and plugged in.

We have many choices of computer format now which makes it difficult to choose. For various reasons, I have computers in several formats. But I spend most of my time on the tablet.

It’s my sidearm, charged and loaded. And I’m ready to draw.