Pad-o!

When I was 18, I had a job as an outbound telemarketer for a telecomms firm. I would sit in a chair while a new piece of software, called Genesys, would scan a database of calls and transfer someone to me when a human voice was recognized as having picked up. I would then offer some deal and...well look, the point was, I worked the swing shift between 2pm and 10pm, and for half the day even Genesys couldn't find anyone at home, and I'd spend a lot of time playing Gameboy. Which, even in 1998, was pretty retro.

Around that time, Comic Book Reader (.cbr) format was brand new. It took scanned images of comic books and compiled them into a fairly intuitive viewer for your PC. Also, there was Napster- a ridiculous concept, where people could download digital songs and TV shows to their computers (in real player format...remember real

player?)- for free.

I remember at the time thinking about what it would take to put books, especially my new cbr comic books, onto a device like the Gameboy. It boggled my mind- take my entire comic book collection everywhere I went? And what about books? What about a single device, in colour, wrapped in leather, but that could replace textbooks and novels? I was really excited.

I talked to people about it. My future brother in law, who was in software. My friend Jake, who was just starting to get interested in industrial design. From my end, I imagined it being subsidized by the government as a health-saving device, part of a healthcare bill, specifically because it saved young backs. You sell them en masse to the education sector, and people can load in cartridges (like the gameboy) pre loaded with entire libraries.

I didn't shut up about this idea for many years. In 2001, I moved to Seattle, without a degree, and still chasing dreams of being an actor. I wasn't really a computer guy, but I liked the idea of nice things that did neat stuff, rather than really cool things that were hard to do cool stuff on. I was excited to start making friends with people in the IT industry.

I moved back to Melbourne in 2002. On the bus between Seattle and LA, where I caught my flight from, I started talking with a fellow passenger, and showed her my Rio Volt, a cd player that could play MP3's. It was by far my favourite thing in the world- I could load 120 sings to a disc. I had always been the kid carrying lots of entertainment in my backpack- a walkman, 10 mix tapes and probably 3 graphic novels. I'm a voracious media nerd. I always wanted more, and that idea about having everything on one device kept in my head. I want more content and less physical stuff.

She showed me her favourite gadget- an iPod. It was so expensive and out of reach in my mind, that I was barely curious. But I was a little curious. Apple was completely foreign to me- I had Windows 98, and all things Mac were a bizarre universe to me. But I had a play and yeah, it was ok.

in 2003, iPods got colour, and I bought one. 20GB. Now THAT'S a lot of media in one spot. I filled it, and I'm not even a big music fan, I loaded it with photos, even though I barely ever take photos. I liked doing stuff with it. I liked using it as a hard drive. I would take it to work (another call centre job) and work on uni assignments in between calls, or read comics, or write short stories and scripts, and save them to my mini digital briefcase, and then strap that fucking thing to my arm and listen to music while riding my bike home. I even used a converter which took any word document and turned in into notes, which could be loaded into the iPod and read like a book. I read Wealth of Nations and Josephus' Histories on that thing. I even tried taking single scanned pages of comic books and loading them in as individual photos, hoping to flip through them and read as...but alas, the screen was way too small.

The video came, and I sold my old one and upgraded to that. And the storage was even bigger- 60GB! I watched cartoons, porn, full movies, TV shows- whatever I could download in digital form, I could get on there. I liked it.

When the iPhone came in 2007, I evolved into full time tech nerd. I followed a live blog of the keynote, and audibly "wowed" when Jobs showed how to pinch and swipe on the thing. I knew it wasn't coming to Australia for a while, but I was patient. I'd get one.

And as soon as I got one in 2008, I opened it. And then that night, I loaded the thing with apps. And one of my first apps was a comic book reader that took....PDFs only.

Fuck it, I thought. I've been waiting for this. I converted some CBRs into PDF, loaded them and....it was garbage. Too small.

iCried.

Well no, I moved on. I even sold my iPhone and upgraded to the 3GS as soon as it came out, and I've now converted to Mac as well. I'm hooked, because Apple seems to do things the way I like- they make simple looking devices that do great stuff, rather than just cool looking things that do everything half assedly. I liked their marketing too- it seemed the perfect marriage of steak and sizzle- they sold the benefit, but the feature behind it was so thoughtfully built, that it actually exceeded beyond what Apple itself sought to deliver. Now that's how you run a railroad.

In all this time though, I still wanted my comic book and book reader. I'm addicted to the economist, and I love the audio downloads they offer, but I also want the print edition- but after years of moving around crates and boxes of magazines and books, I'm sick of clutter. I wanted a slim device that did all this stuff, and not a bunch of things that needed looking after! I want to consolidate! I want space, not bookshelves, room to move, not a need for more room. That's what clutter is to me- it creates need, rather than happiness. I want happiness. And I'm happy when watching movies, reading books and sending messages to my loved ones. I like to be entertained.

When a friend in early 2009 told me he could get me an old Windows XP tablet, I was interested. Fuck the crippled UI- it would load PDFs and cbr files. I was willing to give him $700 for it. Thankfully, that deal never materialized. Then the rumor mill about an Apple tablet started to heat up. Then the Kindle came out, and it was shit- black and white? Jesus, this is 2009. Other tablets started to pop up (not in shops, mind you), and they all looked like crap.

I was now jailbroken on my iPhone, and I loved it even more. I like pushing it. I like using bluetooth headphones and being able to ride my bike and listen to podcasts and music without any wires (yes, I know it's dangerous, but you don't understand- I, unlike everyone else, know what I'm doing). But even with my handy little device, I still carry a notepad in my backpack, usually a novel, and a portable hard drive (actually, my old iPod, now devoid of any music and just used as a briefcase) to play with at work. Does the iPhone have annoying limitations? Sure. No USB drag and drop. Low storage, comparatively. No Flash support for Safari. Crippled Bluetooth. It's not perfect. And it certainly can't display my comic books.

I was seriously hanging out all week for the keynote on Jan 27. I devoured all the news and rumours. I got up at 6am to follow a liveblog.

The details- the name, the fat bezel, the iPhone OS- didn't even register to me. I just looked at that big beautiful screen, and smiled. Finally!

But I was so disheartened to read the press. People loathe it. People think it's ugly, crippled...they're laughing about the docked keyboard- I was praying for a docked keyboard! I was shocked Apple came out with one at launch! People want a full OS...really? I love the iPhone OS. When it first started coming out, I was thinking "this is what computers will look like down the road. No more windows, it'll be about home screens and apps". I'd buy a new computer right now if it offered every single package and program out there as a standalone app instead. But shit, you can do that and make it portable? And always connected by 3G? For under a thousand bucks for the highest end? Does anyone really believe this thing isn't going to sell like crazy?

Well, whatever. Haters, says I. This thing is going to be really cool. And I'm going to buy one as soon as I can, get home, find the app that reads cbr files, and then load on every issue of Cerebus, Sandman and Transmetropolitan. And I'll finally have a device I've been thinking about for over a decade. It won't change my life, but it'll make me happier. And hey, if they can make legal content cheaper, I'll gladly drop my pirate

ways and pay for more content.

(Ahem. More, not all. Let's not go nuts).

And 6 months after that, I'll convince my girlfriend Lisa to get one too, which she'll grudgingly enjoy, and then I'll pull that smug-as-fuck face and get my ass handed to me. That'll make me happier too.