a place to call home
When I buy a computer, I move in. I change the background to solid black. I run software update (or whatever equivalent) to install the current versions of basic utilities. I tweak its OS-level preferences so it fits my workflow. I open the email program and add in my server. I install a few important applications and utilities. I plug in an external hard drive and load the iTunes library that references my music. Then I get to work.
Some of these apps fulfill basic needs that have become fundamental to modern computing experience: email, iTunes, system preferences. Others move a little more afield: for example, Dropbox is a good example of an app that feels very natural to use on a desktop, but could be done entirely through the web instead.
As a freelance employee who’s hopped around computers a lot lately, I now have the process of moving in down pat, and can get all this out of the way in a couple of hours. None of it is essential, but it is important because it makes the computer a little more mine - even if it isn’t.
Moving in is more than just setting up the picture of loved ones on your desk. It’s having something that fits your flow and allows you to do what you want while being happy.
Moving in is orders of magnitude more crucial on a personal computer. For me, dozens of apps are installed on a fresh OS: Tweetie, iStat Menus, Perian, Growl, Coda, Transmit, LittleSnapper, AdBlock, Things, CS4. Dashboard widgets are installed. Plugins out the wazoo. It’s nearly certain that you’ve moved in more to your personal computer than your work computer, if the two are separate.
So this may vary for you. It may belie my being a “power user.” But I think that this is important, and I’m going to say it, just get it out there, and you can do what you want with it. If the iPad is going to replace one’s laptop - or one’s entire computing system, whatever that is, and however complex that is - and become a dedicated device, it should allow us to move in (and out!) easily. Something that would allow easy download of any sort of media, including transferring between apps; backups (cloud or an external device like Time Machine, it doesn’t matter); and easily transferring information to another iPad.
It may be (and probably is) great right now as an augmentative device: one that you use along with your primary computer. But this is a matter of our stuff now: our music, our email, our work. And the jury’s still out - we are, after all, discussing an unreleased device that only a handful of pundits have seen. But whatever the iPad offers, this remains: over the years, we have all amassed a corpus of information, an array of types of information, that we keep to ourselves, and file away on our computers. We move it from computer to computer every few years, when we buy another one. We back it up periodically. We move some of it (but only some of it!) to the web.
And whether consciously or not, we treat this as our possessions. Our moving into another computer has become similar to schlepping our physical crap into a new place, and decorating it well, so that we can feel more comfortable during our time there.
Considering all that, it would be tremendous (and indeed revolutionary) if the iPad was a place that we could comfortably and casually throw our data on - our electronic possessions, our lives - and call home for a little while.
