I’m a big fan of shopping malls (as many of you know 🙂 ).
And last month, after seeing Jason Konopinski’s post on his transition to reading more ebooks, I realized I’m on a similar path, though I haven’t given up on print completely.
Like many of you, this move away from the traditional goes beyond books to include note taking, paper files, videos, blogs, email and social sharing.
And my all-in-one device of choice is becoming my iPad.
It’s like a shopping mall for content.
Here’s why:
Everything’s under one roof – that is, easily accessible. So rather than jamming your bag full of the stuff you think you need, it’s all there on a tablet. And it’s portable, simple, convenient. Having everything in a self-contained space can be liberating.
You know your way around – even if you’ve never been to a mall, when you step inside you have a pretty good idea how to get where you want to go. It’s intuitive and built into the design. It’s the same with a tablet – we instinctively grasp the navigation and how to find and use the things we want.
Sometimes you just want to browse – both in the online sense and by just poking around. You can visit a mall for a commercial purpose – to shop – or simply look around, socialize or people watch while you enjoy a cup of coffee. Â My computer is much more of a work tool. The tablet combines work and play and lets you wander from app to app, in the same way we go from store to store.
Tablets are asset-light. They’re made for consumption, but are getting better on the creation side too. In 2013, I’ll try to do more on my iPad more and less on my laptop and see if I can be as productive.
What do you think?
