An Apple iPad showed up in the office the other day. Even with all the hype, we were impressed. It radiated that “you’ve got to have it” vibe that Apple’s perfected.
The iPad’s owner, a Brazilian freelance videographer with little connection to Workman, had only two ebooks in his library, but, serendipitously, one of them was What to Expect When You’re Expecting. He explained, laughing, that he and his girlfriend planned to have a baby in about three years. Maybe that’s how it’s done in Sao Paulo. Anyway, he was a proud Apple fanboy and urged us to walk his newest acquisition around.
It was quite something. The iPad’s screen is large and bright, the type looks crisp, the pages turn irresistibly with a swipe of the finger. It can be read in a landscape position, two pages open at a time, like a book, or vertically, which has the no-nonsense feel of reading something on a clipboard. Another Apple virtue: no experience was necessary. We knew without being told how to navigate the book and the device. After browsing around What to Expect, we returned to the virtual wooden bookshelves (looking a little empty; his only other book was Winnie the Pooh, perhaps part of his three-year plan) and then visited the iBookstore to search for and order a sample from another in-house bestseller, A Reliable Wife. A 52-page chunk arrived in seconds. We wondered if our Brazilian friend would like the steamy novel.
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